Odi, Yoel

Son of Yosef and Sarah. He was born on November 22, 1959, in Hadera. As a child he moved with his family to Netanya. He studied at the Sinai Elementary School in the city and continued at the Kfar Chabad Neurim Youth High School in Netanya, where he completed his studies with a mechanic’s diploma, and Yoel was a gentle and socially loving boy. As a member of a religious family, he was even more religiously observant than his parents had anticipated, much to the reader of the Bible, and many of the chapters he knew by Lev. He spent many hours with his Yemenite teacher and mentor, who was to a large extent his closest friend, and together they would discuss Torah issues. At the beginning of 1977, Yoel was drafted into the IDF and assigned to the Engineering Corps, and during his service he was often assigned to a force that carried out missions across the border and took part in Operation Litani when he fell on December 24, 1978. Was buried in the military cemetery and left behind his parents, three brothers and two sisters, and wrote: “Our unit lost a good soldier and an excellent guy who was Simcha to do what he wanted. Yoel lived his life in private, and we never heard him complain. He was always smiling and Simcha. Yoel participated in dozens of groundbreaking operations and in preparation of outposts, some of which were carried out across the border. In Operation Litani, Yoel discovered his ability and dedication, working day and night and only carrying out the mission in full. In his memory, the family established a synagogue in Netanya called Beit Yoel, and donated a Torah scroll in its name to the local synagogue where the family used to pray.