Tuvia, Yuval

Ben Sarah and Shmuel. Born on 26.4.1973 in Jerusalem, to a family of three. Yuval attended the “Beit HaYeled” elementary school in Jerusalem and the “Beit Hinuch” high school. As a child, he was shy, modest, sensitive and considerate, with high intelligence and an adult of his age. By the time he reached high school, he had become a diligent and energetic boy, full of energy, plans and ideas. He was always in a hurry, never canceled time, and never gave up prayer and tefillin. As an avowed fanatic of nature, he gambled with the legs of the country and its landscapes, knew every place and corner, and his knowledge of these was a name. He also devoted this love to his students in the “Scouts” movement, who followed him. During his free time, he liked to listen to periods of cantorial music and Mediterranean poetry. Yuval joined the IDF in August 1991. He volunteered for the paratroopers and did most of his service as an intelligence officer, first as a NCO and later as an intelligence officer in the brigade’s training base. His commanders appreciated him for his professionalism, for his basic and serious approach in every field he dealt with, for his willingness to enlist and volunteer for missions even without being asked, and for his striving for perfection and excellence. His subordinates loved him for his humility and gentleness, and for his warm and humane attitude towards them. “He always saw the person, not the rank or the job,” they said. Three medals of honor were awarded to him for his excellence in military activity. Yuval was killed while carrying out his duties on the 22nd of January, 1995, when two explosive devices exploded in a gap of three minutes from each other carrying two suicide bombers at the Beit Lid junction. In that attack, twenty-one additional soldiers and one civilian were killed. Yuval was promoted to lieutenant after his death. He was twenty-two years old when he fell. He left two parents and two brothers – Eyal and Omri. He was laid to rest on Mount Herzl. The unit commander, Lt. Gen. Eran, wrote to the bereaved parents: “Yuval went out to the officers’ course only towards the end of his regular service, because we knew that Yuval was the outstanding officer – dedicated, responsible, proactive and careless. “Working with Yuval, this is an experience in itself: He did not give in to anyone, neither to himself, to his subordinates, or to his commanders, so high that he raised the level of intelligence to heights they did not know before.” The students of the Epshtin Jewish school in Atlanta planted a tree in memory of Yuval and all the victims of the attack in the “Children’s Forest.” On January 16, 2003, the OC Central Command gave Lieutenant Yuval Tuvia a personal citation given to his family: “For the insanity of the soul, the realization of the value of evil at the risk of self, courage, resourcefulness and exemplaryness.”