Yael Weissman, 22, the widow of Sergeant First Class Tuvia Yanai Weissman who was murdered by two teenage Arab terrorists in a stabbing attack inside the Rami Levy supermarket in Sha’ar Binyamin last February, wanted to inscribe the message “Fell in battle during a terror attack” on the military gravestone of her late husband. The IDF, as armies are known to do, refused her request. They insisted the inscription should say, “Fell in a terror attack.”
Weissman, who was shopping for Shabbat items when the terrorists’ attack began, was a combat soldier in the Nakhal Brigade and lived in Ma’ale Mikhmas in the Binyamin region of Samaria. He was on vacation from his unit, and was not carrying his weapon, even though he had begged his commanding officer to let him take the weapon home with him, with the wave of terror being what it is. The army refused then — but changed its position after the murder, when an entire country started inquiring why is it, really, that we send our men and women in uniform home without their guns, at a time when they might need it most?
Two 14-year-old Arabs from a nearby village managed to sneak past the store security with knives that they had brought from home. They were allowed to walk freely around the store unchallenged for at least 20 minutes before they attacked like wild beasts. Yanai heard screams from another store aisle as the two 14-year-olds attacked shoppers with knives, and even though he was unarmed, ran to help and was mortally wounded in his upper body. Eventually the two killers were shot by two armed civilians who were inside the store, and were then arrested.
So that the epitaph “Fell in battle during a terror attack” made sense, which is why Yael did not accept the military view of her grief and went on Facebook with her message of protest.
“My beloved Yanai – who would have believed that just a little more than two weeks after the day you fell in heroic battle, during those seconds in which you stormed those terrorists with your hands empty,” she wrote, “I would have to contend with system inflexibility of the worst kind.”
“Instead of dealing with how and in what way to commemorate you, I have to deal with making sure the circumstances of your death are accurately stated,” her post continued. “I don’t have any complaints regarding our great people and the military, which is embracing us, who made sure to appreciate and honor your brave actions.”
The Defense Ministry’s response to the above gut wrenching cry was, “The Ministry of Defense shares the heavy grief of the Weissman family. The soldier commemoration unit works according to the regulations of gravestone writing, and determines the circumstances of death according to information it receives from different security bodies.”
Comforting chaps.
MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid), who used to be head of IDF HR, found out about the post and went to work. After meeting with Yael, he approached the Defense Ministry’s Department of Families and Commemoration, and the IDF Department of Casualties, and requested that they take another look at the Binyamin Brigade report of its investigation of events at the supermarket on that harrowing Friday. They agreed to reexamine the evidence and admitted that the brave man had indeed died in combat.
MK Stern said Monday, “There is no more fitting inscription. This is a clear case of falling in battle. Yanai is a hero.”