Ten Soldiers Killed in Gaza and Lebanon
Another week has gone by, and I have much to write about, but I must begin with some heartbreaking news. It is always distressing to hear about a soldier killed in the war, and this week has unfortunately brought many fatalities. These announcements always begin with the words “hutar l’pirsum” (“it has been cleared for publication”). The IDF, as a matter of policy, does not report tragic events immediately; instead, they wait for the deceased to be identified and then for their immediate family members to be informed of the deaths, and it can sometimes be difficult to locate all the family members. Therefore, any such announcements are preceded by these words, indicating that the army has made the requisite preparations to go public with the news. When the words “hutar l’pirsum” are heard on the radio, we always know that we are about to hear about the death of a soldier, and yet another family joining the ranks of the bereaved.
Last Tuesday, the army announced that four soldiers in the Shimshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade had been killed on the previous day by a missile strike in Jabaliya, which is in northern Gaza. In this case, it took the army a full day to conclude its procedures before announcing the names of the fatalities. On Wednesday, the IDF spokesman announced that another six soldiers from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade had been killed that morning. The deaths took place not in Gaza but in southern Lebanon, in a clash with Hezbollah terrorists that included the use of an anti-tank missile. Four other soldiers were injured in the same incident. The army reported, based on its initial probe, that around 10:30, the Golani soldiers entered a building where they hadn’t previously operated and were immediately ambushed by terrorists, who opened fire on them. The IDF is investigating the possibility that the terrorists emerged from a subterranean tunnel that had shielded them from the air strikes that preceded the soldiers’ entry into the building. The Israeli army tries to make sure that buildings in enemy territory are destroyed from the air before they are entered by soldiers. In this particular building, a fierce battle broke out, and at least one of the terrorists was eliminated, but six Israeli soldiers lost their lives. The fighting in the area continued for several more hours until the IDF managed to gain control.
In addition to these tragic deaths, there have also been civilian fatalities and casualties due to drone and rocket attacks. After several instances in which the missiles killed Arabs or foreign workers, two Israeli citizens were killed last week by a rocket barrage on Nahariya, in northern Israel. The two victims were working in a carpenter’s shop and were killed when it was struck by a missile, and a man and woman were also injured in the same missile strike. Another resident of Nahariya — one of the residents who did not relocate to the center of the country — cried when he was interviewed by the media. “The rockets catch us in the supermarket, on the roads, and at home,” he said. “We don’t want this anymore.”
He is absolutely right: None of us want to live with this anymore, and we are all davening for the war to end both in the north and for the south and for our lives to return to routine. In the meantime, the situation is very saddening.
Israelis Irked by Incessant Investigations
The people of Israel have had enough of the constant investigations surrounding Prime Minister Netanyahu. It has come to seem like an endless witch hunt. I have written in the past about Eli Feldstein, the man who has been held in custody for quite a long time already on the charge of leaking a classified document to the media. As I explained in a previous article, the document in question proved that Netanyahu was correct in his repeated assertions that the failure to reach a hostage deal with Hamas wasn’t his fault, and that Hamas was turning down every proposal made to them. Feldstein has been imprisoned for a long time under the conditions of a Shin Bet detention, which is unlike the detention of a person arrested by the police. Among other things, this means that he is barred from meeting with a lawyer, and he might even be undergoing torture. Last weekend, the state filed a request to keep him in custody for another eight days, and the court ordered him released to house arrest. Other suspects who have been arrested in conjunction with the affair were released to house arrest days earlier. It is widely believed that this entire case will be found to have been blown completely out of proportion, like many of the other supposed scandals involving Netanyahu.
After the media reported the conditions under which Feldstein is being held, Prime Minister Netanyahu released a sharply worded statement: “It pains me very much that the lives of young people are being destroyed with empty accusations for the purpose of undermining the right-wing government. In a democratic state, people who leak documents to the press are not arrested and held in dungeons while barred from meeting with their attorneys for twenty days, for the purpose of extracting false statements against the prime minister from them. This abuse is even more outrageous because there wasn’t even a single investigation into the flood of criminal leaks from the cabinet and the negotiating team throughout the year of this war. Those criminal leaks revealed sensitive security information to Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas and caused tremendous damage to Israeli security and to the effort to free the hostages, but no one bothered investigating them.”
It seems that most of the public agrees with Netanyahu, especially since the other suspects in this affair, all of whom are IDF officers who were involved in handling the documents, admitted openly to the Shin Bet that they had given the document to Feldstein to be relayed to Netanyahu. They did this because they understood that the army was withholding important material from the prime minister — such as this internal Hamas document, which would assist Netanyahu in defending Israel’s actions against criticism from the rest of the world. This was very likely the right thing to do, and according to their explanation, Feldstein was also completely correct in his actions. But the Shin Bet has been characterizing the story very differently in court: According to their description of the events, classified intelligence information was illegally taken from the army and may have been used in a way that seriously harmed state security and that might have endangered the sources of information. They also insist that the release of this information might have harmed the defense establishment’s ability to achieve the goals of the war, including freeing the hostages. But if you ask me, this is pure nonsense.
Netanyahu’s Chief of Staff Accused of Forging Protocols
Meanwhile, another scandal has erupted: Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, has been accused of forging protocols. When it is put that way, it certainly sounds like a serious crime and an effort to tamper with evidence that might incriminate the prime minister, if a commission of inquiry is convened to study the events of October 7. Last Wednesday, the media reported that Braverman was scheduled to be questioned at the police station in Bat Yam on the following day. This, too, seemed to underscore the severity of his alleged crime. But the story, as we will see, isn’t quite so straightforward.
On Thursday, the country waited for news from the interrogation, which continued for many hours. Regarding the essence of the case, the police claim that Braverman wanted to change the recorded time of a phone call that Netanyahu received from his military secretary, Avi Gil, on the morning of Hamas’s surprise attack, from 6:40 to 6:29 a.m. It isn’t clear exactly what is criminal about this, but Braverman claims that the time initially recorded by the secretary was incorrect and that he wanted to correct the records.
In response to the argument that his goal was to protect Netanyahu in the event of an investigation, Braverman said, “If that was my intent, then I would only have harmed the prime minister by doing this. The later in the morning he received the information, the less responsibility he would have for the government’s response that day. But I have asked to move up the time of the call by eleven minutes.” This argument seems to be impossible to refute.
According to reports of the incident, Braverman at first tried to convince a stenographer to change the time on the record, and when she refused, he took the document into his own hands and manually altered its contents. The police are also investigating the possibility that Braverman asked for protocols of security meetings during the Bennett-Lapid era. While he is permitted to ask for such documents, he did not follow the proper procedure for doing so.
Braverman is also at the center of another scandal: He has been accused of collecting evidence against a senior figure in the army, with the intent of using it to blackmail that officer to release military documents to him, which sounds completely bizarre. This case naturally produced many headlines, and Tzachi Braverman was assailed with criticism. But as it turns out, there was no substance to these accusations at all. Last week, an official statement was released reporting that the topic had been investigated and Braverman’s conduct was found to be beyond reproach. But all of these stories contribute to the general sense that the witch hunt targeting Netanyahu and anyone associated with him has only intensified.
Court Denies Netanyahu’s Request to Delay His Testimony
Prime Minister Netanyahu has a very full plate. He is overseeing a war on two fronts while working hard to bring the hostages home from Gaza. He is also fighting to defend Israel on the international stage and is closely monitoring the events in Iran. And on top of all that, he is the defendant in a criminal case. Last Wednesday, the District Court in Yerushalayim denied the prime minister’s request to postpone his testimony in his criminal trial. Netanyahu is scheduled to begin testifying in court on December 2, and he notified the court that he is unable to keep up with the schedule of his trial due to the many other pressing concerns that he is dealing with. The judges wrote in response, “We have not been convinced that there has been a substantial change that would justify changing the date of the testimony.”
Netanyahu’s request was submitted at the beginning of last week. His defense team asked the court for an extension of two and a half months on account of the additional burdens created by the war. Netanyahu argued in his request that he is extremely busy due to the war in Gaza and Lebanon and that he does not have the time to meet with his attorneys and prepare his testimony. Netanyahu’s lawyer also asked for permission to provide sensitive security information to the judges behind closed doors.
Whenever a request is made to delay the testimony of one side in a trial, the court asks the other side for its response. The prosecution informed the judges that they were opposed to Netanyahu’s request. “Any additional delay in this trial is severely opposed to the public interest,” they wrote.
Netanyahu was incensed. “The public interest is for the truth to come to light, not for the trial to end quickly,” he responded indignantly. In my view, he is absolutely right!
Hostage Video Suggests Captors Are Under Pressure
Since I mentioned the hostages, let me make it clear that the plight of the hostages in Gaza remains at the top of the government’s agenda and the forefront of everyone’s consciousness. And last week, we may have gotten a glimmer of insight into the current situation in Gaza. Islamic Jihad released a video that shows one of the hostages speaking; the recording was either seen or heard by almost everyone in the country. The video is evidence that the hostages, or at least some of them, are still alive, even after 400 days in captivity. The hostage shown in this video was Sasha Trupanov, who was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz and is 29 years old today.
Trupanov, who was apparently reciting a statement dictated to him by the terrorists, said to his audience, “I miss my family, my friends, my life, and my freedom.” He went on to discuss the war in Lebanon and the conflict with Iran, and he asked the Israeli public not to forget the hostages. He also claimed that the hostages’ food rations have been cut and the sanitary conditions in their imprisonment have worsened. “I want to remind the citizens of Israel that every time you eat or drink something, you should think about us, the hostages, who do not have that ability.” Trupanov was visibly on the verge of tears as he spoke. He mentioned that he and the other hostages have been living in a war zone for an entire year, and their lives are in danger on a daily basis. “There has been a war here for an entire year,” he said. “For a whole year, my life has been in danger because of the military efforts meant to free us. The mujahideen of Islamic Jihad protected me in many circumstances and protected my life. Some of them were even injured or killed while protecting me. I want to tell you, citizens of Israel, that my life is in danger on a daily basis, and these military efforts might lead to my death.”
Reading between the lines, we can reach one definitive conclusion from the release of this video: The terrorists holding the hostages are under pressure. Their leaders have been eliminated and they know that Trump was elected president of the United States, and they are feeling the pressure. They have now seen that Hamas brought destruction to Gaza with their attack on Israel and they are eager to end their intolerable lives there.
Pay for Slay in the PA
I have written in the past about “The Whistle,” the fact-checking column in the economic publication known as Globes. This time, the column decided to fact-check Zeev Elkin, who told Radio Tel Aviv, “When a Palestinian youth reaches the age of 18 today and asks himself how to earn the highest salary available in the Palestinian Authority, he finds that he has two options. One option is to become a government minister in the PA, which is a bit difficult for an 18-year-old boy. The second option is to go out into the street and murder a few Israelis and then be thrown into prison in Israel. If that happens, then he will receive a salary equivalent to the wages of a government minister.”
After researching the veracity of this claim, the fact-checkers revealed some startling statistics: “In the fourth and fifth years [of his imprisonment], he will make 2000 shekels, which is higher than the salaries paid to engineers and doctors in the Palestinian Authority and is even higher than the wages of lower-level security officials. Later on, when the prisoner [i.e., the youth who murdered Jews] has served between five and ten years in prison, he will receive 4000 shekels, which will give him a salary almost equal to that of a deputy minister or of the counterpart of a major general in the security services [two positions in which the base salary in the PA is 4020 shekels per month].” In other words, Elkin was slightly mistaken: A youth in the PA who murders Jews will not receive the same salary as a minister in the government. Instead, he will receive monthly stipends equivalent to the wages of a deputy minister. The bottom line, Globes said, is that Elkin was “half correct.” And, they added, a security prisoner can receive a salary equivalent to that of an actual minister in the PA, but only after thirty years in prison.
If you ask me, that means that Elkin wasn’t just half right; he was absolutely on the mark.
The bottom line, for our purposes, is that the substance of Elkin’s remarks was correct. With such high stipends for terrorists, which increase over the course of years and tend to be multiplied based on the number of victims and the location of the attack, the average Palestinian has even more of an incentive to murder Jews. But the PA’s practice of funding and encouraging murder is allowed to pass in silence. This has earned condemnation from the likes of Sender Garber, the brilliant man from New York who is behind the passage of several bills, both in Yerushalayim and in Washington, with the goal of putting an end to this madness.
A Gaffe at the Knesset
Donald Trump has announced that he will be appointing several pro-Israel officials to important positions. The leftists in Israel were briefly jubilant when they learned that Nikki Haley would not return to serve as the American ambassador to the United Nations. As far as they are concerned, any move that is detrimental to Israel is a good thing, since it is bound to harm Netanyahu, and since Haley had been extremely sympathetic to Israel, they celebrated the fact that she would not return to her position. The fact that everyone in Israel is in the same proverbial boat and would be equally affected by her absence didn’t actually bother them. But when they discovered who was appointed to the position instead of Mrs. Haley, they fell silent.
All of Trump’s senior appointments have turned out to be avowed friends of Israel. Some would see these appointments as a sign that the wheel of fortune always turns; in my view, the real takeaway is the fact that Hashem sees the plans of man and laughs. Senator Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for the position of Secretary of State, speaks against Hamas in harsh terms. Mike Waltz, the upcoming National Security Advisor, is on record speaking in extreme terms in favor of arms shipments to Israel. Nikki Haley will not be in the United Nations, but her previous position will be held by Elise Stefanik, who led the fight against antisemitism on university campuses in America. The final appointment that led to an outbreak of satisfaction and joyous dancing in the settlements was the appointment of Mike Huckabee. He is extremely sympathetic to Israel and has visited the country, including the territories over the Green Line, many times and has always voiced sentiments that were deeply pro-Israel. Now that his name is in the news, I would like to tell you the story of my encounter with Mike Huckabee at the Knesset, a story that speaks volumes about the almost unfathomable conduct of some Israeli officials.
This took place ten years ago, on Monday, the 25th of Sivan 5774/June 23, 2014. I arrived at the Knesset building that morning and found an unusually large crowd of people between the two security checkpoints. A large car with diplomatic license plates sat on the side of the road, and I realized immediately what had happened: Someone had been told that they would be allowed to drive onto the premises with their car, but there had been a mix-up. This is not a rare occurrence at all, since it is quite common in Israel for the proverbial right hand to be completely ignorant of what the left hand is doing.
I emerged from my car and headed in the direction of the tumult, hoping that I could offer some assistance to the hapless visitor. A member of the Knesset Guard spotted me and explained the situation: “Some American is insisting that he is supposed to be able to enter the grounds in his car, but there is no record of anyone giving him clearance. What do these Americans think, anyway?” he added scornfully.
I recognized the visitor immediately: Governor Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. I had been aware that he was scheduled to visit the Knesset on the invitation of the Caucus for the Fight Against Delegitimization of the State of Israel. The head of this caucus was Nissim Zeev, a Knesset member from the Shas party who had enlisted my services to help ensure that the special event would be held without a hitch. Mike Huckabee was supposed to be the main speaker and VIP guest at the event, but now he was stuck at the entrance to the Knesset building.
Turning to the guards, I demanded, “Have you lost your minds? Do you know whom you are holding up? This man almost became president of the United States!”
As I spoke, Zeev emerged from the building and sprinted toward us, hugging and puffing with exertion. “Tzvika, do something!” he exclaimed as he arrived at the scene. “It is a disgrace that he isn’t being allowed to enter. The entry permits were arranged two days ago!” I summoned the security officer in charge of the matter, and he realized that there was a diplomatic incident unfolding before our eyes, but he explained that he lacked the authority to do anything about it. “He will have to enter the building through the Palumbo Gate, like every other visitor,” he said.
“That will be an insult to him,” I said.
“Then perhaps you should accompany him, and I’ll make sure that he is admitted to the building quickly,” the guard said.
Nissim Zeev and I accompanied the visitor as he entered the Knesset building. Against the protests of one of the security guards, we skipped the lines of waiting visitors and were allowed to bypass the security checkpoint with its metal detector, thus sparing Huckabee the indignity of having to empty his pockets. Thanks to the kindness of the security officer, we also didn’t wait for a visitor’s pass to be printed for him. Thus, we managed to spare Huckabee a certain measure of indignity, although the other guests were forced to wait outside the building for another half hour before they finally managed to gain admission.
Huckabee’s face was flushed by the time the process was over, albeit not out of anger; he was simply flustered, and the intense heat had taken a toll on him as well. He also seemed ill at ease, knowing that a large audience was waiting for him inside the building.
“I have to apologize for this,” I said to him, “but this is the way we are. We are very successful in the big things, but we tend to make a mess of the smaller details. But don’t take it personally.”
Huckabee did not laugh at all. Five minutes later, we were sitting in the Galil Auditorium (the room that was subsequently renamed the Sprinzak Auditorium) and Huckabee received a round of applause. On the way to the event, he was accosted by a few television news crews, who identified him and practically pounced on him. He was accorded great honor when he entered the room; several dozen members of the Knesset were there, and he was greeted by Nissim Zeev. Most of the participants did not notice that both the host and the guest of honor were dripping perspiration.
That is the end of my story.
That night, Mike Huckabee attended a festive event held in his honor by Ateret Cohanim, where he spoke about his visit to the Frankel family’s home and denounced the kidnapping of the three boys that summer as an abominable act. At that time, the bodies of the abducted boys hadn’t yet been discovered, and it was believed that they might still be alive. Huckabee also declared in his speech that the international pressure for Israel to accept a two-state solution was the work of various entities aiming for the state’s destruction, and he asserted that the Jewish people are the true sovereigns of the land. At the end of his speech, he said, “If I become the president or a different high-ranking official in the American administration, I will work with all my strength and with all my heart for Israel. The Bible says about the Jewish people, ‘Those who curse you are cursed, and those who bless you are blessed.’ As a man of faith, I would be happy to help the State of Israel in any way I can.”
Did the State of Israel Reduce Antisemitism?
It isn’t pleasant to talk about this, and certainly not to write about it, but it is certainly something that bears thinking about. The founders of the State of Israel believed in their motto of “never again.” They were certain that the Jewish state would spare the Jewish people from having to live under the thumb of oppressors throughout the world. But what actually happened? Well, for one thing, it is not clear at all that the State of Israel is statistically the safest place in the world for Jews. The dangers in Israel are perhaps the only explanation for the fact that Israeli expatriates can be found everywhere in the world, and certainly in Europe. Religious Jews have a good reason to cling to the sacred land of Eretz Yisroel; we know that it was promised to our forefathers, and we believe in its kedushah and the special mitzvos associated with it. But what binds an irreligious Jew to Eretz Yisroel? What reason does he have to remain dedicated to the land? Apparently, many of them saw no reason to remain here.
Let’s take this a step further: Has the existence of the State of Israel reduced antisemitism throughout the world since it was founded in 1948? Are Jews any less persecuted throughout the world? Or, perhaps, has the opposite taken place? Well, think about this: Is it the Israeli nationality or the Jewish religion that is stirring up the hatred of antisemites throughout the world? I think the answer to this question should be clear. The proof is right before our eyes: Since the war in Gaza began, antisemitism throughout the world has increased exponentially. The Jewishness of Klal Yisroel hasn’t changed since Maamad Har Sinai when the nations of the world absorbed implacable hatred for the people who received the Torah. What has changed is the establishment of the Israeli nationality.
It has been obvious to everyone that the situation in Europe has been growing more severe for a long time. There is a French community in my neighborhood of Givat Shaul; two of our doctors on the Meuchedet health fund, Dr. Aharon Maimon and Dr. Marco Harari, are bnei Torah who immigrated to Israel from France many years ago. Our pharmacist, Boruch Peretz, is also a French immigrant. And all three men have been telling me for a long time about the danger spreading in Europe. They have often asked me to convey messages to the ministers and Knesset members about the ticking time bomb of European antisemitism. They read the proverbial handwriting on the wall two or three years ago, and the situation has become much worse today.
Incidentally, as you read these words, I will be at a rabbinical conference in Munich. I hope to return with many insights and observations to share with you regarding the situation in Europe, which is currently being rocked by a wave of antisemitism.
Shocking Penalty in the Knesset
Another topic that deserves greater attention is a new law that makes it possible for the Religious Affairs Ministry to pay the salaries of employees in the religious councils. There was a tremendous backlash against this bill, which was slammed by its detractors as an effort to create unnecessary paying jobs. The religious affairs minister, Michoel Malchieli, and the ministry’s director-general, Yehuda Avidan, have repeatedly tried to clarify the matter and have even confronted some of the bill’s critics and explained that they did not understand its contents. However, their explanations fell on deaf ears. In fact, this is exactly what happened to the bill that was supposed to ensure the continuation of subsidized day care: As soon as it was falsely decried as a bill encouraging draft dodging, that was the death knell for the law. Lies are sometimes the weapon of choice for the chareidi community’s enemies.
There are other stories that are worthy of discussion as well. I would have been happy to write at length about the throngs of visitors who made their way to Kever Rochel last week, as Am Yisroel turned out in its splendor to mark the yahrtzeit of Rochel Imeinu. Security was tight and there was great apprehension in the air, but the day passed peacefully and without incident, boruch Hashem. It is quite possible that the volume of visitors was even greater this year than in previous years.
One other story from this past week concerns Ofer Cassif, a Jewish member of the Knesset who belongs to an Arab party and somehow manages to infuriate everyone on a constant basis. Cassif is a chronic provocateur and constantly refers to the IDF as an “occupying force” and accuses Israel of “genocide.” He speaks in the same terms as Israel’s greatest enemies. The chareidim specifically avoid antagonizing him, since he has almost never attacked any of our religious values; however, he has managed to rally the entire political right against him. You may remember that an attempt was made not long ago to have him impeached, a process that is highly unusual for the Knesset, but the proposal fell short of the threshold of votes needed for the impeachment to be carried out. Lasr week, however, the Knesset managed to impose a serious penalty on Cassif. Since he joined Israel’s enemies in filing suit against the country in the International Court of Justice, the Knesset Ethics Committee barred him from the Knesset for six months and docked him two weeks’ pay. This penalty is unprecedented in the Knesset.
At the Home of Rav Chaim Walkin
Last Tuesday, I visited Rechov Kassuto 7 in Bayit Vegan — the home of the famed mashgiach, Rav Chaim Walkin — in honor of Rav Walkin’s second yahrtzeit. In the living room of his home, where the mashgiach once breathed succor and vitality into the souls of thousands of talmidim, his family members, talmidim, and friends gathered for the occasion, with several prominent marbitzei Torah present to share their thoughts. Every speaker sketched a profile of the illustrious mashgiach in his own words and from his vantage point, but a broader picture emerged from their presentations: a picture of a man who personified majesty and nobility, a great man whose life was an unending progression of chesed, avodas Hashem, and humility.
The speakers included Rav Eliezer Silver, Rav Immanuel Bernstein, and several other distinguished rabbonim. Rav Yosef Sorotzkin, who was Rav Walkin’s chavrusa for decades, spoke about his special charm and told several incredible stories about him. “He started out like all of us, but look where he ended up,” he said.
He added an interesting anecdote: “Decades ago, when we were learning on Rechov Hoshea, Rav Walkin used to put on a different pair of eyeglasses when he walked in the street. I innocently thought that he used the glasses for distance vision or something of the sort. One day, when he left the room, I picked up the eyeglasses to look at them, and I saw that the lenses were made of simple glass; they did not enhance his vision at all. You see,” he concluded, “we all know of some tzaddikim who work on shmiras einayim by removing their eyeglasses when they walk in the streets, but that is a practice that everyone else can observe. For Rav Walkin, shmiras einayim was a private matter, something to be kept between himself and Hashem.”
In reality, the mashgiach’s eyesight was very poor, and he was barely capable of seeing anything with eyeglasses.
When Rav Ezriel arrived, a hush fell over the room. He looked around the apartment, his presence seeming to infuse the room with radiance. He exchanged a few words with the rebbetzin and took his seat. When he addressed the crowd, he spoke about Rav Walkin’s greatness, about his seforim, about the people whose lives he shaped and the talmidim who were privileged to learn under his tutelage, and about his friendship with the mashgiach. “It was also a pleasure to speak with him; our discussions practically transported me to Radin,” he recalled. Invoking the story of akeidas Yitzchok, he explained that the best chinuch stems from the behavior of the parent or teacher, whether it is in the bais medrash, in the street, or, above all, at home.
Rebbetzin Walkin later told me that Rav Ezriel had said to her, “You knew him better than anyone else.” Then she added, “It’s true; I benefited from him perhaps more than anyone else did. I am his foremost student.”
“Perhaps that is what Chazal mean when they say, ‘A person dies only for his wife,’” I said. “A person’s wife is the first person to benefit from his Torah, and therefore the first to mourn his passing.”
Rav Chaim Walkin came to Israel from America, and several of his sons live in America today; Rav Avrohom Walkin lives in Far Rockaway, Rav Aharon Walkin lives in Lakewood, and Rav Yaakov Walkin resides in Brooklyn. They, too, spoke about their father with deep emotion. Rav Avrohom Walkin gave voice to the sentiments that we all shared. “Two years have gone by, and we may have recovered from the shock, but the void has only grown more intense. We all miss him at every moment. We miss talking to him and receiving his guidance. Nothing will ever fill that void in our lives.” He stressed his father’s commitment to dignity and virtue and advised his listeners to emulate some small aspect of his character. We all encouraged him to complete his work on the sefer Daas Chaim on Vayikra, in light of the great popularity enjoyed by the first volumes in the series.
