You Never Abandon a Soldier on the Battlefield | Passover haggadah by Ronald Spiegel

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None of us are free until all of us are free.

One of the maxims of the Israel Defense Forces is that you never abandon a soldier on the battlefield - Ever. And if it does happen, the IDF will literally leave no stone unturned in its unrelenting and tireless effort to find both living soldiers and, if need be, their remains, and bring them back home - even decades later.

Over the years our Seders have shared the names and stories of Israeli soldiers who went missing defending the Jewish State, and their status in any given year. We discussed the plight of Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped by Hamas terrrorists on June 25, 2006. He was safely returned to his family on October 18, 2011 in exchange for the release of 1,027 convicted terrorists.

We also discussed the return of the remains of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, two IDF reservists, who were killed in an ambush by Hizbollah terrorists on the Lebanese border on August 12, 2006 a few kilometers from where the Knobels, Ron and Ronna were touring the Golan, which was the cause of the Second Lebanon War. Their remains were exchanged on July 16, 2008 for the release of Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese Druze terrorist who murdered 4 year old Einat Haran, her father and 3 other Israelis in Nahariya in 1978 and 5 other terrorists and the remains of 200 other Hizbollah terrorists.

This year, Israel found and properly buried in Israeli soil 2 fallen IDF soldiers: Staff Sargeant First Class Zachary Baumel, Private Livka Shefer and the remains of IAF Lieutenant Yakir Naveh.

On June 10, 1982, First Sargeant Zachary Baumel, an IDF tank crewmember, took part in the bloody Battle of Sultan Yacoub in Lebanon against Syrian forces in one of the first battles of what later became known as the First Lebanon War. The battle was a disaster for the IDF. 20 Israeli soldiers were killed and 30 wounded. Three IDF soldiers went missing: Sargeant Baumel, together with Sargeants Tzvi Feldman and Yehuda Katz. We discussed all 3 in our previous Seders over the years.

After decades of following tips leads and dead ends, the IDF missing soldiers unit, known by the Hebrew acronym, EITAN (ITUR NE'EDARIM, ("Finding MIA Soldiers"), working with the Mossad, recently gave Russian intelligence information about the location of the remains of Sargeant Baumel. That information was relayed to Russian forces, who themselves were occupying large portions of Syria in support of President Assad's government against rebel forces in the Syrian Civil War. Within the last few months Russian troops were sent on a mission to a cemetery in the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp outside Damascus to locate and remove the remains. Working under fire from various rebel factions fighting in the area, during which the Russian commander in that operation was wounded, they removed the remains.

When returned to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, the remains were still in their 1982-era IDF Armor Corps jump suit with Hebrew inscriptions, military boots and even Sargeant Baumel's tzitzits were easily seen.

The forensic scientists and other experts at the institute, who were so accustommed to regularly viewing ghastly remains, broke into tears at the site.

Finally, after 37 long years, on April 4, 2019, Sargeant First Class Zachary Baumel was given a proper Jewish burial at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem with full military honors. His mother, now in her 80's, attended the funeral. His father died in 2009, never learning of his son's true fate.

Private Livka Shefer, then 25, was a founding member of Kibbutz Yad Mordehai in 1943, located near what later became known as the Gaza Strip. She was captured by the Egyptian Army on the evening of May 23-24,1948 while she and another IDF soldier Yitzchak Rubinstein, were evacuating a wounded soldier, Binyamin Eisenberg from Kibbutz Yad Mordechi to Kibbutz Gevaram during the War of Independence. The three were summarily executed after being captured, their bodies mutilated and tossed into a local Muslim cemetery. After the war, her remains were misidentified and were buried in a mass grave near Kibbutz Nitzanim. This year, the mistake was realized and corrected, she was given a proper burial at that site and her name was added to the monument with her family present.

Israel Air Force Lieutenant Yakir Naveh, then 23, was killed when his IAF Fouga Magister jet fighter crashed into Lake Kinneret on May 6, 1962 while on a training mission. The remains of his crew member, IAF Cadet Oded Cotton, were found a year later with the plane's wreckage on the Kinneret floor, but the dark, murky bottom of the Kinneret floor concealed Lieutenant Naveh's remains for over 1/2 century. His remains were finally located and removed on October 25, 2018 and his funeral was held on November 13, 2018 at Tel Aviv's Kiryat Shaul Military Cemetery with his family present.

As of today, about 175 Israeli soldiers who were killed in action remain missing and their whereabouts, or remains, are unknown.

The most famous of whom is Ron Arad, an Israeli F-4 Phantom navigator who was shot down over Lebanon on October 16, 1986. While both he and the pilot of his aircraft, Yishai Aviram, safely ejected to the ground, only Aviram was able to be rescued and only then by hanging on to the bottom of the landing wrung of an IAF Cobra attack helicopter that was itself flying under heavy enemy fire. Tragically, Ron Arad could not be reached, was captured by the Shiite terrorist group Amal, and is still missing. Rumor has it that he is being held in Iran. Lt. Colonel Yishai Aviram survived and remained in the IAF for many years until his retirement in October, 2017.

As the head of the IDF EITAN unit, said, "We want all IDF soldiers to know that when they enlist, the State of Israel will do everything it takes, if they - heaven forbid - fall captive or go missing, in order to bring them home."

You don't abandon a soldier in the field. None of us are free until all of us are free.

haggadah Section: Introduction