Orr Blumovitz, the Soldier Who Never Stopped Reading—Even in the Tank

When Orr Blumovitz was born, his parents could not have known that naming him after a beloved book character would set him on a path filled with endless hours of reading and hundreds of books—a life rich in knowledge, curiosity, and giving. Books shaped Orr’s world until his tragic death in an attack targeting an IDF armored vehicle in June 2024. Today, they form a lasting part of his legacy.

Guy Polat | 29.04.25

Staff Sergeant Orr Blumovitz, of blessed memory

Some people are born with a name that seems to predict their story. Such was the case with Staff Sergeant Orr Blumovitz z”l. His father chose the name “Orr” after a character in Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22—a clever and resourceful soldier. For Orr, it wasn’t just a name—it captured his very essence. From a young age, he was drawn to books and words, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.

Military history, in particular, captivated him. He grew into a young man whose two greatest passions—tanks and books—might have seemed worlds apart, yet together they shaped the remarkable person he became.
These loves accompanied him throughout his life, right up until his death in Gaza, during an attack on an armored military vehicle. But before that, he lived a life full of meaning.

When Orr was still in elementary school, his cousin from the United States recommended a new book to him: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. When they met again two weeks later, she asked if he had started reading it. Orr, of course, had already finished the entire series. It was the first time he read a Harry Potter book—but certainly not the last. The series became one of his favorites, and he returned to it many times.

A few years ago, Orr’s family traveled to Italy to visit a special Harry Potter exhibition. Naturally, Orr became their guide. “He was absolutely over the moon,” recalls his mother, Roni. “He moved from exhibit to exhibit, explaining to us what each display was about, from which book and which chapter. He really brought the whole experience to life for us,” she says.

Orr devoured books at an astonishing pace and read anything he could get his hands on—but military history remained his greatest passion. “What fascinated him most was the military,” his mother shares. “Every Independence Day, he would ask us to visit the Armored Corps Memorial Site. He would climb onto the tanks, examine their construction, and study every detail. We have photos of him as a little boy, standing on a tank, wearing the communication headset, inspecting every part.”

Orr’s love of military history was nurtured at home: both of his grandfathers and his father had fought in Israel’s wars.
When Orr was in elementary school, one of his grandfathers—who fought in the Battle of Ammunition Hill during the Six-Day War—gave him a hefty book detailing the history of the war, along with a hand-drawn map showing the course of the battle. Orr read the book cover to cover and carefully kept the map, preserving his grandfather’s handwritten notes.

The map detailing the course of the Battle of Ammunition Hill

Beyond Israel’s wars, Orr developed a deep fascination with World War II history. He was especially intrigued by Hitler’s failed ambition to build a “super-tank” – the Landkreuzer P. 1000 “Ratte”. “He studied that tank down to the bolts,” says Roni.

One day, when Orr was in fifth grade, he came home from school deeply upset. “I remember it so clearly,” his mother says. “He was really angry. When I asked him what had happened, he said he was furious that at school they only focused on the Holocaust of the Jewish people. He said it was wrong that no one talked about the millions of others who were also murdered. He felt it was discriminatory—and that the whole story needed to be told, not just part of it.”

At the end of that school year, the family traveled to France. Orr suggested that, alongside visiting Paris, they also visit Normandy, the site of the D-Day landings. “He was still a little kid, very short,” Roni recalls. “We stood by the sea, near the museum where abandoned Allied vehicles were displayed. Orr stood there explaining everything to us, describing the vehicles and their history. He completely took charge of the visit—he was our guide.”

When they returned to Israel, Orr decided to share what he had learned with his classmates. He and his father worked for hours preparing a presentation about the Normandy landings. When he presented it to his class, the students were captivated.

The years passed. Orr grew into a teenager, and his enlistment drew near.

Despite not having the highest medical profile (Profile 97), Orr was determined to serve in a combat unit. “One time, we were talking about his enlistment and his struggle to serve in a combat role,” Roni recalls. “And he said to us: ‘What do you expect? One grandfather was in the Palmach (the elite fighting force of the pre-state Haganah underground), the other was wounded in the Six-Day War. My father served in a combat unit. Did you really think I was going to do anything else in the army?’”

Orr’s persistence paid off. In the end, he was drafted into the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps.

Orr also channeled his deep knowledge of history and military affairs into advocacy for Israel. At around the age of 15, he joined a massive international chat group focused on military strategy. It wasn’t long before he was promoted to administrator—one of just 30 admins selected from more than 36,000 users. Orr was the only administrator under the age of 20.

His family only discovered the extent of his involvement after his death. “The day after Orr was killed, I got a message from someone who said he had known Orr through the group, and that many people from the community wanted to come to the funeral,” recalls his mother, Roni. “At the time, we were in the thick of preparing the funeral, and I didn’t really grasp what he meant. During the shiva, it became clear—some of them actually came to the funeral, and others watched it by satellite broadcast or through recordings that were shared with the group.”

The chat group included members from all over the world—Iranians, Iraqis, French, Americans—and they all wanted to convey to Orr’s family how much they had admired and loved him, his knowledge, and his kindness.

Later, the family held a Zoom call with some of the group members. One of them, an American army officer, asked to speak. “He told us that Orr had changed his life. You could hear the emotion in his voice,” says Roni. “He said Orr had taught him about sports, history, the military—and most of all, about life itself. He told us he hoped his own soldiers would grow to be like Orr: not only brave on the battlefield, but wise, sensitive, knowledgeable, and willing to listen and teach others.”

On October 7, 2023, while sirens were sounding across Israel, Orr’s family—living in Pardes Hanna, one of the few areas that remained relatively quiet—was not awakened by alarms. Instead, Roni was woken by a different sound:

“That morning, around seven or seven-thirty, I woke up because I heard Orr handling his weapon,” she says. “Normally he only did that before leaving the house or after coming home, so I immediately knew something was wrong.” When she asked him, he answered simply: “There’s a war.”

Orr had a special bond with his company commander. As soon as the war broke out, he was called to report to his unit.
He sat at his computer, going through the lists of soldiers, making sure everyone had received their call-up orders. By about ten in the morning, Orr was picked up for company training—and just a few days later, he was among the first troops to enter Gaza. He remained there for eight months, until he was killed in the attack on the armored vehicle.

The company commander assigned Orr to the company headquarters, where he took on multiple responsibilities—including serving as a medic, despite never having formally trained for the role.

“After he fell, we asked some of the soldiers why Orr had been given so many duties,” Roni says. “One of them told me, ‘You don’t understand. He was holding the company together. Even now, we can’t divide all the tasks he handled. There’s no one else who can replace him.’”

Orr’s connection with his commander was so strong that he was often brought him along to meetings with senior officers. At the end of each meeting, the commander would turn to him and ask for his opinion. Drawing on his vast knowledge, Orr would offer strategic insights and perspectives that others had not considered.

Like many soldiers, Orr used his military-issue notebooks not just for operational notes, but also to scribble personal thoughts. Most of those notebooks were lost with him in the explosion. But one notebook from the early months of the war was found after his death. “On each page, he would write a heading, and underneath, just a few lines—concise, but incredibly powerful,” Roni says.

One of the pages was titled After the War, under which Orr had written several poignant lines.

One of Orr’s favorite bands was Eifo HaYeled (“Where’s the Child?”), a popular Israeli rock group. After his death, his family reached out to the band’s lead singer, Hemi Rodner, who adapted Orr’s words into lyrics and composed a song titled After the War. The song will be released this year for Israeli Memorial Day, accompanied by a video based on Orr’s own drawings.

After the war
We always talk, we laugh
About what we’ll do after the war
Get drunk…
Go to the beach, party
Like it’s just a regular vacation

That moment when you plan
To pull yourself together
To eat healthy
To truly push yourself
But really—what guarantees you’ll make it back?

We returned to Gaza
Three days outside
Purple rain
I miss Dad’s hummus,
But really—I miss everything
A row of graves, my generation
I know them all
I don’t know how to live with it,
But I get by

That moment when you plan
To pull yourself together
To eat healthy
To truly push yourself
But really—what guarantees you’ll make it back?

During the Swords of Iron War, while Orr’s company was stationed in Gaza, they had no access to the internet or cellphones. For years, every spring, Orr and his father had woken up at dawn to watch the NBA playoffs together.
Determined to keep the tradition alive, even from afar, Orr’s father found a new way: He would wake up to watch the games, write down detailed, play-by-play summaries—including full statistics for each player—and send them to Orr as letters. Orr would read them eagerly, savoring every word.

Orr’s love of reading didn’t fade during his military service—if anything, it deepened. He spent the long hours inside the armored vehicle – an IDF Nemera – reading. Together with a few friends from his company, Orr established a small “library” inside the vehicle—bringing books from home and swapping them among the soldiers. In the long stretches they spent stuck inside the Nemera, surrounded by enemy forces, the soldiers found rare moments of comfort between the pages of their books.

Orr was the driving force behind the library. Not only did he read more than anyone else, he also made it his mission to grow and nurture it. Each time he returned home, his mother Roni recalls, he would stop at a bookstore—searching for new titles to bring back to the field for their improvised library. One of the vehicle’s drivers once brought a copy of the thriller Orphan X by author Gregg Hurwitz. Orr loved it so much that he quickly devoured the entire series.

The Hebrew edition of *Orphan X*, by Greg Hurwitz

On June 14, 2024, the armored vehicle Orr was traveling in was hit by an anti-tank guided missile.
All eight soldiers aboard were killed in the blast.

Alongside Orr, they included: Captain Waseem Mahmoud, Sergeant Itay Amar, Sergeant Eliyahu Moshe Tsimbalist, Staff Sergeant Oz Yeshaya Gruber, Staff Sergeant Stanislav Kosterov, Sergeant Yakir Ya’akov Levy and Sergeant Shalom Menachem.

After Orr’s death, a library was named in his honor at the school where his mother taught.
Several years earlier, Roni had helped establish the library together with a student she had mentored.
Orr visited the library only once during his lifetime.

On one of his last visits home, Roni took him there and asked what he thought.
He looked around and said simply: “Beautiful.”

“For Orr, who rarely used big words,” says Roni, “that was an enormous compliment.”

Orr fell surrounded by everything he loved—everything he had dedicated his life to: tanks, soldiers, friends—and books. And perhaps it was no coincidence that the boy who spent his life eagerly learning about the history of the world was found with the scorched remains of one of his favorite books: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.

Israel's Wars Israeli Memorial Day Jewish books October 7

Many unique and fascinating stories can be linked to items preserved in the collections of the National Library of Israel. But it’s not every day that we receive a book connected to current and tragic events which we hear about on the news – and when this happens, it can be truly moving.

Here is one such recent case.

***

Eden Zachariah and Ziv Dado were abducted to Gaza on October 7. Eden, a 28-year-old from Rishon Letziyon, was kidnapped while trying to escape from the Nova festival, which she attended with her partner Ofek Kimhi – who was murdered there that day. After 67 days, her family was informed that Eden had been murdered in Hamas captivity. Ziv, a 36-year-old IDF warrant officer from Rehovot who served as a logistics supervisor for the Golani Brigade’s 51^st Battalion, was killed in an encounter with terrorists on the same day. His body was taken to Gaza and he was recognized as an abducted fallen soldier held by a terrorist organization. He left behind a wife and child. Two months after Eden and Ziv were kidnapped, soldiers of the 699^th Battalion – belonging to the IDF’s 551st (Reserve) Brigade (“The Arrows of Fire”) – set out to extract their bodies from the Jabaliya area of the Gaza Strip, where intelligence indicated they were being held. On the way there, a roadside explosive was detonated, targeting the Israeli troops. Two reservists were killed in the explosion. The two had been friends for years, since their time together in training – Eyal Meir Berkowitz, 28 from Jerusalem, and Gal Meir Eizenkot, 25 from Herzliya, son of the former IDF Chief of Staff and current war cabinet member Gadi Eizenkot. Other soldiers were wounded as well. Eden and Ziv’s bodies were ultimately extracted and given a proper Jewish burial in Israeli territory.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 16 At 16.07.47 — One of the last pictures of Eyal and Gal together in Gaza. Photo courtesy of the Berkowitz family

Eyal Berkowitz grew up in Susya in the Southern Hebron Hills. He completed his high school education at the local Bnei Akiva Yeshiva for Environmental Studies. Afterwards he moved on to study at the Bnei David Advanced Yeshiva in Eli.

While studying there, Eyal joined a group of students who studied Mishnah together. Eyal himself studied and memorized the Mishnah based on a small version of the Mishnah Sdurah series.

משנה סדורה — Eyal’s book of Mishnayot from his time at Eli

The first edition of the six orders of Mishnah published by Mishnah Sdurah came out in the 1990s. What made this series unique was its design and the arrangement of the text in a way that makes it easier for the student to understand the Mishnah.

Each individual Mishnah is spread out over a series of brief lines. Each line is devoted to a new sentence, a pause mid-sentence, or a particular point from within a list of several points. This structure also serves as its own form of punctuation and can also help with memorization. The spacious design also leaves room for writing comments on the page.

Eyal was able to make good use of all of this, and throughout his studies, he wrote brief comments for practically every Mishnah. As someone who always had a knack for drawing, he also occasionally added little illustrations.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 30 At 12.18.00 (1) — Tractate Sanhedrin, with Eyal’s comments

After three years in Eli, Eyal enlisted in the IDF in 2016. He started out in Sayeret Matkal and then moved on to Maglan – both elite units. In 2022, he married Michal. They lived together in Jerusalem, where he started studying to become a doctor at Hebrew University.

But he only managed to finish his first year.

On that fateful day of Simchat Torah, Eyal and Michal were at his parent’s house in Susya. Upon learning of the scope of the terrorist assault in the Gaza border region, Eyal was immediately called as a reservist, and he soon found himself fighting inside the Gaza Strip once the ground invasion got underway.

Eyal was killed in action, a few hours before the beginning of Hannukah, on December 7, 2023. Just a few days earlier, he and Michal had marked their first year of marriage and had promised to celebrate when Eyal came back from the reserve duty.

איל — Eyal Meir Berkowitz ob”m. Photo courtesy of the Berkowitz family

A few weeks after his death, his family approached the National Library. They had found Eyal’s book of Mishnayot with his written comments, and offered to have the volume scanned and cataloged by the NLI. The idea was welcomed by the Library and the scans have already been completed. The bibliographic information accompanying Eyal’s set of Mishnayot at the Library contain a brief note in Hebrew:

The illustrator, an alumnus of the Bnei David Advanced Yeshivah in Eli in Binyamin, served in the Maglan unit and fell during a mission to extract the bodies of hostages held in the Gaza Strip on the 24^th of Kislev, 5784, December 7, 2023. The volume was delivered for photocopying by his wife.

While preparing this article, we were excited to hear that aside from the scans that were uploaded to our online catalog, the family also decided to donate the book itself to the National Library, and it was indeed handed over a few days after Israeli Memorial Day.

משפחת ברקוביץ צילום מוטי דהאן — Eyal’s family handing over his Mishnayot to the National Library of Israel, May 2024. Right to left: Dr. Chaim Neriah, curator of the Judaica Collection at the National Library, Shmaya Berkowitz, his wife Riki, and Michal – Eyal’s widow. Photo: Motti Dahan

The scanned book reveals how Eyal’s comments were often brief, but were still able to very succinctly explain the intention of the Mishnah, even in places where the original text does not tell us many details.

The Mishnah, like every ancient text, is hard to read and understand without background knowledge of its subject matter. This is why commentators throughout the generations – Rashi, Maimonides, Rabbi Ovadyah of Bartenura, the Tosfot Yom Tov as well as more modern commentaries like Kehati, Safrai, and Artscroll – have been written to help readers dive in.

Eyal succeeded in illuminating the words of the Mishnah, using very brief explanations in a modern Hebrew style, with an occasional dash of humor added in. Rabbis who saw the Mishnah with his comments attested to his succinct comments containing amazing depth and great talent in connecting Mishnayot to other sources.

Here’s just one brief example: The Mishnah in Tractate Eruvin calculates the distance between two cities to allow the carrying of objects between them on Shabbat, something which would be forbidden if it involved carrying things from one jurisdiction to another. If the radius of 70 cubits and 2/3 cubits from one city touches on the same calculated area of a nearby city, they are considered a single locality or jurisdiction, and as Eyal put it, along with a small illustration: “we connect them both.” This is certainly a much clearer explanation than the Mishnah’s original formulation in Hebrew.

עירובין — Tractate Eruvin, chapter 5, Mishnah 2, Eyal’s copy

We will only add that it is a Jewish custom to study Mishnayot for the ascension of a person’s soul on the anniversary of their death, as the words “Mishnah” and “Neshamah” (soul) consist of the same letters in Hebrew.

May the memory of Eyal, Gal, and all the fallen of Israel be a blessing.

Whatsapp Image 2024 04 16 At 16.06.05 — Eyal Berkowitz ob”m. Photo courtesy of Berkowitz family

In the Very Heart of Gaza: Soldiers Sing a Prayer for the Hostages’ Release

A prayer dedicated to “our brethren… who remain in distress and captivity”, has accompanied the Jewish nation since the ninth century. It was sung during WWI, at Hasidic music festivals, and just recently at a spontaneous gathering of soldiers in a darkened house in Gaza, after they had lost two of their beloved commanders

Daniel Lipson | 15.02.24

IDF Jewish Culture Jewish Music Music October 7

By Daniel Lipson

“Our brethren, the entire House of Israel who remain in distress and captivity, whether on sea or on land, may God have compassion on them, and bring them from distress to relief, from darkness to light, from servitude to redemption, at this moment, speedily, very soon; and let us say Amen”

The fighting in Jebaliya was difficult that week. On Thursday, December 26, 2023, the Nahal Brigade’s 931^st Battalion lost its beloved company commander, Major Shai Shimriz, as well as his good friend Captain Shauli Greenglick. Other soldiers were wounded.

Four days later, at the end of yet another exhausting day of action against Hamas terrorists, soldiers of the rifle company’s 2^nd platoon gathered in one of the houses in the neighborhood.

The soldiers, students of the Shirat Moshe hesder yeshiva and the Hakotel yeshivah in the Old City of Jerusalem, took out what snacks and candy they had left and sat in the dark (electricity is cut off in most of the Gaza Strip) for an improvised Melaveh Malkah – the meal traditionally eaten after the conclusion of Shabbat

In the dark, cramped house, they shared Torah lessons and sang as they always had, in better times back in their yeshivahs. One of the songs, which has become particularly relevant and moving in recent times, was Acheinu Kol Beit Yisrael (“Our Brethren, the entire House of Israel”) – a prayer for the release of the captives and the hostages.

Hashta Ba’agala Ubizman Kariv – Venomar Amen

The tune for the song was composed by Abie Rothenberg, one of the great Hasidic composers of the twentieth century, at some point in the late eighties. The song, which Rothenberg originally sung himself, was produced as part of a tape entitled Lev VeNefesh (“Heart and Soul”) in 1990. On his 1997 album, Bitchu Be-Hashem (“Trust in God”), singer Dedi Graucher released a new version of the song. Graucher passed away last September.

The song has since become an incredibly popular hit and has been reworked in many different ways, one of the most recent and most listened to being Lior Narkis’ version from October 2023.

The prayer itself is recited in Ashkenazi communities immediately after the Torah reading on Mondays and Thursdays. First the four Yehi ratzon (“May it be His will”) requests are said, followed by Acheinu. Members of Sephardi Jewish communities recite the Yehi ratzon requests as part of the Shabbat blessing of the new month when it falls in that coming week, but without the added Acheinu segment,

The Acheinu prayer originated in the siddur of Rav Amram Gaon. In the ninth century CE, and at the request of the Jewish community of Spain, Rav Amram Gaon of Babylon sent the order of prayers in an edited and organized form for the community’s use. In the siddur, Rav Amram Gaon addresses the saying of Yehi ratzon and Acheinu as part of the Torah reading on the Monday and Thursday of every week, and also on the first of the Hebrew month. The formula there differs slightly from our current version.

סדר רב עמרם גאון 660 — The *Acheinu* prayer, Sephardic Jewish manuscript, 14-15^th century, the British Library

In the Machzor Vitry, an important 12^th century book on Jewish law and prayer customs, Acheinu appears in the afternoon Mincha prayer on Shabbat. Professor Aharon Kellerman noted in his article on the development of the custom that printed Ashkenazi siddurim first contained the Acheinu prayer in the Krakow edition of 1578. In 1646, it appeared in a siddur printed in Amsterdam.

אמשטרדם 660 — The *Acheinu* prayer in an Amsterdam siddur, an almost identical version to the one we are familiar with today

The first Sephardic siddur which printed the Yehi ratzon prayers was published in Istanbul in 1739 in the portion containing the prayer for Shabbat when it falls on the first of the month. In this siddur, like all Sephardi siddurs to this day, the Acheinu prayer does not appear.

When a Prayer Becomes Popular Music

For generations, Jews would often be taken captive, by pirates, brigands and others, and sometimes had to be ransomed for huge sums. Jewish communities worked hard to fulfill the commandment of redeeming captives and sometimes managed to return their brothers and sisters to their families. Yet in some cases, there was no trace of the captives and those who had abducted them, and all that remained was to pray for their well-being. The words of the Acheinu prayer have remained painfully relevant over the ages, while also containing a consoling message, and it is therefore only natural that they be turned into a song. One of the first musical compositions for the Acheinu prayer that we know of is a piece of chazannut (Jewish cantorial singing) by the famous Jewish cantor Yossele Rosenblatt (1882-1933). Two years after his arrival in the US from Europe, the First World War broke out. The war and the suffering of his Jewish brethren affected him and his art. In this period, he put Acheinu and other prayers to music, wishing to express the pain of the Jewish People. This song, along with his other songs, excited the masses who flocked to his concerts – first in New York, then throughout the United States and Europe.

Concert 660 — Advertisement in *The Forward* for Yossele Rosenblatt’s performance, March 7, 1929, where he sang *Acheinu* among other prayers

The prayer has since been put to music a few more times, as both pieces for cantors and general Hasidic songs. One of these versions was heard at the Ninth Hasidic Song Festival in 1977, performed by a young singer by the name of Riki Gal, who would later go on achieve fame as an Israeli pop star.

On a personal note: Sitting amongst the shadows of that darkened house in Gaza was also my own son, a squad commander in the Nahal Brigade. He and his soldiers certainly thought of the relevance of the words, and the reasons why this song has become one of the symbols of the war, after the abduction of some 240 Israelis on October 7.

We all pray that “God have mercy on them,” and may we merit their returning home soon along with the soldiers who give their lives for the People of Israel – hashta ba’agala ibizman kariv (“speedily, very soon”).

A Musical Gift Left Behind: Remembering Guy Illouz

Guy Illouz, 26, was carving a career in the music business. Hamas terrorists shot Illouz at the Nova festival and kidnapped him to Gaza. Illouz died there of his wounds, and Hamas continues to hold his body hostage.

Hillel Kuttler | 14.01.25

Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project October 7

When her infant son, Guy Illouz, cried, Doris Liber put on the MTV network and danced with him to the music videos. While crawling, he sometimes moved to the beat. As a boy, he picked at his mother’s guitar; at age 7 he went to an after-school conservatory and continued taking guitar lessons even during summer breaks. In third grade, he wrote his first song. In fourth grade, he began playing electric guitar, too.

“It was incredible. It was something. He was born with a rhythm, that boy,” said Liber, a native of the New York City borough of Queens who today lives in the central Israeli city of Ra’anana.

Illouz served in the Israel Defense Forces’ Golani Brigade and studied psychology in college for a bit, but he worked in the music industry as a stagehand, sound specialist and backliner — someone whose many tasks included quickly replacing snapped guitar strings — at concerts of some of Israel’s leading singers and bands.

His love for music is what drew Illouz, 26, to the Tribe of Nova festival, where Hamas terrorists shot him during their October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel’s western Negev. They kidnapped him to the Gaza Strip, where he died at a hospital. Hamas continues to hold his body hostage.

Nearly five years have passed since they last worked together, but Moshe Levi continues to feel Illouz’s impact.

Illouz stood out for his willingness to service the musicians and their crews, for his encouragement and for being humble, said Levi, a well-known Israeli pianist and music producer who’s the longtime musical director for songwriter-singer Shalom Hanoch.

“I remember I felt it from the first minute, that you’ve met someone who simply illuminates the place you are in and gives you the feeling you’re the most important, valued person in the world,” Levi said.

Israeli Singer Moti Caspi C. In Gray Jacket With His Crew Including Guy Illouz Standing Far Right Sent By Gis Mother Doris 122924 — Israeli singer Matti Caspi (c. in gray jacket) with his crew, including Guy Illouz (standing, far right), courtesy of Doris Liber

“We’d say how amazing it was that we had him. You could feel the happiness beyond his smile. I’d feel like I was coming to a performance just to meet Guy.”

It was only after Illouz’s death that Liber and some of Guy’s friends discovered numerous songs he composed and played, saved on his phone and laptop. Nearly all were instrumental and untitled.

“He had a sense of music. He’d write lyrics for some songs, but he wrote them for himself without playing them for us,” said Aviv Kobi, Illouz’s friend since nursery school. “It’s a shame he didn’t play them for us.”

Listen to some of Guy’s music in the video below, uploaded to Youtube by his stepfather Shmulik Gritzer:

Most of Illouz’s compositions seemed sad. That’s because “life is imperfections,” his mother quoted him as explaining once. Liber’s marriages to Guy’s father and stepfather ended, her sister committed suicide on the day of Guy’s bar mitzvah and Guy broke up with two girlfriends.

Illouz’s songs “were filled with emotion,” said his stepfather, Shmulik Gritzer. “When he broke up with a girlfriend, you can understand the longing, the emotion.”

Guyhayehudim — An Instagram post on behalf of HaYehudim, an Israeli rock band whom Guy Illouz worked with, marking a year since his abduction.

Illouz sometimes worked alongside Gritzer, who specializes in lighting at concerts. The two had planned a December 2023 trip together to Budapest or Amsterdam. Their last interaction was the night of October 6. Illouz ate dinner at his mother’s home. Gritzer wanted Illouz to stop by to get a guitar strap he’d bought for him, but Illouz was in a hurry to reach the Nova festival. He said he’d fetch it another time.

Music and friendship promise to be Illouz’s legacy.

Beginning in high school, Illouz and his buddies hung out in their neighborhood’s air-raid shelters, which they transformed into clubhouses to chill and play music informally. Plenty of those who didn’t play instruments came by to revel in the camaraderie, too. Illouz and Kobi played guitar, Noam and Yuval were on bass guitar, Daniel drummed, and friends of theirs occasionally popped over to add a trumpet, saxophone and organ to the mix.

The gang would jam and discuss their romances and career plans. They’d go hiking.

“We were all friends. It was a core group,” said Kobi.

Friends Alon Werber L. And Guy Illouz R. Both Murdered At Nova Festival Sent By Gis Mother Doris 122924 — Friends Alon Werber (l.) and Guy Illouz (r.), both murdered by Hamas, courtesy of Doris Liber

A close member of the circle, Alon Werber, was murdered at the Nova festival as he and Illouz sought to escape by car. Another, Almog Sarusi, was kidnapped there and held captive in Gaza until August 2024, when he was among six recently murdered Israelis whose bodies the IDF recovered and returned to Israel for burial.

Liber plans to build a youth club on Ra’anana’s Weizmann Street. City officials approved her proposal in late December 2024.

Guyalmog — Guy Illouz and Almog Sarusi, both murdered by Hamas, courtesy of Doris Liber

Rather than be named for the three young men murdered (Sarusi’s girlfriend, Shahar Gindi, also was murdered), the facility would be called The True Friends.

“It will live on for Guy and his friends,” Liber said. “It is bigger than one person.”

Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at hk@HillelTheScribeCommunications.com.