The Unforgettable Funeral of Lone Soldier, Rose Lubin HY”D
Today I had one of the most moving experiences of my 30 years in Israel.
This morning I received a whatsapp urging me to attend the funeral of American lone soldier Rose Lubin HY”D, who was murdered while protecting the Jewish residents of the Old City earlier this week. Rose was a new immigrant. Who would show up to honor this young heroine, who bravely fought on October 7th alongside the Emergency Squad of Kibbutz Saad to protect its residents from terrorists?
So I cancelled what I was supposed to do this morning, and took the light rail to Har Herzl instead. The light rail was packed, and when we got to the stop by the cemetery almost everyone got off.
Then we all joined a human river of thousands of people to honor this 5-foot-tall dynamo who, even as a kindergartner would tell friends at the playground in the Atlanta suburb where she grew up, “I will be your friend now, but when I am 18 I’m moving to Israel and am going to join the IDF!”
I cried at the funeral, of course, but I also cried on my way to the funeral, to feel how this idealistic young woman was, like a powerful magnet, uniting Israelis from across the religious and political spectrum to cry together. Reminding them why we are here. Why it’s all worth it. Why we, like Rose, would never want to live anywhere else.
This clip features Rose’s mother, Robin, who reads an edited version of Rose’s remarkable bat mitzvah speech. And then a powerful eulogy by the family’s rabbi, Rav Binyomin Friedman.
Rose has an incredible amount of family in Israel, I am her brother. We have more family in Israel than we do in America.