Reouven’s Heroic Spirit

In honor of October 7th, tonight the Heroism Tent hosted a panel of parents whose sons were killed a year ago while guarding the citizens of the Gaza Envelope.

One of the parents who spoke was my neighbor, the father of 38-year old Reouven Chicheportiche HY”D. Reouven, whose family made aliya from France when he was a child, lived with his wife and four children in Shlomit.

Reouven served on Shlomit’s security team, and last October 7th when he found out that 10 Hamas terrorists had infiltrated the neighboring community of Pri Gan, severely overpowering their security team, he joined Shlomit’s security team in saving the families of Pri Gan. This was not the official responsibility of Shlomit’s team. They could have said this was Pri Gan and the army’s problem, not theirs. But Reouven was a person who lived his life lending a hand to anyone in need.

A member of Shlomit security team said Reouven “was a person that, at any given time you could call him up and say, ‘Reouven, I’m stuck on something…’ and he would answer, ‘Okay, I’m on my way.’”

And the IDF security coordinator for Shlomit said: “Reouven was all heart. He was the heart of the yishuv. He would always talk about the State of Israel, how much he loved the Land, how much he loved everything here.”

“It was obvious that if something happened, he couldn’t possibly stay behind. That’s was not Reouven.”

So when Reouven and the security team arrived in Pri Gan and realized that terrorists had already entered 4 homes and that the lives of its residents were in immediate danger, they began fighting the terrorists. Thanks to the selfless bravery of Chicheportiche and the rest of the security team (3 of whom were killed in addition to Reouven) Pri Gan and the surrounding communities were saved.

Tonight, Reouven’s father shared the following remarkable story:

“On one of the days of the shiva we received a surprising visitor. The man who worked at the morgue where Reouven’s body had been kept before the burial drove an hour to pay a shiva call. He told us that he had been in charge of preparing over 50 bodies of the massacre victims for burial, and had worked for 3 days straight. It had been extremely difficult. And he’d feared on several occasions that he might collapse. But every time he began to feel weak, he would stand by Reouven’s body and would feel that Reouven was giving him the strength to continue. He came all the way to Jerusalem because it had been important to him to meet the family of such a special person.”

Panel member Rabbanit Ziva Eliyahu, the mother of Yedidya HY”D, then added, “We aren’t bereaved parents. We are the parents of heroes!”

And then the father of Boaz Yogev HY”D said, “Our sons were murdered on the day we begin saying ‘Meshiv HaRuach’ [which can mean both “the wind blows” or “restoring the spirit.”]

“Our sons and all our fallen heroes this year have reminded us what it means to stand up proud for Israel, for the Jewish people. At any cost. Their heroism has restored our spirit to stand tall, strong, and brave, as they did. May we merit to be worthy of their sacrifice.”

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