Footage that surfaced in the past day on social media reveals a moving and chilling moment from a trip of Bnei Akiva Modiin Yeshiva students more than a decade ago.
In the video, student Yaniv Kula, who fell yesterday in battle in Rafah, is seen performing Ehud Banai’s “Yotze La’or”, accompanied by his friend Efraim Zaks on the recorder.
The performance was filmed during the yeshiva students’ visit to the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, where the two performed the song softly and emotionally before their classmates.
Yesterday morning, Kula, a company commander in the 932nd Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, was killed alongside his comrade Itay Yavetz, both residents of Modiin, in a fierce incident in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.
His father, Oren Kula, eulogized him at his funeral held today on Mount Herzl, saying: “The thoroughness with which you did everything was your guiding light. The music and the pictures with the guitar and keyboard that remain behind-only memories of your playing. Shabbat afternoons will never be the same without your riddles. Our child, rest in peace, watch over us from above.”
Kula was the sixth graduate of Bnei Akiva Modiin Yeshiva to fall in battle since the beginning of the war.
The head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Shmuel Rosenblum, said last night: “Yaniv was a serious person and a leader from a young age, always looking for ways to contribute and do meaningful things. He was deeply connected to the Torah world and to the path of religious Zionism, which led him to study at the yeshiva in Hispin and later to serve in Duvdevan and as an officer in the Nahal Brigade.”
He added, “Yaniv is the sixth graduate of our yeshiva to fall in the battle for the defense of the homeland and the nation. The pain is immense, but we are certain that the deaths of our dear graduates were not in vain – they are part of the rebirth of our people and our land.”