Two months after his parents and two sisters were brutally murdered in their home by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre at Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Ariel Zohar celebrated his bar mitzvah this past Thursday.
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The tefillin (phylacteries used for Jewish rituals) that the young bar mitzvah boy placed around his arm and on his forehead was given to him by his Holocaust-survivor grandfather, who got it from his late father. Despite the charred home, it stayed intact and was rescued by first responders despite the danger, becoming a heartbreaking memory of the tragedy that befell the family.
Ariel, who turned 13 about three weeks after the massacre, is the son of Israel Hayom videographer Yaniv Zohar and his wife Yasmin, both of whom were murdered in the early hours of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on southern towns by Hamas, which culminated in some 1200 Israeli residents murdered. This was the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history. Along with Yaniv and Yasmin, their two daughters Keshet and Tchelet were also murdered. Ariel had just left for a job when the attack began, and found shelter at a different home.
Video: Yaniv Zohar celebrates his Bar Mitzvah / Usage under Section 27a of the Israeli intellectual property law
One of the important guests at Thursday's bar mitzvah was former Chief Rabbi Israel Meir Lau. Lau, a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel with his older brother Naftali after their entire family was murdered by the Nazis, said to him in front of the audience: "When my bar mitzvah party came around, my father had also been murdered, and my mother had been murdered, and I, like you, was already without parents."
On an optimistic note, the rabbi added: "And yet I had a good life and achieved much. And you too will achieve, and you too will have a good life, because you see how many good people love you."
Ariel, who officially turned 13 just weeks after the massacre, luckily managed to have the tefillin saved thanks to the ZAKA haredi forensics volunteer organization on that same day.
Motti Buktzin, the organization's spokesman, told Israel Hayom the following: "We went into Nahal Oz escorted by special forces and under heavy fire. As we moved toward the house, an antitank missile was fired at us. The army returned fire to the source, but ultimately the unbelievable happened – we managed to extricate the tefillin intact, under fire.
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