Daniel Colthof stood next to the bereaved father and couldn't stop the tears. Four days after October 7, hundreds of people stood, huddled together in the small cemetery of Kibbutz Kfar Etzion, as they escorted the body of Roey Weiser, a combat soldier in the IDF's renowned Golani infantry brigade, who fell in the battle to defend the IDF post of Nahal Oz on the Gaza Border. I stood by Weiser's friend, who had come directly from hospital, still wearing multiple bandages and dressings on his arm and head. I watched the bereaved father as he parted from his son, and next to him stood Daniel, the IDF cantor, his eyes brimming with tears as he ran from one funeral to the next.
Seven months have elapsed since that moment, but as far as Daniel is concerned – those terrible days have not yet really come to an end. This time, we meet on the tenth floor of a luxury office building in Ramat Gan, near Tel-Aviv, at the law offices where is he a partner. His dress uniform remains neatly folded in the trunk of his car, ready for the moment when he receives his next order to go out once again to yet another funeral.
"On October 8, I conducted my first full funeral service," he tells me. "It was the funeral service of the commander of the Nahal (infantry) Brigade, Colonel Yonatan Steinberg OBM, at the Mount Herzl military cemetery in Jerusalem. The funeral took place at the second grave in a freshly opened plot. Since then, the entire plot has been filled. On that day I led three funeral services. Since then, I have taken part in dozens."
Of all the military professions, cantors are hardly ever the subject of discussion. Neither do we hear much about their incessant activity during those dark days at the beginning of the war, the considerable psychological challenge that their work involves – running from one funeral to the another, taking in the grim harshness of death and bereavement in all its severity while trying to reach out to the bereaved families and help them – the reason being that this is the first time in the history of the state that there has been a genuine lack of casualty notification/assistance officers in order to carry out their duties fully and properly. Thus, the cantors, whose routine job description in peacetime and at war is confined to conduct the funeral service, before they knew it, had become the IDF representatives facing the families.
Daniel Colthof (38 years old) grew up in the mainly ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof in Jerusalem ("Yanki Deri, the son of MK Aryeh Deri, the head of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, Shas, is my age and we used to hang out together quite a lot") and was educated in a family that straddles the line between the ultra-Orthodox 'Haredi' world and that of the 'Haredi Leumi'. He currently resides with his wife and four children in the city of Petach Tiqwa in central Israel.
He began his military service after meeting the current Chief Military Cantor, Shai Abramson, at the Tel Aviv Cantorial Institute, the school of cantor studies, and then became his right-hand man in the IDF's Military Rabbinate Corps, at first as part of regular service and now as a reservist. During IDF Operation Protective Edge in 2014, he led a number of funerals, but this involved only the ceremonial aspect of the event rather than actually accompanying the families themselves, as has been the case in the current war.
Just like all the other residents of central Israel, on that Black Shabbat in October, Colthof woke up to the sound of sirens. As an observant Jew, he did not turn on his phone and went to his synagogue that is located in the nearby Hasharon Hospital. "This was an absolutely outlandish experience. Hasharon is a very small hospital and so essentially, everything was carrying on as normal, but we could constantly see the numbers appearing on the adjacent televisions and what was going on. On the following morning, for the first time, he entered the IDF's Shura Camp where the bodies of those murdered were taken. "I was taken aback by the view of trucks, filled with corpses, entering the camp. It was totally chaotic."
80 funerals a day
He would end up conducting the first funeral of the war on that very evening, the funeral of the Nahal Brigade commander, and this was to be followed by a non-stop stream of more and more. The military unit responsible for arranging and conducting funerals comprises 60-70 soldiers. Usually, two unit members attend each funeral – a 'hazan' or cantor and a gravedigger, while up to five members might be sent to a larger funeral.
"At the briefing prior to leaving, they talked to me about how to minister to the family, and I failed to understand why, as this is not something that we usually deal with. It's not in our remit. The commanders replied that those who are usually responsible for this type of work are too busy dealing with identifying those murdered and attending to the entire array of needs of the bereaved families, so we were now charged with this task.
"In the past, we had been prepared to deal with severe scenarios, but that had involved no more than 30 casualties, not hundreds as was now the case. I don't think that anybody had anticipated such inflated numbers. In retrospect, I can safely say that the Military Rabbinate took charge of this event and took care of everything in a very accomplished manner. On no occasion did we receive a request to conduct a funeral and there was nobody to do it."
On a number of occasions, the funerals were held in the Gaza border communities under rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. "During the second week of the war, we traveled to one of the Gaza border communities wearing helmets and bulletproof vests. This area had now become a veritable ghost town, with a whole battalion to secure the perimeter, us and the family of the dead. On one of the days that we traveled there, immediately afterwards there was a security incident on the road.
"With all due respect, we are not the story here. There are bereaved families whose lives have been turned upside down, IDF wounded whose lives will never be the same again. Okay, so we attended many funerals, it was very difficult, but this really pales into insignificance in comparison," stresses Daniel.
Performing kri'a on a nine-year old
The funerals that he attended were emotionally demanding, some of them lasted for several hours with thousands of people turning up. Daniel was required to attempt to conduct a military ceremony while everybody around him was basically falling apart. So, then he made the decision – he was not going to remain cold and distant.
"A funeral involves a number of technical matters – where the people need to go, how to get there, who delivers a eulogy, when do we say the 'El Malei Rahamim' memorial prayer, a very clear and precise check list. But in no time at all you are hurled into the midst of the painful world of grief and bereavement, and right from the word go I decided that I would not keep my emotions balled up in the pit of my stomach. Whenever and wherever crying is called for, I cry. At every funeral and every goodbye. It is simply uncontrollable. It is just not possible to remain cold and aloof in the midst of such a heart-wrenching event."
"There were occasions on which it genuinely was extremely difficult. I have to call on the next speaker, but I am enveloped in tears and cannot stop crying. I have developed a knack of identifying the tone of speech of those delivering the eulogies, so that I can tell when the speaker is about to wrap up and that is the point at which I really have no choice but to pull myself together. You cannot invite the next speaker or recite the 'El Malei Rahamim' prayer while you are breaking down crying, although this too has happened on occasions."
Daniel recounts that he has succeeded in his highly challenging task, of crying together with the families during the eulogies and then being able to continue to lead the funeral ceremony, but having said that, the inherent difficulty in all of this comes back and overwhelms him afterwards. "After the funerals, I would go back to my car and just fall apart. I was lucky that I would travel to them with members of my team who helped me on the way back to the base to clear my head, to share the immensely difficult and traumatic experiences that we had undergone with somebody who was able to empathize, having experienced similar difficulties. In addition, the unit's psychological support staff have also helped tremendously."
The most agonizing funerals have been those of soldiers who were fathers or had small brothers or sisters. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to perform kri'a (the ritual rending of a mourner's garments immediately prior to the funeral service) on a nine-year-old boy? It is excruciatingly difficult. Listening to eulogies delivered by innocent children is just as hard. There was one boy who said a few words and then asked to recite a psalm dealing with Techiyat HaMetim, the resurrection of the dead. I cried out together with all those present at the graveside."
"A few days beforehand, I led a funeral service for a soldier who had been engaged, and his fiancée delivered an extremely charged and powerful eulogy. Suddenly, there and then, when she uttered the words from the well-known Friday prayer we say to welcome in the Shabbat, 'Lecha Dodi Likrat Kala' (Let us go, my beloved, to greet the bride), I could no longer retain my appearance, the flood gates opened and I began to cry. Fortunately, those attending the funeral were busy singing and did not notice this, and it was only my brother who caught sight of what was happening to me and he helped me to regain my composure. Somehow I managed to pull myself together and I continued with the prayer."
Q: Did you have any concern that you might become desensitized as a result of having to attend so many funerals?
"The truth is, yes, I did. I was concerned that over the course of time the funerals would develop into a matter of routine. Luckily, however has not been the case. I do want to be touched by this. There were soldiers here who went out to protect me, us, and were killed. As far as I am concerned, that connection between us is critical."
Q: To what extent might that mental state have an impact on you in the future?
"I grew up on stories of people who suffered deep mental scars from the experiences they underwent during the Yom Kippur War. This time there should not be any such cases as the army as a whole and the Military Rabbinate in particular will be able to provide us with the necessary care and treatment in real time.
"I wish to salute my friends and colleagues who have gone through this harrowing period together with me, and I hope and pray that the fact that we are talking about it testifies to the fact that we will be able to learn from it down the road, that we will not find ourselves in a similar position ever again."
We were called to duty
This campaign has not yet really come to an end for Daniel. Although he has finished that long stint of reserve duty and has returned to a full working routine at his law office, he might be called up again at any moment.
"Since January, we have been called up as needs be. They divided us up into companies, and each company is then on standby for a given week. There was once case where I was in the office, I had just begun to work and one minute later I received the phone call. I am grateful that our office has really embraced the reservists and have provided much help and assistance. We never know when we will be called up again.
"Unfortunately, we were called to duty, but we were able to perform our tasks in the best manner possible. I have heard stories about what occurred during the Yom Kippur War and I just couldn't believe it. And then, all of a sudden, we too shared the same experience, we saw precisely how it all unfolded.
I think that despite all the chaos, we did succeed in putting things in order and enabling the families to part from their beloved ones. I really hope that we have succeeded."
