GUEST COLUMNIST: Requiem for a childhood friend

I grew up surrounded by a common belief that everyone in Israel knows everyone else. It's such a small country, the reasoning went, that any large event was sure to involve the children, parents, spouses or friends of someone you knew. That always struck me as one of the most beautiful things about the country -- the reason many people's first visits to Israel felt like a trip home. I never really gave much thought to the flip side of the coin -- that if any celebration or victory seemed likely to involve people you knew, so did any tragedy. Which is why news of last week's helicopter collision over northern Israel, claiming the lives of 73 soldiers, hit me so hard. I scanned the endless lists of names of dead soldiers -- most of whom were younger than me -- fearing the inevitable. I soon found it. One of the victims was listed as "Gil Sharabi, 20, from Rechovot." It was a name from my past, but it was one I recognized. I had known a Gil Sharabi growing up in Chicago, a boy my age whose Israeli parents taught Hebrew and other subjects at my grade school. The Sharabis were gifted, kind teachers who instilled the same values and ethics to their children as they had conveyed to us. Gil was a tall, athletic boy, with an infectious smile that seemed ever-present on his face. He was quick to learn English, and seemed to have little difficulty adjusting to life in the United States. Years passed, and the family moved back to Israel, where Gil's father served as a principal in a religious school, while his mother continued to teach. I had always intended to keep in touch with the family, always told myself I'd look them up during a trip to Israel. But I never did. And the years passed. Fast-forward to last week. I'm sitting at my computer when I hear news of the crash. A short time later, the names are released. "Gil Sharabi, 20, from Rechovot." Then my phone rings, with my mother asking me if it could possibly be the same Gil she remembered from school. I spent the next two days on the phone, calling the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the consulate in New York for any information about the crash. They listened politely, but refused to disclose anything about the families of the victims. They explained there were simply too many people calling for verification that it was their nephew or friend or classmate whose name had been heard on the news. Friday. After Sabbath services, a friend from Chicago said he had something to show me. He had purchased a copy of an Israeli newspaper, which under the caption, "The sons who will not return," printed photographs of the 73 dead soldiers. He asked me if I remembered Mrs. Sharabi, our third-grade teacher. He pointed to the headshot, and my fears were confirmed -- "Gil Sharabi, 20, from Rechovot" was the same Gil Sharabi I remembered from home. The next day, another friend from Chicago e-mails the news of Gil's death. She suggests that we do something, however small, in his honor: dedicate learning part of the Torah in his memory, raise money to send to his father's school in Israel, send our condolences to his family. I agreed to do whatever I could, but the gestures seemed meaningless and empty. Inside, I criticize myself. I have been to Israel so many times, I tell myself. All I had to do was pick up the phone. There was a Gil Sharabi I never got a chance to know -- one who grew to love his country, eventually having to pay the ultimate price for its defense. There was a family I loved and respected that I had forgotten. And all I have left of him are old memories. It is true, I suppose, that everyone in Israel knows each other. You could see it on the news, or in the papers. You could see it in the way total strangers cried at the funerals of soldiers they had never met. You could see it when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- himself no stranger to death -- broke down in tears at one of the soldier's funerals. And you could see it in the way that thousands of miles away from Israel, the remnants of Mrs. Sharabi's third grade class gathered to mourn her son.

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