Lag BaOmer 5781: From joy to sadness | Opinion sun-sentinel.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sun-sentinel.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Moshe Natan Neta Englander, 14, and Yehoshua Englander, 9, were from Jerusalem. (courtesy)
At least a dozen children and teens younger than 18 were among 45 people killed in a stampede at a Lag B’Omer festival in northern Israel, according to a partial list of names published Saturday as the identification of victims in Israel’s deadliest civilian disaster continued.
Four Americans, a Canadian and a man from Argentina were also among those killed. Two families each lost two children. The youngest victim, Yehoshua Englander, was nine years old. His brother, Moshe Natan Neta Englander, 14, was also killed.
The other underage victims are: brothers Moshe Mordechai Elhadad, 12, and Yosef David Elhadad, 18; Yedidia Hayut, 13; Eliyahu Cohen, 16; Moshe Levy, 14; Yosef Yehuda Levy, 17; Nahman Kirshbaum, 15; Yishai Mualem, 17; Yosef Mastorov, 18; Eliezer Yitzchak Koltai, 13.
45, 45, 45. 45.
Meron. A place of mysticism, of leaping flames, mass crowds, music and prayer. Lag BaOmer, a day to commemorate Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s legacy, by coming to his kever. A day where even the skeptics among us pay homage to the mystical and celebrate the light of the Torah.
If you would have asked me before Friday morning what images I associated with Mount Meron, I would have described to you what I had seen in the official Meron livestream I watched on Thursday night. A sea of swaying figures in black, singing and dancing with joyous fervor, highlighted against the glow of the bonfires. A scene both fascinating and foreign to me.