Approximately 1,000 friends, family members, and others attended the funeral of Efraim Yaakov Bauer and his 6-year-old son Yosef, who were killed on Sunday in a severe collision in Samaria.
The two were laid to rest at around midnight in the first graves to be dug in the cemetery at the community of Evyatar in Samaria, where Efraim was among its founders and worked to settle the site and the Land of Israel in general.
Yitzchak Bauer eulogized his son and grandson and alluded to the binding of Isaac: "Yosef the righteous, what a righteous kid, so much holiness, literally the face of an angel. 'And the two went together,' Yitzchak (Isaac) bound his son and his grandson. Master of the Universe, I don't understand, why didn't you send an angel to stop it this time?
Today, we again make a covenant with our holy land. Just as Abraham acquired the land forever, we are acquiring the land forever by digging our loved ones' graves."
Zelig Glickman, Efraim's father-in-law, and Yosef's grandfather, eulogized: "He could teach those who are getting married how the husband should treat his wife. We were amazed by how he would always make sure to wake up to pray at sunrise. Every spare moment he had, he would take a holy book and learn."
The head of the Homesh Yeshiva, Rabbi Elishama Hacohen, lamented: "Today we lost weapons, such precise weapons, with true intentions. Our righteous Effi, cute Yosef, you weren't in uniform, and you didn't fall on the battlefield, but heroes, righteous and holy such as you, you could compare? True soldiers of the Land of Israel."
Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf eulogized: "The Book of Jeremiah says that Efraim wanders. He goes from one place to the other in the Land of Israel. Anywhere he was needed, he was there."
Maayan, Yosef's kindergarten teacher, said: "You always acted kindly to your friends, you laid low with an inner beauty, you were always one of the best. Yosef, thanks that we got to know a few yet significant days."
Shoshana, Efraim's widow, and Yosef's mother, lamented: "G-d took for himself the holiest souls. I call on from here on the Israeli government and the Israeli people to come and rebuild the Land of Israel, in the Gaza Strip, in the towns of Lebanon, on the east bank of the Jordan, and in the Sinai."