Three years after reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were kidnapped in the cross border raid that sparked the Second Lebanon War, the Nahariya hesder yeshiva has decided to honor them with a Torah scroll written in the soldiers' memory.
The yeshiva decided to dedicate the scroll after discussing the matter with relatives of the fallen soldiers. Yeshiva staff explained that students were affected by the Second Lebanon War, in particular due to the yeshiva's location in the city, which suffered rocket attacks during the war. Students who were not called into army service during the war remained in Nahariya to assist residents who stayed in the city despite Hizbullah's attacks.
The Regev and Goldwasser families expressed satisfaction with the project. "Writing a Torah scroll gives us the feeling that we've reached another stage in strengthening the unity among the Jewish people,” said Miki Goldwasser, mother of Ehud. “The Torah is what holds together the segments of the Jewish people, in Israel and around the world.”
Miki Goldwasser recalled the many months in which she and other relatives fought to raise awareness of Goldwasser and Regev's plight and to secure information regarding their captured loved ones. “We merited to meet many people, in Israel and abroad, who gathered to help us bring the soldiers home,” she said.
The Torah scroll project “is very important to us, and gives me and my family the feeling that we are part of an important mitzva,” said Tzvi Regev, Eldad's father.
Regev and Goldwasser's bodies were returned to Israel in 2008 in a prisoner exchange deal that included the release of notorious Lebanese murderer Samir Kuntar.
The yeshiva plans to complete the Torah scroll within the next year, and to begin using it in the summer of 2010, exactly four years after Regev and Goldwasser fell in battle. The scroll will be used in the yeshiva's prayer hall.