Bereaved mother Tzipi Yudkin, mother of Captain Israel Yudkin, who fell in the Gaza Strip more than a month ago, was a guest in the Channel 14 studio and spoke painfully about the suffering the family is going through because the IDF refuses to allow the Hebrew abbreviation Hy”d, meaning :'may God avenge his blood" to be engraved on his tombstone.
"Because we are from Kfar Chabad, I immediately told the IDF that we want the burial and everything else according to our traditions. They told us, 'We will do and give you everything.' I trusted them completely. We decided to bury him in Jerusalem, the Holy City, because he fell as a holy person. My husband even wanted to bury him on the Mount of Olives, but this was too difficult for me, and the army representatives suggested Mount Herzl, so we decided to bury him there," she said.
Then they started discussions which led to the situation where Yudkin’s tombstone has been placed on his grave without any inscription. "The IDF did not know what the Ministry of Defense required and as a haredi mother, I had demands of my own. I didn't want the Gregorian date on the stone, but only the Jewish date. They agreed to that. Then I asked that the abbreviation Hy”d -May God avenge his blood" - be engraved on his tombstone. This is not some kind of new concept. It is inscribed not only in Israel, but on Jewish graves all over the world. Only the Jewish state forbids inscribing the acronym Hy”d on the gravestone of a Jewish soldier. It is incomprehensible.”
Tzipi Yudkin emotionally spoke about the possibility that due to the dispute, the family might be forced to move their son's grave to another cemetery. "This is a feasible option and it is hard to even say this, but it would be a real tragedy for the country if we had to remove him from Mount Herzl and take him to another holy place where we can engrave “May God avenge his blood” on his tombstone. That would be the end of the State of Israel. For this they will have to burn tires in the streets."
"To take this tzaddik (holy person) out of his grave, to have another funeral, to sit the required shiva period again, tell me, does that make sense to you? I'm not in Europe, or the US. I am living in the Jewish state in the Land of Israel. I gave my most precious possession and I can't even think about it. It will put an end to my life and if that’s what the state wants, so let it be," she concluded in tears.