In Israel, the Day of Remembrance for the fallen soldiers and the victims of hostilities on May, is a solemn memorial day with national ceremonies. This year (2022), the lighting of the memorial candle in the Western Wall Plaza is participated by President Yitzhak Herzog, Chief of Staff Major General Aviv Kochavi, bereaved families and other dignitaries.
In the speech given by the President Herzog, he told the story of four fallen officers who all share the same name – Ehud, it’s a chilling chain of generations who serve and fall for the defense of the country.
The 1st Ehud
Ehud Shahar, son of Aliza and Aharon, was a scion of the founders of Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley. In 1954, when Ehud enlisted in the IDF, he wrote to his parents: “We are becoming good soldiers of the homeland, we will try to protect it to the best of our ability.” In February 1955, during the “Black Arrow” operation to eradicate the terrorism nests in Gaza, Ehud was shot and killed, along with seven of his friends.
One of the survivors from Marhavia, a good friend to Ehud – Ilan Burnovsky, carried Ehud’s dead body on his back, running from the battlefield, bringing him back to the country to eternal rest.
Ehud’s mother had to break the heartbreaking news to her daughter – Michal: “My daughter, we no longer have a brother”.
Three pairs of parents chose to name their child in the memory of Ehud Shachar: Ehud Stock, Ehud Fleck and Ehud Burnovsky.
The 2nd Ehud
Shortly after, Adina, Ehud Shahar’s cousin, and her husband Simcha, had a son – Ehud Fleck.
Captain Ehud Fleck, who was a pilot in the Air Force, was killed along with Lt. Col. Ram Kohler during an air combat exercise, over the Judean Desert in the summer of 1988.
“He was always more than everyone else,” his friends wrote about him after he fell, “the most beautiful, the smartest, The most heroic.” He was buried in the lands of Merhavia, next to Ehud Shahar, after whom he was named.
The 3rd Ehud
Remember the friend that carried the 1st Ehud’s body back to the homeland? His name is Ilan Burnovsky. Iland and his wife Deganit also named their son after Ehud. Ehud Burnovsky, who volunteered for the naval commandos, was killed in parachute training on a cold and stormy night In December 1986.
When his father Ilan – who buried his friend Ehud and now buried his son Ehud – met young soldiers, he tells them: “We don’t have another country… Do your best to protect the country.”
The 4th Ehud
The last Ehud – Ehud Stok, is the last in the chain but first to being born. The son of Ruth Vasa, who was born in the middle of the 1930s after the fall of Ehud Shahar.
Ehud Stok, who later changed his family name to Sadan, was the security officer at the Israeli embassy in Turkey, when a Palestinian terrorist organization planted a bomb in his car. He was killed in March 1992, two weeks before his thirty-seventh birthday.
