When three IDF soldiers knocked on Miriam Bennathan’s door just before 10 p.m. on a day in early March, she knew what it meant, but couldn’t make sense of it. Her brother Yisrael Suissa was a paratrooper, and had served over 100 days in Gaza, but he was on leave at the time. It didn’t make sense to her that IDF officers were knocking on her door.
The officers were there to tell her that Suissa had been killed earlier that day in a road accident.
Bennathan had to ask the people at the door who they were multiple times, before she could bring herself to let them in. “In my head I was like what if they are in costume? I literally just didn’t want to believe it. I started making things up in my head [so I wouldn’t have to] believe it,” she said. “Don’t tell me he’s not alive, he’s not in the army,” she said to the officers when she eventually let them in.
Suissa became a lone soldier part way through his IDF service when his parents and younger siblings moved back to Montreal, while he and a few of his older siblings stayed in the country. He was a driven young man who had worked hard to earn his spot in the elite Paratroopers reconnaissance unit.
“When he had something in mind, he would do it till the end,” said Bennathan, explaining that Suissa had trained hard and joined special programs to help him get into his unit.
Bennathan described her brother as fearless and selfless. “During the war, all of his commanders told us how he was always first to go when there was a dangerous situation and they needed someone to come in first. Yisrael would always jump up to volunteer,” she said.
He was also a positive influence on his team and on his family, she said. He was “always with a smile on his face and good energy wherever he was. His commander said that whenever he needed to count on someone to lift [his unit’s] spirits,” he could always count on Suissa.
“When he would come in [to family gatherings] it was automatically a positive mood, [he was] funny, making jokes,” she remembered.
More is possible
“His favorite saying in the army was ‘efshar od (more is possible).’” She recalled a video in which his army friend told him he won first place in a competition, and Yisrael responded “efshar od.”
His family worried about Suissa, who fought in Gaza for incredibly long stretches of time. “We had this group, and we would do as much as possible to keep him safe spiritually,” she said, saying they said Tehillim (psalms) and did Hafrashat Challa (separating challa).
The week Suissa was killed he was on leave from the army and the family finally relaxed a little. When he was killed “it was a big, big shock, because when he was in Gaza, we almost knew it could happen, but when he’s off base? we were finally breathing.”
Suissa had bought a motorcycle on leave, which was dropped off at his home the morning he was killed. He crashed near his house on what his sister believes was his first ride and was killed on impact.
The family was shocked to learn that Suissa had a motorcycle, and his sister said that such a purchase was uncharacteristic of him. The day before he left base for leave, Suissa spoke to his brother saying he felt the need to do something liberating and crazy. His sister thinks that such a long time in Gaza was weighing on him, and that switching from the adrenaline of the war to the calm of home was a difficult transition.
Now, Suissa’s family is fundraising to memorialize him. For Suissa’s mother “one of the hardest parts is that she wants Yisrael to continue to live,” said Bennathan.
“She was heartbroken. She said she wants something to be done [in his memory] every day.”
Suissa lived at a home for 87 lone combat soldiers, which was founded in memory of Major Benji Hillman, who fell in battle in the Second Lebanon War. Visiting his home, shaped how Suissa’s mother wanted to preserve his legacy.
“When she came to HaBayit shel Benji, she was like ‘wow every day we are saying HaBayit shel Benji, it’s in honor of a soldier and [through the house] he is living,’” explained Bennathan.
“She said ‘I want to do something like that for Yisrael too.’” The family is fundraising to found a center for young people for a Chabad house in Kiryat Shmuel and to buy them a Torah scroll for the services that occur there daily, so that through activity in the center, Yisrael will live on.
For more details about the fundraiser, visit the fundraising website: https://www.charidy.com/chupah/36258