(Times of Israel-JTA) Sam Sokol - Sgt.-1st Class (res.) Amichai Oster, 24, was on vacation in Salt Lake City, Utah, when he heard of the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel and "immediately set out to return home," his mother Marcy recalled at his funeral on Tuesday in Karnei Shomron. His family had moved to Israel from Cleveland when Amichai was 1. Marcy continued, "Recently, when he was home on a two-day leave, I told him that I felt responsible for the fact that he was fighting in a war and he didn't make the decision to come on aliyah, that we made it for him. He thought about it for a moment and replied, 'Mom, what makes you think that if you had never made aliyah that I never would have come here to fight for our country?'" "He was here doing exactly what he wanted to be doing. He died doing what he came home to do."
2024-01-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive