Thought for the Day
25 September 2002
The Rev. Joel Edwards

Two days ago a colleague wandered into my office with a press statement he was keen to release.

He'd been watching the latest developments in the Middle East as Israeli bulldozers clawed away Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. My colleague was particularly agitated because, he said, such graphic scenes could easily leave young people with the impression that raw aggression was the inevitable solution to our complex political situations.

The point wasn't lost on me. Like most of us I feel I am being quietly groomed for the possibility of escalating war in Iraq with consequences none of us can fully predict.

In recent months our waiting planet has become traumatised by the news it has created. We're on the lookout for news of war, and rumours of war. Over the weekend my attention was so focused on that document and the debate it would provoke that I failed to see the news.

It was news about a 19 year old Israeli man and a seven year old Palestinian girl.

Yoni Jesner, a student lawyer from Glasgow was one of 5 Israeli's killed when a Palestinian bomber self-destructed on a Tel Aviv bus, a week ago. But then last Friday, 10 miles away from the place where Israeli tanks and mechanical diggers rumbled in to retaliate, Yoni's elder brother – still in grief at his brother's funeral – spoke of the family's willingness to donate his kidneys to little Asmin Abu Ramila.

“The most important thing was we could save another person’s life. The donation,” said Mr. Jesner ”was unconditional.”

There can be no superficial responses to the seeming deadlock in the West Bank. And whatever we make of the long awaited dossier, most of us will agree that Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man who deserves the United Nation's keen attention.

But the story of Yoni's family must be allowed to become a part of the political and diplomatic landscape in the tough realities of the Jewish-Israeli conflict.

This story is no threat to justice.

It is in effect an involuntary protest against the senseless circularity of retaliation and the politics of retribution played out in Israel and so many other parts of the world.

We’ve heard much about protecting 'our way of life'. But if we are truly committed to good values on the planet and a way of life of which we can be proud, the Jesner’s example has an awful lot to say to us. Amongst the dust and debris of the Tel Aviv atrocity, a human story of redemption has emerged.

It is news we ignore at our peril.

What happens when the light goes out?
Marsha Gladstone, Yoni's mother
Edinburgh Star

To express my thoughts about the devastating loss of our precious Yoni is a task I am as yet unable to address. My feelings defy the limit and boundary of words; and yet words are all we have, and so I hope you will forgive me if I turn instead to the words of a very special young friend of Yoni’s (a girl of 15) whose eloquence speaks for itself…

What happens when the light goes out?
We stand alone and cry
And wail, and sob, and pray, and try
To turn the lights back on

And there afraid, alone we stand
Till someone comes to hold our hand
And though dark still it is,
Comforted are we by this
But still
The light has not gone on again
Nor ever will.

Yes, it is so true that for us the light will never go on again, but from the moment when that darkness began to descend into our lives, we have indeed been greatly comforted by the loving, caring hand which has been extended to us by the Jewish communities of Glasgow, London and Israel, and which has reached out to us also from the non- Jewish communities around the world. We could never have imagined such a terrible calamity befalling us; but having happened, who could possibly have envisaged such a tidal wave of support?

Already in the first hours after hearing about Yoni’s critical condition, as we rushed to prepare our departure, friends and rabonim gathered silently at home, desperately wanting to do something but knowing that all they could offer was their sympathy. Chief Rabbi Sacks and Lady Jakabovits were only two among countless phonecalls, echoing voices desperately trying to strengthen us with love and prayers.

Emergency passports had to be organised as we had sent ours away only the day before, in order to apply for new driving licences, and as we sped into town to the passport office the phone calls between ourselves and various members of the family continued, trying at one and the same time to relay all the information we had whilst desperately trying to clarify the situation. Soon, however, our worst fears were realised as we managed to contact my brother Michael, Gideon’s father, who had been there with the boys from the earliest moments.

It is impossible to describe our emotional state at this point, upon arrival at the passport office, but the staff did everything possible to help, giving us a private room and promising to cut all corners and process our forms in just a couple of hours and allowing a friend to collect them in our stead. From there we sped to my mother, anxious that she should hear the tragic news only from us in person, and to help prepare her for the journey, and thence home to continue our own preparations.

Soon it would be time to collect our 9-year-old daughter Yael from the bus stop, and although friends offered to go I knew that it was very important to keep everything as normal as possible for her. She had been looking forward to bringing her best friend along to help her choose goldfish and a tank but instead her friend went directly home with her mother whom I had asked to meet us and I took Yael home, explaining on the way that Yoni had been hurt and that we were all going that very evening to Israel. My heart contracted as I saw her eyes light up in excitement at the thought of going to Israel, completely missing the seriousness of the situation. I knew it would not be long before she would understand.

Finally we took an emotional leave of our closest friends and soon found ourselves aboard the plane to Heathrow. How will I ever make this journey? I worried to myself. There was a constant gnawing pain in my solar plexus and all I could do was fold my arms tightly across my stomach, bending forward at the waist. Somehow the hour passed and as we exited the luggage hall a large family group awaited us. My two sons together with their wives, my sister and my nephew would be travelling with us. My three stepchildren and my niece were also there but would follow us the next morning. My daughter and her husband were already on their way from New York to Tel Aviv. The Israeli Consul general had arrived and was at our disposal to help in any way she could. Jonathan Kestenbaum of UJIA also joined us and made arrangements for our arrival in Israel. We were ushered into a private lounge and from there directly on to the plane.

We could not have known that all during our travels friends around the world were gathering to say tehillim. In Glasgow the evening service was moved upstairs into the main shul to accommodate numbers. In London the Chief Rabbi led hundreds in tehillim at the Bnei Akiva Bayit. In Israel, both at Yoni’s yeshiva and by his hospital bed the recitation of tehillim was continuous. As we know, news travels incredibly fast and already the prayers of those in many communities in the US Australia and South Africa were being added to those closer to home.

I do not know how we managed to make that trip, knowing and yet not knowing, not wanting to know what awaited us. It was strange that I felt neither tired nor hungry; all normal thoughts and feelings were suspended.

Upon landing we were met on the tarmac by Sherard Cowper-Cowles, the British Ambassador to Israel, whose kindness and genuine caring I shall never forget, and within too short a time we were approaching the enormous modern structure, topped with a helipad, that is Icholov hospital. Here I was, having travelled such an enormous distance so quickly, only to suddenly feel that I wanted everything to stop, to give me time to come to grips with what was happening. But with no preliminaries we were led upstairs directly to Yoni’s bedside.

We were so glad to have those few hours with him, to hold his hand, to talk and pray. But we knew that this precious time was for our benefit, not his. It was clear to us as we gazed upon his peaceful face that our darling Yoni had already left us. Even he, with all his wonderful strengths, just could not overcome this terrible and final hurdle.

The following day my nephew Gideon, Yoni’s first cousin and closest friend, who had spent the previous morning with him and had been beside him on the bus, shared with us Yoni’s two final acts so that we could feel part of his last hours on this earth:

“We had davened at a shiva house for one of our friends who had lost his father to cancer. When it came to Kriyat Ha Torah, the reading of the Torah, there was nobody to lein. Yoni stepped in and leined Vzot HaBracha flawlessly. I thought this was very symbolic and very fitting, that Yoni read the last Parsha in the Torah on his last day.

Three weeks before Yoni’s death, we were learning together. He was spinning a pen in his hand, and upon realising that it wasn’t his, became very concerned as to whose pen it was. He then remembered that a day earlier he had been in a second hand book shop with his father, and after signing a cheque to pay for the books must have accidentally slipped the five-shekel pen into his pocket. Three weeks later, on the way home from the shiva house, we were walking near the centre of town. Yoni asked me to wait on the street corner for five minutes as he had something he needed to do. He returned five minutes later with a smile on his face; so glad he had returned the pen. He had kept it with him whenever he was in Jerusalem for the last three weeks, and thus on his final morning he fulfilled the mitzvah of Hashavat Aveida, returning lost property to its rightful owner-such was his concern for other people and their property.”

How was it possible that the life of this young boy, so full of energy, and commitment to all that is good, be so cruelly ended?

The doctors and surgeons in the neurosurgical unit treated us with such care, answering our questions patiently and honestly. I remember asking myself if they could possibly treat everyone in the same genuine and kind manner. The pain was obvious in their eyes, reflecting that they genuinely shared our anguish. As a team, they guided us through these darkest hours, explaining thoroughly and respectfully every step of the process that had led to the final pronouncement of Yoni’s death. Together with them we shared the burden of the horrendously difficult decisions about organ donation and they helped us face the prospect of burial.

The narrow hospital corridor was noisy and congested. Friends, yeshiva boys, staff, social workers, health insurance officials, the British ambassador and his wife, all were there to help in any way they could. Downstairs the press was gathering and a representative of UJIA briefed us on the best way to handle them. We could not appreciate at this stage how his excellent advice to appoint one person as the family spokesman would enable us as a large family unit (we would be 24 by the next day) to cope quickly and efficiently with the media onslaught of the coming days and weeks.

Ari, my eldest son, accepted this task unquestioningly. At the funeral it was he who so eloquently voiced our feelings about Yoni as a person and our terrible sense of loss. To this day I do not know how he managed to formulate his thoughts so meaningfully, without sleep, and having given his first major interview together with his younger brother Jared in the hospital lobby just a few hours earlier. Time and time again he faced TV and newspaper reporters, having to answer prepared questions with unprepared replies, repeatedly enduring the stress of appearing live; an open target. I shall forever be grateful to him for being our “front-line man”, shielding us from the eyes of the world.

We could never have imagined that our personal tragedy would become such a public issue. It is a fine and fitting testimony to all that Israel stands for when I say that at no time in our discussions with the staff of the Organ Transplantation Unit were we given a choice about who the recipient should be. The Jewish adage “If you save one life it is as if you have saved an entire world” is exemplified by the intrinsic value attributed to life by the Israeli medical establishment, no matter whose that life is. I know that this is how Yoni would have felt as a doctor, and that he would have toiled endlessly to save any life. He would have been so happy if he could have known that even in death he gave life. What better way is there to bring meaning to death than this?

The media, by its very nature, thrives on sensationalism, and so it will come as no surprise that hardly any coverage was given to the two other recipients whose lives were also saved and who happened to be Jewish.

Ours has been a very public tragedy, and no- one could be blamed for thinking that this lack of privacy would add to our suffering; but strangely enough I have found it tremendously comforting that so many knew Yoni’s story. People were touched by the tragic loss of a life so young and promising, while being uplifted by the ray of hope implicit in the irony of the Palestinian organ recipient. And somehow this tidal wave of feeling and support found its way directly into our hearts and warmed us.

Families, friends, friends of friends, parents of friends, complete strangers, government ministers, staff from the hospital, rabbonim from Yoni’s yeshiva, all came in the suffocating heat to offer comfort to us. The strange thing was that so often, especially with Yoni’s friends from Yeshiva, it was we who comforted them. The rabbis from the yeshiva saw the great difficulty the boys were having and in their usual sensitive manner arranged one evening for Yoni’s entire year to come to our hotel simply to talk about Yoni, to share their memories and thoughts with us. The whole evening was videoed and given to us as a momento which we will always treasure

Meanwhile, in our absence, our family and Yoni’s many friends in Glasgow were suffering, unable to be a close part of what we were going through in Israel. As if to mirror the evening of memories with the yeshiva boys, UJIA together with Bnei Akiva and our dear Rabbi Rubin helped make a beautiful memorial service, a fitting tribute by the youth, for the youth, to one who meant so much to them all.

Those ten days in Israel passed as if in a dream. There is not room here to describe our unforgettable visit to Yoni’s yeshiva, nor our final farewell at the cemetery. These events are poignant memories forever embedded in our hearts, and as we made our journey home we knew that those hearts would always remain broken, and with Yoni, in Israel.

Our grief was shared by so many, and this meant so much to us. We wanted to give all those who wished it, the opportunity to share their feelings with us in person. Rabbi Rubin had arranged a communal memorial service, and we asked him to make it known that we would be available afterwards. We could never have imagined that over nine hundred people would attend. It was another experience that will remain in our memories and hearts for all time. The heartfelt expression of personal loss, so movingly articulated by Rabbi Rubin and Rabbi Weiss during the ceremony, was echoed in the words of comfort offered to us by all those present that evening, and often since.

As the children prepared to return to London, I realised that the community there also needed some way to express their feelings of sorrow and to offer us comfort. With this in mind, my sister who lives in London offered to have an open house, and a few days later I travelled down for the day. Once again we were overwhelmed by the warmth and love which flowed towards us, and we were uplifted by the magnitude and significance attributed to Yoni’s life by all who had known him

I have heard many times that the Jewish people are like one body; if a Jew anywhere in the world is suffering then all Jews feel his pain. Never has this had more meaning for me than over these past few months when Jews from all over the world have clearly demonstrated how greatly they have been affected by Yoni’s death.

During the early days, it was without doubt the exceptional community support that kept us going. As the tributes poured in, the endless words of comfort to us, and praise of Yoni brightened the darkness of our grief. I felt that a light so bright, created by the unique life he had led and the esteem in which so many people held him, surrounded my memory of him.

Our tragedy has indeed been very public, but it has been that very” public” who have been there for us in our grief, who I would like to thank for never holding back, for never being afraid to show how much they care.

Heartbeat - the magazine of Shaare Zedek UK
Winter 2002-2003

After Yoni
Marsha Gladstone, Yoni's mother
Jewish Chronicle, on Yoni's first Yahrzeit

For some peculiar reason I usually don’t react much at all to news of suicide bombings. My heart aches for my people and my homeland, and I fret endlessly over where it will all end but I don’t venture into the realm of the personal. I suppose there is some defence mechanism at work, preventing me from going into instant replay, as the news bulletins flash across the screen, accompanied by scenes of once- familiar streets, rendered unrecognisable by camera lenses at strange angles.

But that all changed unexpectedly as I awoke the morning following the funeral of Dr Appelbaum and his daughter Nava. It was as if I had been catapulted back in time to one year ago, the morning after Yoni’ s funeral. I could feel it all so clearly again. Looking out of the hotel room window, the beauty of Jerusalem tore through me like a knife, bringing home the excruciating reality that Yoni would never again lay his eyes upon this beauty, that he would never again be part of this world. Staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror at home last week the pain in all its intensity returned, and with it the memory of how I had gazed at my reflection in the bathroom mirror on that first morning in Israel, astonished to discover that although my heart was forever broken and my soul would forever yearn for Yoni, my face had not changed one bit.

I have developed the strange habit of thinking in terms of either “before Yoni” or “after Yoni”. Sometimes as I get dressed I realise that the last time I wore a certain outfit Yoni was still alive, or I might suddenly remember that the last time I baked a certain cake, visited a certain place, heard a piece of music or used some utterly insignificant household article, was before Yoni died. It never ceases to amaze me how everything around me remains the same, glaring its silent indifference, while my entire world is so totally changed.

As the first yahrzeit approaches the time is fast disappearing when I can say” Last year at this time”, and mean when Yoni was still with us. It is so hard to let this year go, to let more time come between the “before” and the “after”. I am afraid that with the inevitable passing of the years to come, I will lose this feeling of immediacy and closeness to the loss of Yoni; and yet a part of me knows that I never will.

Life is full of contradictions: Yoni is with me now in a way he could never have been before. His amazing energy and ability to stay focussed have suffused my daily life, prodding me into action when I feel low and lethargic, pulling me back to the task at hand when my attention wanders. It seems to me that Yoni is never very far away, and that he is determined to see that his life’s work shall be carried on. At the Magen David Adom ambulance dedication ceremony in July my nephew Gideon spoke of how Yoni had run his part of the race, and has now passed his baton to those who will continue in his place.

To his family and friends Yoni has therefore handed an immense task. How could we possibly maintain the level of social and communal participation that Yoni achieved? He accomplished more in his 19 years than most of us manage in a lifetime.

The answer for us has been to create the Yoni Jesner Foundation, which reflects Yoni’s multi-faceted personality and extensive involvement through its many diverse projects, all in the area of education. Yoni was passionate about Jewish education. He was never afraid to ask questions and never avoided a philosophical or theological challenge. The Foundation has set up the Yoni Jesner Conversations for the whole community, to be a type of memorial lecture but with a difference. This will involve the Chief Rabbi in open conversation with leading figures from around the world, discussing challenging and relevant Jewish and contemporary issues. The first of these is to be held on 2 November with the visitor’s chair being occupied by Natan Sharansky. How Yoni would have loved to be there.

I am comforted to know that although he is no longer with me, Yoni will have a place in the hearts and minds of all those touched by his Foundation, and this knowledge will help me in my need to bridge the void between the before and the after. It has allowed me to channel my sorrow into something positive and has given me a meaningful way of carrying on without him.