"Loved to help and contribute" • Yeshiva friends eulogized

Permitted for publication: This afternoon, at about 14:00 a rocket exploded and hit a building in the Eshkol region. As a result, Corporal Yosef Nachman Partok hy"d aged 18 from Emanuel was killed. Three other soldiers were wounded.

Yosef Nachman was educated in Orthodox educational institutions, and as a teenager left the Yeshiva in Jerusalem.

A witness said that the fall occurred while the soldier was in an open area outside the protected space. The settlement does not receive mortar fire warning.

The father of Yosef Nachman received the message in the afternoon, his mother who was out of town received the message only in the last hour. Family associates said: "They are in great shock, it is difficult to digest the loss, and he just wanted to contribute to the country."

His friends from Yeshivat 'Ahavat Moshe' in Jerusalem who heard the terrible news recalled his special personality: "He was a boy who always liked to lead all the friends around him, he was always attentive and wanted to help everyone," they said.

Tzemach, a friend who learned with him in yeshiva told B'Chadrei Charedim: "Ever since I heard about this news, I cannot concentrate, I cannot digest. I talked to him for the last time four months ago, this is a boy who never stopped smiling, he was always happy. He always wanted to contribute and talked with friends about his dream to join the IDF and contribute as much as he can for the good of Israel."

At one point, Partok left the yeshiva and became a full-fledged soldier. He recently expressed his desire to enter the Gaza Strip. His Facebook page wrote, "Either you let us enter or we return home. We are fed up of waiting." In another status he wrote: "Too bad for the first terrorist who falls into my hands."

On November 11, he wrote with no special explanation, "I want to die." Today, he was killed by a mortar shell in the Eshkol region.

The funeral will be held tomorrow at noon in Emanuel. The family demanded a regular funeral, and not a military funeral.

'בחדרי' גם ברשתות החברתיות - הצטרפו!