Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, murdered in the presence of his wife and child, courageously ran to fight the Palestinian terrorist despite having no weapon at hand.
More than a thousand people attended the early-morning funeral on Friday in Jerusalem for the latest victim of Palestinian terror.
Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, a combat soldier in the IDF and married father of a four-month-old girl, was stabbed to death at a supermarket in the Binyamin region just north of Jerusalem late Thursday afternoon. The brutal attack took place in the presence of his wife and child.
Details about his heroism were revealed in eulogies at the funeral at Mount Herzl cemetery in Jerusalem.
On leave of duty and without his weapon, Weissman nonetheless ran to help fight off the terrorist.
He had attended a pre-military academy in Kfar Eldad, south of Jerusalem, before joining the IDF. Rabbi Shmuel Natanzon, head of the academy, said Weissman was a natural leader with a “giant, contagious smile,” Times of Israel reported.
Natanzon, the Times continued, said in his eulogy: “How much light you gave! You were considering going to a commander’s course or staying in your combat deployment. You knew you had it in you to be an example and a symbol. You couldn’t stand on the sidelines.”
“We had many debates until the small hours of the night because you were a man of truth,” the rabbi said, according to Arutz Sheva. “How proud you were of your wife Yael, of [daughter] Neta, how many pictures you sent us of you and the children,” he added.
“Yael told me yesterday that you were in a different aisle, you heard the shouts, she bent over Neta (to protect her) and you disappeared. You couldn’t hear shouts and just stand there, that’s how you were, you didn’t have a weapon…you fought with your hands, with your body, with your whole heart,” Natanzon said.
Weissman’s father recalled, “You loved your daughter Neta so much. You took her to see the flowers in the Negev a day before you were murdered. No hatred and no enemy will end that (love),” the Arutz Sheva report said.
Weissman’s young widow cried, “You were always full of endless giving. If you hadn’t run there (to stop the terrorists) you wouldn’t be the Yanai that I know and fell in love with. If only you could have been with Neta more, how many dreams we had,” Arutz Sheva continued.
“Yanai, you are a true hero of all the nation of Israel,” she stated. “You knew that you had no weapon and nevertheless you ran. I want to thank you, I merited to learn from a talented and special man. Thank you for our Neta.”
Weissman is survived by his wife and daughter, parents and three brothers.
The Youtube video (below) of his wedding went viral several hours after the tragedy occurred.
By: United with Israel Staff