Terror Victim: A Beloved American-Israeli Visiting for Wedding

Elan Ganeles served in the IDF and had returned to Israel for a wedding.

By Pesach Benson, TPS

The victim killed in Monday night’s terror attack was identified as Elan Ganeles, an American-Israeli citizen originally from Connecticut.

The 27-year-old Ganeles was killed when Palestinians in a car opened fire on cars at the Beit HaArava Junction on Route 90 near Jericho. Ganeles was evacuated to the Hadassah-Mt. Scopus Medical Center in Jerusalem where he was declared dead shortly after arriving.

The terrorists fled in the direction of the Aqbat Jabr Refugee Camp near Jericho. Along the way, they abandoned and burnt their car, escaping in another vehicle. They encountered police officers who fired on them. One of the terrorists was apparently wounded before getting away. The manhunt for the killers continues.

Ganeles grew up in West Hartford, Conn., where his family attended the local Orthodox Young Israel synagogue. He came to Israel in 2014, enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces, then lived on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a religious kibbutz located in northern Israel near Beit Shean. Ganeles went on to work as a computer programmer at the Finance Ministry.

He returned to the US in 2018 to enroll at Columbia University, where he studied sustainable science and neuroscience, graduating in 2022. According to his LinkedIn profile, Ganeles was currently working part-time for the university’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network as a spatial analyst.

Ganeles had returned to Israel for a wedding.

Jerusalem rabbi Shimshon Nadel, who lived in West Hartford and knew the Ganeles family, eulogized Elan in a Facebook post.

“Elan HY”D was a member of our [community] when we lived in Connecticut,” the rabbi wrote, using a Hebrew acronym that refers to a murder victim.

“I remember him as a sweet boy with a great sense of humor. He played the saxophone and we would ‘jam’ together in the Shul’s Sukkah, during Hallel on Chanukah, and musical Havdalahs. Heartbreaking,” Rabbi Nadel wrote.

Ganeles will be buried in Israel.

He is survived by his parents and two brothers.

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