“He was an extremely, extremely kindhearted person and he just loved Israel so much,” a friend of the victim told United with Israel.
By Atara Beck, United with Israel
Eliyahu David Kay, a 26-year-old new immigrant from South Africa, was murdered in a terror attack in the Old City of Jerusalem on Sunday morning.
Employed by the Western Wall Heritage Foundation as a tour guide in the Old City, Kay served as an IDF ‘lone soldier’ — meaning he had no immediate family in Israel — in the paratroopers ‘brigade. He was reportedly engaged to be married.
His parents made Aliyah after his service.
Mayan, who also made Aliyah and served as a lone soldier in the IDF, hails from New York. She knew the victim quite well. While serving in the army, they were among a group whose home base was Kibbutz Be’erot Yitzhak in central Israel.
“He was an extremely, extremely kind-hearted person and he just loved Israel so much,” she told United with Israel.
“It was so contagious the way he loved the country, and he really fought for Israel so much.
“He was always just so full of life, so caring,” she said, sobbing.
“I got injured many times in the army,” she continued. “He always made sure that I was OK.
“There was one time when I could barely walk because I had surgery. He saw me struggling and said, ‘Mayan, why didn’t you tell me? I would have ordered a taxi for you so you wouldn’t have to carry your stuff and walk so far.’”
“The kibbutz was far from the bus stop,” she explained.
“He was just that kind of person you would look up to. He always knew how to make people laugh.”
Kay also volunteered with HaShomer HaChadash — Hebrew for The New Guardian — a social-educational organization established in 2007 by volunteers with the goal of safeguarding the land, assisting farmers and ranchers as well as strengthening the Jewish People’s connections to the land, Jewish values and Zionist identity.
“After finishing the program, Eli even stayed longer to be a field coordinator and lead the agricultural work of a group of graduates…
“We lost a valued Zionist guy” who make Aliyah out of idealism,” the organization stated.
Kay is survived by his parents, two brothers and a sister.
Three other people were wounded in the attack, one moderately and two lightly.
Later in the day, a 67-year-old man was moderately wounded in a stabbing attack in Jaffa.
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