Dear Dad, Look at all the children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren you brought up. What families we’ve built, and how you continue to spread good in the world through your descendants, even 50 years after your death. Look how much of you flows in us. I want you to be as proud of us as we are of you. We’ve grown into a close and warm family, with Friday dinners, holidays and joyous events, food and good music. My Iraqi husband, Arie, learned to enjoy gefilte fish and salted fish, good cheeses and sausages, just as you did. And when we share mushroom soup together and add a spoon of sour cream, we remember you. You must understand why I’m starting out by writing to you about food. You so loved good meals, you knew how to take pleasure in simple things, and our lives are spiced with reminders of all you loved in your toobrief life, which was full of excitement and action. So, despite everything we’re here, celebrating life just as you taught us to do. I was 12 in 1972, an age where I can remember how before you went to the Olympics Grandpa begged you not to go. He wouldn’t hear a word about Germany after what his family had gone through during the Holocaust. I know it wasn’t easy for you to refuse him, but you were a man full of faith and joie-de-vivre, and it never occurred to you to give up this trip, the pinnacle of your diverse career. I don’t remember the exact conversations, just that he asked you again and again not to go to Munich. In the end, he lost you too, his beloved son, on that same land. Grandpa, who pleaded with you not to go back there, was broken, and passed away 30 days after your death. I do remember you saying goodbye before you left the house, giving me a kiss and then never coming back. Since then I can’t say goodbye whenever anyone leaves. And if one of the kids or grandkids don’t answer me, I get very anxious, like it was just yesterday that the school principal called me and Yehudit into her room and sent us home. To our childhood home, that at once went from being a warm and happy home to a place of sadness and grief. Yehudit and I held hands the whole way home, two sisters not knowing what awaited them. When we arrived Mom was crying, the house was full of people, and a moment after I saw everyone crying, I was crying too, without really understanding what was happening. The adults were busy and troubled, and didn’t explain anything to us. In that moment, we were once again two sisters unaware of what lay in store for us. I also remember the radio in the house being turned on, and everyone listening to news nonstop, and my friends were coming by, and I was becoming a celebrity without knowing why. The shock was so great that none of the adults thought to try and explain what exactly was going on to us girls. Mom was busy with the tragedy and didn’t involve us, until that evening when someone came with a car and we all drove to the Wailing Wall, because Mom said we needed to pray for your return. Of course we knew something bad had happened, but we still didn’t quite understand what. Around 1 AM, the neighbors came down with a bottle of champagne, after the false announcement that you’d all been freed. But Mom sat by the phone and said: “Don’t open the champagne until he calls us. I won’t have it.” The next thing I remember is the knock at the door at 4 AM, and the delegation coming to tell us that you’d been killed. Mom never recovered. She fell ill and lost all joy in life. The home we lived, where we’d had a father, a mother and a family routine of warmth and laughter, went silent and mute at once. It’s important for me that you know you were the source of a lot of the joy and laughter that characterized my childhood until that point. You were a large and strong man, 2.04 meters tall and weighing 150 kilograms, and it was impossible not to love you. One of those great people in life whose hearts are at least as large as their bodies. Always smiling and welcoming, looking into people’s eyes regardless of where they came from, their social status, their exterior or even their age. When you’d return from work and walked down the street, all the kids in the neighborhood would gather around you. They all knew you and loved you, and you enjoyed being surrounded and showering them with the love and warmth so typical of you, and you mostly enjoyed playing with them like you were a kid yourself. When you were invited to serve as an international judge in the Olympics, you were happy, and I remember walking around school proud as a peacock that my strong father was going to Munich 1972. As a judge, you could’ve had a suite at a hotel, but you passed on that to share a room with your friends at the Olympic Village. The decision cost you your life, and us the family we’d known until then. You loved your fellow Olympic delegates with all your heart, and that awful night you blocked the door with your body, shouting for them to get away. One of them heard you, managed to break a window and escape, and he survived thanks to you. Minutes earlier they’d gunned down Moshe Weinberg, yet you chose to charge and block the door. That’s the kind of person you were. Dad, remember how I’d join you for work trips in Judea and Samaria? You can’t live off sports, after all, so you dealt in electronics. I loved the twisting roads and those trips with you, it was our special time together. And we would sing, talk and laugh together. Mom always worried and told you it was dangerous and that you had to be careful, but you explained to her that everyone was a friend to you. And indeed, everywhere we went you were embraced and treated well. You could speak Arabic since you had a knack for languages, but it was also because you loved people and knew how to create bonds and friendships, to give off the feeling that you had time for everyone. You dedicated many hours to sports, and played a huge part in developing sports in Jerusalem and setting up wrestling in Israel. Life was easy and pleasant when you were with us, and your confident presence affected the house even when you were far away. You were a diligent and busy man, not often home because even on Saturdays you’d be at competitions and sporting events. But I remember the drives, the trips, the meals and songs. You didn’t withhold any of that from us, no matter how busy you were. I always felt safe and protected with you. I don’t remember much about the events around your death, but I could never forget your funeral. How a whole country was horrified when the coffins arrived, everyone came outside and people stood along the road in long lines to pay you their final respects. It took a long time for the realization that you weren’t coming back to sink in. I gradually saw the house go empty, people disappearing, and Mom not recovering. Yehudit and I grew up alone, or we actually raised ourselves. I’d prepare food for myself when I got home from school, taking care of Mom at the same time. I’d take her to exams, doctors and hospitals, learned to give her injections, and naturally I signed up to nursing classes a few years later. I’m still a nurse to this day. Yehudit also had it really hard, and married at a young age, immediately moving to Canada. Mom joined you after nine years, and I was left an orphan. But I apply and pass on everything you taught me in the short time we had together. From that day I never stopped dreaming of a warm house full of children’s laughter, a living house that accepts guests celebrating together, where the aromas of cooked meals waft up from the kitchen. And just like you, I too followed my dream and made it come true one step at a time, detail by detail. Dad, know that the beautiful moments you gave me still live in me, and I continue to memorialize them in the way I’ve chosen to start and raise my family. You, who believed in the good of the world and of people, defeated evil itself that way. Our very existence is a testament to that victory. Thank you for everything, my hero father. Your daughter, Yael