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large crowd of Gerrer chassidim attended the levayah of Reb Pinchas Menachem Pzevozman Hy”d, who was killed by a missile strike in the Rova Vav section of Ashdod on Sunday evening. He left behind a wife and one-year-old son.

Reb Pinchas Menachem, 21, was killed when he ran to take cover from a missile launch, in the process shielding a passing woman with his body. He died from shrapnel wounds.

This is the third tragedy in his family, after his uncle was killed in an attack near Har Meron seven years ago, and another uncle drowned in the Yarden while he was a bochur, along with three other Gerrer bochurim in 1988.

Reb Pinchas Menachem was an avreich in the Gerrer community in Ashdod. His father, Rav Chaim Dov, is a dayan in Beit Shemesh, and his father-in-law is Rav Yitzchak Broiner of Ashdod.

Eulogizing his son, his father said: “We don’t know the cheshbonos of Hashem. You rose higher and higher, and reached great and pure heights. In the name of the whole family we ask mechilah, and we are sure that you will reach the Heavens clean. I merited to raise you for 21, nearly 22 years. You always were rising higher. We don’t understand, but we are sure that you merited to complete your tafkid in this world.”

His rosh kollel, Rav Michel Landau, said Pinchas Menachem was one of the youngest in the group, but everyone in the kollel learned from his good habits. “Your smile and the way you treated every single person is unmatched. I want to ask mechilah in the name of everyone. Today you are starting the zeman in the Yeshivah shel Maaleh. You wanted to understand everything. You are a korban tzibbur, and your essence was Torah and avodas Hashem. May Hashem help that there should be no more death, and may He wipe the tears off every face.”

Pinchas Menachem was buried on Har Hamenuchos late Sunday night.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha, Issue 759)