Yosef Haim Tzvi Serlin

Yosef Haim Tzvi Serlin, the eldest son of Yael and Ran, was born in Jerusalem on 22 October 2005 and grew up in the Beit Yisrael community in Gilo. He was a brother to David, Moshe, Sarah Amalia, Aharon, and Yisrael. He continued his studies at the Regavim yeshiva in the Golan, where he combined learning with agricultural work and also guided students. He later studied at the Beit Yisrael pre-military academy, with which his parents were also connected, and met his girlfriend Dafna there.

During his years at the academy and in the military, his friends described a young man who knew how to listen, encourage others, and bring them together in shared endeavors. He wrote in notebooks and pocket journals, and his roommates remembered how he would keep writing beside a small lamp after they had gone to sleep. In August 2024, he enlisted in Unit 504 of the Intelligence Corps. On 26 March 2025, he collapsed after a training session with the unit in northern Israel. After resuscitation efforts, he was pronounced dead at a hospital. He was nineteen, and after his death he was promoted from corporal to sergeant.

About two months later, his youngest brother Binyamin Yaakov was born. In an interview, his mother said that she had told Yosef about her pregnancy, and that he had responded with joy and encouraged her. From then on, he asked after her and wanted to hear how she was feeling. His mother held on to this memory alongside the grief for her eldest son: he knew about the brother who was to be born, but never had the chance to meet him. Yosef was buried at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Yael, an artist and lecturer in art, also spoke about how she returned to her studio after his death. It gave her a place to be with her grief and memories, and through them to begin creating again. In her exhibition Dalet Amot in Jerusalem, she made room for motherhood, loss, and her son's absent presence within family life. Alongside his memory in her art, his notebooks, his friends' recollections, and the story of a young man who chose study, education, and service remain. May his memory be a blessing.