Cpt. Avi Goldberg, 43: Rabbi, educator, bridge builder and father of 8

Cpt. (res.) Rabbi Avraham “Avi” Yosef Goldberg, 43, of the Alon Brigade’s 8207th Battalion, from Jerusalem, was killed while fighting in southern Lebanon on October 26, 2024.

A military rabbi with the battalion, he was called up to reserve duty on October 7, 2023. Over the next year, his family said he served more than 250 days in reserve duty before he was slain.

In October 2024, Avi was killed along with four of his comrades while engaged in a gun battle with Hezbollah operatives in a southern Lebanon village.

He was buried on October 27 on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem. He is survived by his wife, Rachel, their eight children, Yehuda, Shira, Talia, Hadas, Elyashiv, Hillel, Reut and Naveh, his parents, Rivka and Aryeh Leib, and his brother Eliezer.

During the shiva mourning period, his family issued a statement that any politicians were welcome to visit – as long as they arrived in pairs from the coalition and the opposition, which they said symbolized Avi’s lifelong work to build bridges.

Born in Jerusalem to immigrant parents from the UK, Avi grew up in the Katamon neighborhood of the capital. He attended religious schools, including the Himmelfarb High School, and he excelled at playing the clarinet.

After graduating, he attended a hesder yeshiva program in Safed, which combines Torah studies with army service. He served in the Golani Brigade as a Negevist. After his release, he married Rachel – the pair bonded over their musical talents, he on clarinet and she on violin – and they settled in Jerusalem.

Avi pursued rabbinical studies at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem’s Old City, ultimately receiving ordination from the Chief Rabbinate.

From 2008-2011 he and his family served as emissaries in Memphis, Tennessee, where he ran the Torah MiTzion Kollel in the city. For close to 20 years Avi also led Yom Kippur prayers at Kibbutz Ginosar, a secular community in the north.

After returning to Israel, he began working as a teacher at Himmelfarb High School, his alma mater, ultimately becoming the rabbi of the upper grades, beloved by his students.

In 2022, Avi decided to complete a course to become certified as a military chaplain, adding that title to his roles as a combat soldier. Although Avi was exempt from reserve duty due to his age and the fact that he had more than six children, he continued to volunteer for service.

His older brother, Eliezer, told the Arutz Sheva news site that “wherever he went, he had a big heart, he smiled. But it wasn’t a smile showing his teeth, it was his heart smiling and people’s heart opened to him… You could not dislike him. He touched so many souls and people; his kids in school, his family, his community, just random people.”

Avi, he said, “was always doing things. He was creative, he found ways of doing good to others. He always had an open house and an open heart, from a very true and deep place. He never publicized anything.”

Avi’s wife, Rachel, told a US Jewish newspaper that her husband “had an immense Torah, that he shared in the ways that everyone — very learned people, very deep and spiritual and wise people, and people who were secular could understand, because he was connected to deep truth and deep positivity.”

The pair connected musically, she said, and would host evenings where they would play “all kinds of Jewish music – Carlebach, Naomi Shemer, newer musicians, a lot of different musicians.”

They always had people over to their house, including hosting discussion evenings trying to bridge gaps between Israelis divided by politics, religion and fervent beliefs: “Avi was the best listener. He would listen to people of different political views, without ever losing his own views,” Rachel said.

As a teacher and rabbi, she said, he was serious and deep, but also “would play basketball with his students, and he had an amazing sense of humor.”

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