West Bank terror victim named as Israeli-American Elan Ganeles

The fatality in a West Bank terror shooting earlier today is named as Israeli-American Elan Ganeles.

The Israeli Consulate in San Francisco says Ganeles is an Israel Defense Forces veteran and recent graduate of Columbia University in New York.

Ganeles, 27, was raised in West Hartford, Connecticut, where his family belonged to Young Israel of West Hartford and he attended Modern Orthodox schools.

At the Hebrew High School of New England, he was an honors student and volunteered with the local Jewish Family Services, according to an article published about him in 2014.

At the time, he said he was deferring enrollment at the University of Michigan, and enlistment in the US military, to spend a year in Israel. That time in Israel stretched beyond a year, and he enlisted instead in the IDF.

He then returned to the United States in 2018 to attend Columbia, where he graduated in 2022 with a degree in sustainable development and neuroscience, according to his LinkedIn account.

Ganeles’s funeral will take place in Israel and the family will return to Connecticut to sit shiva, according to an email sent to congregants from Young Israel of West Hartford.

The email says Ganeles was “murdered today in a brutal act of terrorism in Israel.” The synagogue will be offering the services of grief counselors to the community.