Staff Sgt. Amichai Vanino, 22: Warrior, Torah scholar had a ‘noble soul’
Killed battling the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7
Staff Sgt. Amichai Yaacov Vanino, 22, a squad commander in the Maglan commando unit, from Katzrin, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
That morning, Amichai was stationed at the Julis IDF base, east of Ashkelon. When the attack began, he and the rest of his team in the elite reconnaissance unit were sent toward the front lines.
They arrived at the hard-hit Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where they went house by house rescuing residents and eliminating Hamas gunmen, according to an IDF eulogy. In one home, Amichai’s commander, Cpt. Eily Adany, was shot and seriously wounded, and Amichai pulled him out and got him to an evacuation vehicle while trying to staunch his wounds.
While Eilay and Amichai were evacuating from the kibbutz, Hamas gunmen opened fire on their vehicle with a volley of bullets, and neither of them survived.
Amichai was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on October 11. He is survived by his parents, Rachel and Menachem, and his seven siblings, Herut, Aluma, Itai, Benaya, Avishai, Elad and Roni.
Born in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba in the south Hebron Hills, Amichai attended a religious high school in Dimona, according to a memorial website. When he was 14, his family decided to settle in Katzrin in the Golan Heights, although he finished out high school in the south, traveling home only on weekends.
After high school, Amichai enrolled in the Elon Moreh yeshiva in the northern West Bank, where he spent three years immersed in Torah study, including a brief period at a yeshiva in Bruchin.
In August 2022 he enlisted in the IDF, joining the elite Maglan unit. His loved ones described him as multi-faceted, both a Torah scholar, a warrior, a poet and a deep thinker, who left behind a great deal of writing and reflections on life.
In one of his notebooks, which his family found after his death, Amichai described the exertion in his army training: “This isn’t sweat, it’s the tears of 2,000 years.”
His mother, Racheli, wrote in a eulogy that she “was privileged to be your mother for 22 years. You were my best friend, we understood each other without words.”
“If I was ever feeling low, you would do everything for me to be happy again,” she continued. “We went hand-in-hand together through your life journey. You always charged ahead, you directed yourself with your incredible inner voice, how to advance, how to be a more whole person.”
Racheli said Amichai was so looking forward to the end of his lengthy training period and to continue advancing in the military: “You had so many more dreams. And you rejoiced so much with every step and progression in the unit.”
Amichai’s older sister, Herut, wrote a eulogy to her little brother, “the most introspective and profound man there is, you carved out your personality, your thoughts, you had so much depth in your soul.”
“Every step in your life stemmed from a thorough and broad reflection, you mapped out your inner world and knew how to walk through it step by step to advance with courage and internal reflection.”
“Our funny Amich, there was nothing like your impressions, your hilarious comments in the right places, your WhatsApp stickers that made us explode with laughter,” Herut added. “To me, you were always a high, supreme, noble soul, with one leg in this world and another in a world that was all a secret, a hidden world, deeper.”
“I love you so much! I am so proud of you!” she wrote. “You taught me so much! About gentleness, modesty, bravery, internal depth, carving out of character, kindheartedness and so much more.”