Staff Sgt. Bar Rozenshtein, 20: Computer whiz who chose to be a Golani
Killed battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7
Staff Sgt. Bar Rozenshtein, 20, a Golani Brigade soldier from Rishon Lezion, was killed on October 7 battling the Hamas invasion of southern Israel.
Bar and several of his comrades were on a routine patrol near the border in an armored jeep when the Hamas invasion began, according to a memorial website set up by his family. They headed back toward their outpost near Kibbutz Kissufim and were attacked by gunfire, and the jeep was hit by an RPG. They continued to fight regardless and decided to head toward the kibbutz to try and protect the civilians there. Along the way, Bar was shot dead, and his comrades recovered his body in order to bring it to the outpost.
Bar was buried on October 10 in Rishon Lezion. He is survived by his parents, Fani and Yossi, his younger siblings Rotem, 17, and Shaked, 12, and his girlfriend Noa.
Born and raised in Rishon, his family said he had a number of hobbies growing up, including playing computer games, experimenting in the kitchen, listening to rap music, enjoying anime comics, and he also loved to both play and watch basketball.
His sister, Rotem, wrote online to “my brother, my best friend, my partner in hamburgers.”
“The person who would move the whole world if he heard something happened to me,” she continued. “I learned so much from you, I always walked in your footsteps. Anything you ever said to me was always sacred, because you always knew everything… everywhere I go I will always tell people what a brother I had, and what mental strength you had… you always knew how to calm things down and to say the right words.”
More than a month after he was killed, his mother, Fani wrote on Instagram that despite it being a Friday, “my regular routine has changed from one end to another.”
“Instead of entering the kitchen and cooking with a desire to pamper you and give you anything you want when you come home for Shabbat, I’m preparing just a little bit because I have to,” she wrote. “Instead of getting your room ready for you — and you swore the only thing ever missing were towel swans on your bed — I come to visit your new home [gravesite], and clean the sand off the flags which cover you and arrange the shirt you loved so much over you, and get to know the new friends you have laying near you… I miss you so much and I love you to the core of my soul.”
Fani told a local news site in January that Bar “was an incredibly smart boy, even though he didn’t love studying, he did the maximum and finished high school” with intensive studies in both physics and robotics “without putting in any effort, everything came easily to him. He really loved playing on the computer, arguing about who was the best player ever in the NBA (he said Lebron James) and in in soccer (he said Ronaldo).”
Bar, she said, “was on the one hand super responsible, on the other hand a prankster, the funniest guy in the world. He carefully planned his civilian life after his release from the army, but he also still collected POP dolls and watched tons of anime series. Bar loved justice, he was very competitive and did what he wanted but in a respectful way. And even though he was a computer champ, Bar refused to pursue such a role in the IDF because he wanted to be a combat soldier. He may have only been 20 when he was killed, but he was the manliest boy there was.”
