‘You wouldn’t sit and wait’: Family mourns Yotam Haim, hostage mistakenly slain by IDF
Heavy metal drummer laid to rest in southern kibbutz with musical tributes: ‘You became famous through your captivity, and you bring us hope for a better world’
Amy Spiro is a reporter and writer with The Times of Israel
Yotam Haim, 28, one of three Israeli hostages who were accidentally killed by the IDF in Gaza on Friday, was laid to rest Monday in Kibbutz Gvulot in the south.
Haim, a drummer for the heavy metal band Persephore, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. After 70 days of captivity, he was shot dead alongside Alon Shamriz, 26, and Samar Fouad Talalka, 24, in northern Gaza’s Shejaiya neighborhood, after the three were mistakenly identified as a threat by IDF troops.
At a funeral imbued with musical tributes, Haim’s loved ones recalled his lifelong struggles with mental health, the joy that drumming had brought him and the painful final weeks of his life.
His mother, Iris, spoke about the mental health issues and depression that had plagued him since childhood.
“Sometimes I felt like you came from an alternate universe, and life here on Earth was not taken for granted,” she said. “We had so many conversations about your coping, your bravery, about your choice to get up every day and to keep living alongside the suffering that was so hard on you.”
“You wanted to be famous, to be a drummer that everybody knew,” she recalled. “You spoke about a better world, you wanted a world that would be better, without evil and revenge.”
On October 7, Iris recounted, “you were strong and brave and calm. I knew the whole time that you were alive, even when there was no sign of life from you, I knew inside. For the entire period, 70 days, you allowed me to try and turn this world into a better place.”
During this time, she said, “everyone got to know you, a beautiful boy, with a gentle soul and blue eyes, who loved animals and was a very talented drummer. You became famous through your captivity, and you bring us hope for a better world. On the day of your freedom you left like a partisan, a partisan fighter from captivity, you didn’t agree to suffer any longer in the hands of murderers, you wouldn’t sit and wait.”
Rock band “The BackYard” played Arik Einstein’s “Whistling in the Dark” at the funeral in Haim’s honor. Israeli Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai, whose drummer Tuval Haim is Yotam’s older brother, performed “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica.
נטע ברזילי מבצעת שיר לזכרו של יותם חיים בהלוויה כעת pic.twitter.com/yKY5Nm680d
— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) December 18, 2023
His, father, Raviv, said Haim lived the life of a hero, even if it might not have seemed that way to others.
“Our Yotam was a big hero, you were always a hero. At age 18, when you were supposed to enlist in the army, the army didn’t accept you because of mental struggles. But you fought in front of all the committees, and in the end you enlisted,” he recalled.
“But three weeks later you were released. In our conversations you were ashamed of it. You would tell me, ‘Dad, don’t stop to pick up [hitchhiking] soldiers, because I’m embarrassed that they’re fighting and I wasn’t able to.'”
Raviv said that the family “always embraced you and said that the struggles you dealt with since you were born were difficulties that others could not deal with. And you did.
“Our Yot, you got up in the morning, even though there were days you didn’t. You met incredible people along the way who touched you, and you touched them,” he said, recalling Yotam’s job at a sushi restaurant, his beloved cats and his talents in basketball: “He wasn’t very tall, but he was a redhead, and he had chutzpah, and he was fast and he was strong.”
Yotam’s brother, Tuval, described him as “my first friend, a little angel, who came when I was 3 years old, and taught me what it meant to be a big brother.”
“We grew up here in the kibbutz, we were always the Haim brothers, inseparable, laughing, doing nonsense, getting into trouble, fighting, just like all brothers,” Tuval recalled. “We had a childhood full of joy and laughter, experiences, a connection and humor that only you and I understood.
“We grew up in a house full of music, and together we found the drums, as an expression for all the difficulties, the anger and the pain,” he said.
