Avi Rosenfeld stood next to the body of his son Natan and vowed that his death defending Israel would not be in vain.
“From that moment I promised myself, promised my wife and promised God that I was going to dedicate my life going forward, doing good for our people, for our country, and our soldiers,” he says.
That was a year ago, on June 29, 2025. He quit his job and started travelling the world, inspiring thousands of people with his passion, his resilience and his heartbreaking honesty.
Avi speaks of how the unimaginable loss that could have broken him and his wife Sam has actually made them stronger.
“We talk about Natan’s journey from being a young lad floating around, to becoming a hero of Israel,” said Avi, who is sometimes joined by Sam.
“We speak how we chose not to be broken, but to stand up strong. We speak about the positiveness in the world and about the strength of Israel.”
Avi, born in Sweden to parents who survived the Holocaust, made aliyah from Hendon, north-west London to Ra’anana, central Israel, in 2012, with Sam and their four young children.
He says he could never have imagined himself speaking in front of a packed hall at a school, shul or on campus. He was someone who was nervous reciting brachot when called to the Torah in shul.
But he believes he’s been sent on a mission. “Call it a Godly calling,” he says. “I’ve been given some internal strength. And I’ve got my wife who’s a lioness.
“We just feel we’ve got to do something valuable, something more than just valuable, something totally and utterly meaningful.”
Natan, a sergeant with IDF’s elite Combat Engineering Brigade, was killed by the impact of an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) in northern Gaza as he and fellow soldiers prepared to demolish a house.
The grenade, designed to pierce a tank, inexplicably failed to explode and, as a result, Natan’s 16 comrades survived.
Sam recalls the moment they were shown Natan’s body. “They kept saying ‘hu shalem, hu shalem’ – he’s whole,” she says.
“We didn’t understand. It was only afterwards when we found out what had happened, that we understood that many of the boys in Handasa Kravit, combat engineering, a unit that blow things up, do not come back whole.
“Avi cried. I’m not a very emotional person, but Avi was screaming at God: ‘I asked you not to test me, I told you not to test me.’
“And he was screaming and shouting. I think from that point on I believed he had been tested and now he had to decide what to do with it.”
Natan at school[Missing Credit]
A young Natan with his family[Missing Credit]
Natan with his parents, Sam and Avi[Missing Credit]
A young Natan[Missing Credit]
Natan Rosenfeld[Missing Credit]
Avi had worked in technology for many years, but changed direction and set up his own DIY company shortly after arriving in Israel.
“I loved my work but when my boy fell there was an absolute clarity,” he says. “Am I going to lie on the floor fixing pipes and fitting Ikea shelves, or have I been called to do something much, much bigger than that?
“Some people fortunately or unfortunately, are called upon to totally change the direction of their life.”
Sam is an English teacher. “I always have been and I always will be. But Avi felt that this now was his pivotal moment,” she says.
The crowd at Natan’s funeral was vast, the shivah was held in a huge tent at the school car park next to the family’s home. Well-wishers – friends, acquaintances, complete strangers – queued for an hour to give a hug (Avi’s a big hugger, Sam less so, but she was determined to hug and show she wasn’t broken).
“I don’t know what it was but we both felt that this couldn’t go the same way as it had for every other soldier,” says Sam.
“Natan was an English speaker. Natan had straddled both the English-speaking world and the Hebrew-speaking world, and we both felt that actually this needed to go further than Israel. It needed to go out. The world needed to know what Natan lived for and died for.”
Anyone who knew Natan remembers him as a kind, cheeky, positive boy, who lived life in the fast lane and who had a smile for everyone. School wasn’t for him but he flourished in the army and had been selected for officer training.
Avi says he believes in miracles. The miracle that 16 fellow soldiers didn’t die that day, the miracle that Natan didn’t suffer, and the miracle that the right people were in the right place at the right time to make his own mission possible.
“I ended up having three or four people around me who have supported me totally and utterly with passion, not telling me what to do but humbly asking me how they can help me,” he says.
“We’ve been blessed that the right people, the most amazing people came in front of us. It’s a miracle.”
Avi has spoken in the US, UK, South Africa, Canada, Sweden, Cyprus and has trips planned to Los Angeles and Australia. He’s also setting up a charity in Natan’s name, hopefully to open an educational centre in Israel.
“I’ve spoken to thousands of people all over the world. They feel I’ve got something phenomenal to offer,” he says.
“It feels so weird to say that I’ve got something phenomenal to offer. But at some point I’ve got to accept it because I’ve got to work on it and get it out there.” What would he be doing otherwise? “I can’t say where I would have been if I wasn’t religious. I probably would be working on what I was doing before, but with a lot of anger and frustration inside me,” he says.
“With an overwhelming feeling of negativity, because I would be asking myself what the hell am I doing with my life?”
Is he angry with God? “There are days I am very angry at God. Not because of my boy, but because of the next door neighbour’s boy who has fallen. And yesterday another boy fell. Because of him and because our people are suffering.
“But I don’t – I can’t – get angry about the situation (Natan’s death) because it’s happened. There’s no point going back.”
He says he’s always challenged God, in large part because of his survivor parents, but despite all that he sits firmly on the religious side of the fence.
Avi, Sam, their daughters Atalya, 16, Eliora, 23 and son Zevi, 18, are about to mark Natan’s first yahrzeit.
They’ll do so with his friends, with cold beer and with laughter on the roof of their apartment, after visiting Natan’s grave down the road at Ra’anana’s military cemetery.
“There’s a very healthy relationship with going to the grave,” said Sam. “Lots of Natan’s friends took my younger two out and they would go for coffee and then they’d go visit Natan afterwards. His death is not one of sadness and grief.”
Avi and Sam are far from broken. There were occasional moments during our time together when they paused to compose themselves. But they are proud of the fact theirs is a happy home, that they’ve turned a tragedy into something positive.
This is in spite of losing Natan, in spite of another tragedy – their daughter Eliora losing her boyfriend on October 7 – and in spite of their concerns for their other son Zevi, who is due to draft next March.
Avi himself served in the first Lebanon war, in 1986, as a lone soldier (a volunteer who enlists in the IDF without any immediate family support in Israel).
His father before him survived the camps, ended up in Israel via Cyprus and fought in the 1948 War of Independence.
As parents, now, of only one son, Avi and Sam will have to give their permission for him to serve in a combat unit, just as Natan did.
They won’t stand in his way. “If we don’t do it, who’s going to?” says Avi. “We’re not the people that are going to sit by.”
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