Chantal and Nicky Young had always planned to make aliyah from their family home in Southgate, north London once their five children had finished school. When their youngest, JFS alum Nathanel, joined the IDF, those plans began to solidify.
But when they finally made the move in 2023, Nathanel was already buried in Israel’s national cemetery on Mount Herzl.
The London-born soldier was 20 years old and three months into active duty when he was killed on October 7, one of the first Israeli soldiers to die in the Hamas-led attack in which 18 British citizens were killed.
Nearly 1,000 days later, his parents, Chantal and Nicky Young, are speaking to the JC inside Wizo’s Beit Hakerem School in Jerusalem, determined that Nathanel’s legacy should not be defined only by the day he died, but by the life he built and the future he was forging in the Jewish State.
Nicky and Chantal Young[Missing Credit]
Wearing T-shirts featuring the olive tree symbol of Nathanel’s IDF brigade, the couple look on as builders work to transform an ageing music department into a new hub, complete with DJ equipment and industry-standard studio recording technology. Funded through the Nathanel Foundation, with support from Wizo, the project will give students with additional learning needs the chance to make music and learn practical skills that could lead to employment.
For Chantal, the idea came after visiting the school, Israel’s only vocational secondary school for students with additional needs, and learning about its music programme.
“This is exactly the sort of place Nathanel would have loved,” she says from inside the studio. “Music was his passion.”
The initiative is one of three supported by the family in Nathanel’s memory, alongside a mentoring programme at JFS and support for Crossroads, the youth mental health charity.
Nathanel was the youngest of five children born to Nicky, 66, a former Barclays employee and haulage driver, and Chantal, 62, who ran the kitchen at the Independent Jewish Day School in Hendon. His parents describe him as a lively boy with endless energy, “a little bit spoilt because he was the youngest”. He was educated at Wolfson Hillel and Beit Shvidler primary schools and then JFS. But school for Nathanel was not straightforward.
.jpg?f=3x2&w=732&q=0.6)
Nathanel Young in his JFS uniform[Missing Credit]
“He had difficulty at school and problems with self-esteem. Friendships were not easy for him,” his mother recalls. From the age of nine until his mid-teens he spent much of his time in detention.
She believes schools often mistake difficult behaviour or low grades for a lack of potential. “We all have challenges, whether they’re at home, at school or with our friends. But I don’t think we listen to children enough or recognise their progress. Some children may not be academic and might be uninterested in school, but they have something else to offer.
“Young people need a passion, and they need a dream,” she adds. For Nathanel, those were music and a desire to serve in the IDF, like his older brother Eliot.
Immersing himself in hip-hop and rap, he developed his musical talent, DJing at school events and parties. “It’s not my type of music,” Chantal admits. “But as a good mother, I listened to all his tracks and gave my opinion.”
Nathanel’s dream of following his brother into the IDF proved complicated. Applying from London during Covid, he was initially rejected. He then made aliyah and sought to enlist as an Israeli citizen. He spent months working on Kibbutz Grofit in the Negev Desert and at the Hilton hotel in Tel Aviv.
Determined to reach a combat unit despite his rejection and his body type, which was atypical for a front-line soldier, Nathanel threw himself into physical training. “The way he transformed himself was amazing,” his mother recalls.
He was eventually accepted into the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, a moment of enormous pride. At his swearing-in ceremony, his father took a photo of Nathanel grinning while wearing the commander’s beret, awarded for his outstanding performance.
“He was so proud,” says Nicky. “He really wanted to be the best soldier he could possibly be.”
The friendships he once struggled to form at school flourished once he was in Israel and the army. “He suddenly had friends from everywhere. France, America, all over the world,” says Nicky.
He moved into the house for lone soldiers and, after his death, the Youngs learnt how he had supported his peers. Chantal says: “Several wrote to me afterwards saying, ‘If it wasn’t for Nathanel, I wouldn’t be where I am today.’”
Nathanel with family in Israel[Missing Credit]
On the morning of October 7, he was stationed at the Yiftach base near Zikim Beach. When rocket sirens sounded, he phoned his sister, who lived near Tel Aviv, to check she was heading to a safe room. They exchanged text messages until Nathanel wrote that he could hear gunfire. His commander ordered him to rescue a non-combat soldier at a watchtower.
According to accounts, Nathanel ran towards the base and engaged Hamas fighters, killing several before he was fatally shot. “He was one of the first soldiers, if not the first, killed that morning on the base,” Nicky says.
Thousands of miles away, his parents were in Normandy for Simchat Torah.
At synagogue that morning, another congregant mentioned fighting near Gaza. “I didn’t tell Chantal immediately,” Nicky says, “but she knew something was wrong because I went completely quiet.”
When he explained what he had heard to Chantal, she checked her phone and saw “message after message”.
“Then one said: ‘Your son has been injured’.” Even then, she could not accept the worst. “I thought maybe he was badly injured. Maybe in a coma.”
He was already dead when she received that first text, but it was not until close to midnight that official confirmation arrived.
Looking back, the parents remember functioning “like robots”, flying to Israel for the funeral, attended by hundreds, including Nathanel’s four siblings, three of whom live in Israel.
After the seven-day mourning period, Chantal and Nicky moved to Israel, saying at the time: “We need to be in the place where our son is, in the country that he fought for.”
Nathanel had dreamed of them joining him in the Jewish State and was helping them look for a house. They had always planned to make aliyah, and before the holiday in France the family home was already emptied. The move was completed while they were sitting shiva.
“We will not let the terrorists win by causing us not to live in Israel,” Nicky says. “There was never any question of whether we would change our plans. We knew we would live here.”
Their new home in Netanya was purchased on March 1, 2024, on what would have been Nathanel’s 21st birthday.
“We’ve had so many little connections like that,” Nicky says. “We feel that Nathanel is looking out for us,” Chantal adds.
With their new life and eight grandchildren in Israel, the pair have no plans to move back to London, where they have one child and two grandchildren.
Nicky is concerned about what he sees as a shift in attitudes in the UK in recent years. “Britain has always been proud of sticking up for itself,” he says. “And people were proud of not being prejudiced, antisemitic or against different races. But I believe that’s changed.”
Discussing a campaign targeting IDF soldiers abroad – and the letter signed by Green Party leader Zack Polanski, which called for the monitoring of Brits in the IDF – he says a friend’s son avoided travel to Canada out of fear he might be “interrogated”. Chantal says of the Jewish Green leader, “You’ll need it eventually – Israel – look after your own.”
Both parents have been taken aback by how many people have told them that Nathanel helped them. “And this is a link to that,” Nicky says, gesturing to the studio and the Wizo project.
To donate to the foundation, go to my.israelgives.org/en/fundme/Nathanel_Young
To get more Israel news, click here to sign up for our free Israel Briefing newsletter.