The parents of Elan Ganeles, a U.S. national killed in a terror attack in the West Bank, announced Tuesday that his funeral will be held in Israel as they made their way to the country.
"He will be buried in Israel, which he loved so much," the parents of the 26-year-old said. Ganeles will be laid to rest in Ra'anana on Wednesday.
"He’s one of the best people I’ve ever met in my life,” Mark Cohen, a friend of Ganeles, told Ynet. “Even if you yelled or got angry with him, he wouldn’t get angry back with you, he wouldn't even raise his voice. He would just stand, smile and say, ‘What are you yelling for? Everything will be fine, we will fix everything.' He just wanted to do good in this world.”
Yonah Fredman, a relative of Ganeles from Brooklyn, said his parents were on their way to his funeral in Israel. “The whole family is in a lot of pain right now,” she said.
“His parents are very special people, to see them hurt so much, it’s very sad for us. When Elan served in the army, he stayed with my sister in Ra’anana and became a close friend of the family there, and that's why he will be buried in the city. He arrived in Israel for a friend's wedding and the country felt like home to him.
His love for Israel was not a trifling matter since enlisting and serving as a lone soldier in the IDF wasn't a common thing in his community. It only shows how strong was his connection to Israel, and how much he loved it," she added.
Ganeles grew up in West Hartford, Connecticut, where his family attended the local Orthodox Young Israel synagogue a block away from their home. As a teenager, Ganeles read Torah for the community. The synagogue has launched a fundraiser for his family and is bringing in grief counselors to help the community.
Ganeles attended Modern Orthodox schools and the local Camp Gan Israel, and was involved in NCSY, the Orthodox youth group. At Hebrew High School of New England, he was an honors student and volunteered with the local Jewish Family Services, according to an article published about him in 2014. At the time, he said he was deferring enrollment at the University of Michigan and enlistment in the U.S. military to spend a year in Israel.