Mar 6, 2008 - Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, of Shilo was one of eight students killed when a Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Mercaz Harav Kook yeshiva in Jerusalem and opened fire in the crowded library.
On Thursday evening, the yeshiva students - mostly teenagers - had returned from prayers. They were about to begin a party celebrating the beginning of the month of Adar - a month of joy marked by the Purim holiday. Many of the students had gathered in the yeshiva library before the party when the terrorist opened fire, killing eight and wounding 11.
Despite the celebration scheduled at the yeshiva later that evening for the start of the new month, Yonatan Eldar didn't want to miss learning his daily page of Talmud and had taken the book with him to the library.
"Usually you think of someone so young who is so deeply involved in Torah study as being square, but Yonatan wasn't at all like that," said Rabbi Uri Bayar, an educator in Shilo and a friend of the Eldar family. "He was full of joie de vivre and had many interests," he added.
Yonatan, the sixth of eight children, had recently started serving as a counselor in the local branch of the Bnei Akiva youth movement. His mother Avital related that her son, a quiet and modest boy, had blossomed in his last year and a half at the yeshiva.
Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar was buried in Shilo with his copy of the Nedarim Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, soaked in his blood. He is survived by his parents, Dror and Avital, six brothers and one sister.