‘You were a child of light’

Nineteen-year-old victim eulogized as poet, nature lover

With mournful songs and tears, Ori Ansbacher’s family and friends bid farewell on Friday to the outgoing, artistic, bright-eyed 19-year-old, who was brutally murdered in Jerusalem just one day earlier.

“You are a child of words,” said her mother, Na’ama, as she described how her daughter would fill up one notebook after the other with her writing, particularly poetry. Speaking into a microphone at her daughter’s outdoor funeral in Tekoa, Na’ama said, “but I have no words left.”

In her eulogy prior to the burial, Na’ama thanked her daughter for the 19 years they had spent together, for her warm hugs, her intelligence, humor and the long conversations they often held over coffee.

Between tears, Na’ama said she was grateful that Ori had spontaneously decided to come home on Wednesday evening, one day before she was killed.

“You sent me an SMS that you wanted to

come home and asked me to pick you up,” Na’ama said. She described how they had sat together for the last time, mother and daughter, with Ori sharing her deepest thoughts and feelings.

“You were a child of light. You brought so much light and happiness to the house,” Na’ama said. She recalled how last summer they had planned a camping trip that was canceled at the last moment because she broke her leg.

To make up for the missed trip, Ori set up a pretend camping site on the lawn of their home. She brought out mattresses and they lay together looking at the stars, with Ori describing what they were seeing in the heavens.

“You were a child of nature and earth,” said Na’ama, recalling how Ori would hike frequently with earphones, so she could listen to music as she walked. Recently, Ori had organized her three siblings to help her clear the soil by their home for a vegetable garden.

“Now, you will never get to plant it,” Na’ama said. Nor, she said, would Ori be able to fulfill her dreams of marriage and children.

“We are returning you to the earth that you so loved, that was your second home and on which you strode with so much confidence,” Na’ama said. “Thank you, Ori, that you chose to come to this world through me and that you brought so much good into it.”

She asked her daughter to give her the strength from heaven to continue to believe that there is good in the world.

“I am just parting from you, but I miss you so much already,” she said. Ori’s sister Tama and her brother David recalled the moments they had all spent together over the last Shabbat.

“You told me you couldn’t believe that you were almost 20 years old, and now you are gone,” Tama recalled, breaking down in tears. “I learned from you how to sing and dance. I will try and live for you. I love you so much.”

David recalled how Ori had taken him on a walk to show him a place between two pillars that she described as the “gateway to heaven.” At the time, David thought how special Ori was that she could transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

“Now, just before you pass through the gates of heaven for the last time, I want to tell you that the light you have spread in the world will continue to shine forever,” David said. •