* Translated by Janine Muller Sherr
I received the following note from Devori Kleytman, the daughter-in-law of Alexander Kleytman, one of the victims of Sunday’s terrorist attack in Australia:
“Shalom Sivan. Today is my beloved father-in-law’s funeral in Sydney and I wanted to share more about him:
He was an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor whose family escaped to Siberia when he was a child, enduring many difficult years of hunger and cold. They survived the Holocaust and returned to the Ukraine. Later, he and his wife Larisa applied for emigration to Israel but were rejected and became 'refuseniks' who were unable to leave the Soviet Union for many years.
He was a person of integrity and a proud Jew, who loved the land of Israel and the Jewish people, and wrote two books about his Holocaust experiences. He always said that we need to remember the Holocaust in order to fight our enemies.
He was very connected to his faith, and in recent years, he started to wear a kippah and put on tefillin. I’m attaching a photo of him putting tefillin on a fellow Jew.
Alexander was murdered doing what he loved to do most: celebrating his Judaism, surrounded by his people. He died while protecting his wife, Larisa, who survived the attack. Alexander and Larisa were a devoted and loving couple for over fifty years and were blessed with children and grandchildren.
We believe that Alexander’s story was not one that began under Nazi persecution and ended with Islamic terror. Rather, his story was about life, love, faith and holiness. We look forward to continuing his legacy, and we ask anyone reading this note to do a good deed today — the day of his funeral — in memory of Alexander ben Simcha.”
