Torah cover honouring fallen IDF soldier leads to ‘supernatural’ series of encounters in Montreal

Elkana Cohen and Rabbi Zolly Claman with the Torah cover honouring Eitan Nae, at Montreal's Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem Synagogue. (YouTube)

Sometimes, says Rabbi Zolly Claman, all the cosmic tumblers fall into place—and something truly magical happens.

The leader of Montreal’s Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem (TBDJ) was looking forward to receiving a new Torah cover as part of the ‘Dancing Through Tears’ project from the organization World Mizrachi. So far, the effort has delivered 635 of these velvet memorials dedicated in honour of those killed during the Hamas attacks and their aftermath due to the conflict. (The confirmed number of related Israeli deaths has now passed 1,500.)

A total of 525 communities in 287 cities in 31 countries have received at least one as of Oct. 31, according to World Mizrachi’s website. Those covers were largely distributed in time for dancing with on Oct. 24-25 during Simchat Torah—an annual celebration on the lunar Hebrew calendar, which coincided last year with the most tragic date in modern Jewish history.

All the covers bear a simple design on the front. On the back, there’s a name and date of death inscribed, to remember the person being honoured.

“Many congregations made specific requests to honour certain names with their new covers, given a certain connection in their community to the fallen individual,” Rabbi Claman told The CJN. “But I said ‘No, it’s not for us to choose.’ I wanted to honour whomever we were meant to honour and let them choose for us.”

Rabbi Claman arrived at his TBDJ office the morning before the holiday of Sukkot—one week before Simchat Torah—and found the new cover. It arrived a week later than originally promised, as the skies over Israel were closed to air traffic due to missile attacks.

“I opened it, looked at the cover and studied the name: Eitan Nae.”

IDF Soldier Eitan Nae, who died in battle in Gaza, December, 2023.

It didn’t ring any bells and so he Googled the name—but all he could find was a small biography on the IDF website saying that the 26-year-old Master Sergeant in the Duvdevan commando unit fell during a particularly tough battle in Gaza in mid-December.

The rabbi called everybody he could think of in Montreal, “asking if anybody knew anything about Eitan and if they could share anything. I was determined that by Shemini Atzeret [on the day before Simchat Torah] he wouldn’t just be a name, his would be a complete story.”

Rabbi Claman then spent some time connecting with everyone he knew in Israel to try and learn more about Eitan “because he can’t just be a name and a picture, he needs to be a whole life and a whole story.” That night he prayed, he says, “and asked for a connection.”

At morning services he spotted “a good-looking young man in a beige sweater” in the back. “So, like a good rabbi, I went over and introduced myself.”

That young man was Elkana Cohen, an Israeli reserve commando officer visiting his wife’s family in Montreal. He was setting off to the United States to promote his book Oct. 7 about his experiences fighting in Gaza. Before leaving, he went out for a bite—and wanted to visit the nearby synagogue during prayer services.

“He had the book in his hand,” Rabbi Claman recalls. “And he showed it to me. It was a story, his story.” The rabbi asked to borrow it for just a night as it was the only copy with him—and pledged to return it the next day.

“How could he say no to the rabbi? So he lent it to me.”

Later that day, says Rabbi Claman, “I’m sitting in my sukkah and I’m three-quarters of the way in and I read Eitan’s name… And the goosebumps take over.”

Cohen and Eitan Nae, it turns out, were roommates in yeshivah and close friends through school and army service.

The last time Cohen saw Eitan, was actually on Oct. 7, “and he told him ‘No funny business, no shenanigans. Stay safe’… And he devoted a fair bit of the story to how gut-wrenching it was to lose Eitan.”

Rabbi Claman was bowled over and called Cohen, urging him to come to the shul with his wife Shiran, who was a member of the Duvdevan commando unit alongside Nae. Sitting in his office, Rabbi Claman turned over the Torah cover and “they couldn’t believe it. The tears were just flowing. It was a moment.”

Given the random selection of the name; the serendipity of Cohen to go to Congregation TBDJ; the fact he was almost turned away by security because he was not recognized; the story could not have been sweeter had it come straight from a carefully crafted script.

A day earlier, Rabbi Claman was just hoping to get a reply from his queries. “Maybe someone had a tip or heard something. I was looking for, you know, that tap on the shoulder. But I didn’t get a tap on the shoulder, I got a punch in the face!”

The two recorded a short video telling their story—which has circulated on multiple social media platforms, according to Rabbi Claman,”as people rejoice in this “beautiful story of connection.”

Indeed, as Cohen told Rabbi Claman, “It was an amazing unbelievable experience when I saw Eitan Nae on the cover. We all started crying, it was a very emotional moment for me… I think it’s an honour for the sefer Torah to carry Eitan’s name while we will be going to celebrate his life and celebrate Simchat Torah in this hard moment that we are having right now. But at least we have the opportunity to honour Eitan and honour all the fallen soldiers.

No one was really sure what Simchat Torah would feel like this year, said Rabbi Claman. “But to me, this story of a ‘supernatural’ intervention of God connecting us together in the way that He did, is a reminder that there is a larger narrative that’s being written during our generation.

“And we get to be a small part of that story.”