His memory lives on by Ruth Mason
Jerusalem Post, July 12, 2001
After 14-year-old Koby Mandell was brutally murdered by terrorists in May, his parents, Sherri and Seth, have established a foundation in his name, in cooperation with 'The Jerusalem Post,' to do goods deeds.
Sherri and Seth Mandell have lived through a parent's worst nightmare. Their son didn't come home from school one sunny spring day. When the police found him the next morning, he was dead. On May 8, five weeks before his 14th birthday, Koby Mandell was brutally murdered in a terrorist attack in a wadi just a kilometer away from his Tekoa home.
Although the shock was unbearable, and pain is their constant companion, the Mandells immediately sought to find meaning in the tragedy.
On the day of Koby's funeral, Sherri - a writer, who regularly contributes to The Jerusalem Post Magazine, and a poet - said, "It's one thing to deal with your child dying. But a murder like this comes from such hate. How do I deal with the hate?"
The answer the Mandells found is to fight hate with giving. They want to use the tragedy that befell their family to make life better for others.
The decision came from their own impetus, and also from others' encouragement. Many people who came to the shiva said, "I have no words." But others managed to find words that helped.
Seth asked Meir Schuster, the Ohr Somayach rabbi who met him at the Western Wall 25 years ago and started him on his road to religion, "What am I going to do? How am I going to cope?" Schuster, who also had lived through the death of a child, told him, "You have to use this to grow, to become better."
In a talk with the residents of Tekoa, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz told the grieving community that when a young person dies, a vacuum is created. So Koby's parents decided they would fill that vacuum - they would, in Koby's name, do as many good deeds as they could in order to make up for the ones he would never do.
"We knew we had to enlarge Koby's death, to do something in his name to keep him alive," says Sherri.
By the second day of the shiva, Seth was already talking about establishing a foundation in Koby's name.
When Seth spoke to Koby's class, he told them that if they wanted to do something positive in response to Koby's murder, they could choose an additional mitzva to do each day. Seth, an ordained rabbi with public-speaking experience, has also been invited to speak to pro-Israel rallies and other events in Jewish communities in the US. He uses his platform to spread his message.
And this month, The Jerusalem Post approached the family with the idea of helping them raise funds to help others in Koby's name. The Post's suggestion fell on fertile ground.
"He died. It hurts me like a knife to my heart. But we have to keep his name alive, and keep him alive by helping others," Sherri says.
"There are only two things you can do in a situation like this," says Koby's father. "You can either crash and burn, destroying your life and the lives of your children, or you can continue the good that was your loved one's life by trying to use the energy unleashed by the tragedy to do something positive."
Jerusalem Post publisher Tom Rose says he considers the Mandell family part of the Post family, and that his offer of help was a natural outgrowth of that feeling.
"Koby was part of the Anglo community in Israel. Sherri has written for us. Their tragedy is our tragedy," he says. "Naturally, you try to help family members when they are in need."
The Mandells think of their son's murder as a hate crime.
"It was a crime of such hate and brutality, I felt I would be paralyzed by the hate - that I was hit over the head, too, that I was killed, too," Sherri says. "I could have been destroyed. Doing something for others is a way of not being bitter, not giving in to anger and bitterness and pain."
The Koby Foundation will help families in which a parent or child has been killed in tragic circumstances. The Mandells point out that the government offers financial and emotional help to families of terror victims. For example, siblings of victims are entitled to free psychological counseling until they are 30 years old. The Mandells see their foundation taking over where government help stops.
"The government helps families survive," Sherri says. "We want to help provide things that make life worthwhile."
They are currently developing ideas, with the aim of establishing programs that will help Koby's spirit live on - programs that pay tribute to the things he loved, such as sports and hiking. (Koby was killed while hiking with his friend Yosef Ish-Ran. He had told friends he wanted to know the wadi behind Tekoa "like the back of his hand.")
As part of the foundation, the Mandells want to create a scholarship to send siblings of children who died tragically to sports camps and after-school sports activities.
Sports was what most helped Koby acclimate to Israel when he came as a new immigrant at the age of nine. Because he was athletic, he was accepted even before he could speak Hebrew, his parents say. He also liked to help younger or weaker kids improve in sports. During the shiva, several parents told the Mandellshow Koby had helped their child improve in sports.
Seth begins to tell the story of a child who came with his parents to see the Mandells during the shiva, but interrupts himself. "I don't think I can say this without crying," he says. Sherri covers her eyes and sobs quietly as Seth continues.
"He was a small, quiet kid with glasses. He sat there rocking back and forth. He spoke in a soft voice, almost a whisper. He told us, 'I'm not very good in volleyball. [Koby had been a very good volleyball player.] Last week, when the coach said to pick someone to practice with, Koby could have picked anybody. He picked me.'
"It broke my heart," says Seth. Koby had deliberately paired off with the worst player in the class. He did it because he wanted to help him out. He wanted to make him feel better about himself. Having the most fun or playing his best wasn't as important to him as being nice to a kid who needed it."
Another idea the Mandells have for the foundation is to take families of terror victims away for a few days over the intermediate days of the festivals.
"This kind of experience isolates you from others. And the holidays are so hard, you feel the loss tripled. When these families get together with others who have experienced the same thing, they can relate to one another on a real level, which is important," Sherri says.
Another idea is a week-long camp for children whose parent or sibling died tragically, that would offer animal-assisted therapy and dance therapy. The children would get support from being with others who have had experiences similar to theirs, and also experience something joyful.
Sherri points out that a child whose parent dies in a car crash gets no official support. That's why the Mandells want their foundation to provide for children who experience tragedy in the family, not necessarily through acts of terror.
When asked what they would do if Arabs were to apply to the foundation, Seth Mandell said, "We're not anti-Arab. We're anti-hate.
"I'll go further," he says. "If there are Palestinians who want to come forward and work on a program of Arab-Jewish interaction, I would work on that with them."
Koby's siblings say they feel their brother would have liked the idea of a fund to help others.
"If Koby could talk now, he would say, 'Keep on with life. Make the best of it. Make sure you do good stuff and be better than you were,'" says 10-year-old Eliana.
Koby's death has also brought the Mandells closer to God. Sherri is reading every Jewish source she can get her hands on about the soul and the afterlife. She devotes more time to prayer and the study of Jewish sources. She prays for strength, and she prays that her pain will lessen and that she will be able to go on and be a good mother to her other children.
"I needed to act to give me strength," Seth says. "If this tragedy had as much worldwide resonance as people told us it did, we want to use this opportunity to do as much good as we can.
"None of this brings him back. This is not about salving the pain. It's about what you do when you confront and live with the pain. It gives you strength."