Hundreds pay respects at funeral of Alon Bakal in Carmiel

Bakal served in an elite unit of the Golani Brigade during his IDF service and had been working as a shift manager at the bar where he was shot and killed.

By JEREMY SHARON
Updated: JANUARY 4, 2016 01:03
Scene of terror attack in Tel Aviv (photo credit: Courtesy)
Scene of terror attack in Tel Aviv
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Some 2,000 friends, acquaintances and family members attended the funeral of Alon Bakal in the northern town of Karmiel on Sunday, following his murder in an attack on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon.
Bakal, 26, was shot outside the Simta bar which he helped manage, as was Shimon Ruime, 30, while another eight people were wounded in the attack believed to have been perpetrated by Nashat Milhem, 31, on Friday.
“We have been left crushed and you are there above with your great soul,” said Bakal’s father, David, in his eulogy at the funeral, Maariv Online reported. “Alon, my dear and beloved son, how is it possible to write a parting letter for a son who is not yet 27.How can a father write about you? You had such a good attitude... You were such a giver, you collected food for Holocaust survivors... Everyone knew you would go far. You loved people and you loved the State. What a king you were.”
Said Bakal’s mother: “We had it good. Good up to the brim. My beloved son, the joy of my life, my Alon, beloved son of my heart, beloved of my soul. I always bear a heavy burden, but the pain, this hard pain I will never be able to bear.”
Alon’s brother, Avi, also gave a eulogy extolling his brother as someone who set high goals and achieved them.
“You were a man of values. You knew how to get close to people and to touch them and to make people happy,” he said. “You acted and got others to act... You were the commander of whole groups of people. But all this doesn’t help us now. We are broken and you are missing. At least at the end of the path you were happy.”
Bakal served in an elite unit of the Golani Brigade during his IDF service and had been working as a shift manager at the bar where he was shot and killed. He had just graduated from law school in Netanya, and moved three months ago to Tel Aviv, where he was due to start working at a law office.
Adi Eldar, the mayor of Karmiel, who knows the Bakal family personally, was at the funeral, as was Deputy Interior Minister Yaron Mazuz, as a representative of the government.
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid also attended the funeral to give his respect to Bakal, who was a Yesh Atid party activist.
Speaking at the service, Lapid said that he had read several things Bakal had written, and that the country should live up to his idealism.
“He told us that terrorism was trying to force us to live lives of hate and fear and the only response was to live life as he did – full of love for Israel and solidarity,” said Lapid.
“That was his will and that is what he left behind. And that’s our test; how will we behave in the coming days, in the coming months, in the coming years? That is the test he set for us and we must live up to it.”
Amin Shaaban, who was found dead in north Tel Aviv on Friday, was also buried on Sunday. Several hundred mourners attended his funeral in Lod.
Shaaban, 42, a taxi driver, was found dead shortly after the Dizengoff Street attack. The police are checking whether his death is connected to the earlier incident. Shaaban, a Muslim, had three wives and 11 children.