Special barmitzvah for Yehuda

Ahead of his Bar Mitzvah celebrations, Israeli teenager Yehuda Neeman returned to the site where he had received lifesaving treatment as a baby, following a devastating car accident, reuniting with the Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics who saved his life.

Twelve years ago, Yehuda, then a one-year-old toddler, suffered life-threatening injuries after being accidentally run over by his father, Dr. Eitan Neeman, a pediatric resident and longtime MDA volunteer. Immediately recognising the severity of his son’s condition, Dr. Neeman began lifesaving treatment while alerting MDA’s emergency hotline.

On October 9, 2023, only two days after the October 7th massacre, his father was killed in combat while serving as a reservist doctor.

MDA paramedic Elyashiv Amitay was first on the scene, followed by a mobile intensive care ambulance and an MDA helicopter team led by paramedic Moshon Vaknin. Yehuda was airlifted in critical condition with head trauma and burns to Soroka Medical Centre in Beersheba, where his father had just finished a shift earlier that day. Yehuda remained unconscious for a week and endured a long rehabilitation, ultimately suffering permanent facial nerve damage and hearing loss.

This week, in a touching full-circle moment, Yehuda reunited with paramedics Elyashiv and Moshon at Sde Teiman airfield in southern Israel, where he had been airlifted to safety as an infant.

“It’s not easy to treat a baby, both from a medical standpoint and an emotional one,” said Moshon.

“But something inside me believed he would be okay.”

“I personally find it difficult to treat babies, I get very emotionally invested,” Elyashiv added. “That being said, when the treatment is successful, it’s incredibly rewarding.”

Now a bright, talented teenager who plays piano and dreams of becoming a doctor like his late father, Yehuda’s story carries an added layer of meaning.

“In our last conversation, I told Eitan to take care of himself,” said Yehuda’s mother, Yael. “He smiled and said, ‘You know I’m not going to protect myself. I’m going to protect others.’”

At his Bar Mitzvah, Yehuda will wrap his father’s tefillin, which were passed down to him. “Of all our seven children,” said Yael, “only Yehuda turned out to be left-handed, just like Eitan.”