“The day will come when your life will flash before your eyes. Be sure it will be worth watching.” That was his status on his WhatsApp. That was his motto. You live your life as much as you can. “He literally lived his life to the fullest, 200 miles an hour,” said Eli Knoller of his son, Nadav Elchanon, HY”D.

Master Sgt. (res.) Nadav Knoller fell in battle in the Netzarim Corridor in Gaza on July 1, 2024. He was 30 years old, married to Hadar and had a 16-month-old son, Yaer, when he died. In addition to his father, Eli, he is survived by four siblings, dozens of cousins and other family, and a multitude of friends.

Eli, who grew up in Riverdale, is director of development and community relations at Laniado Hospital in Netanya. Nadav, although born in Israel, often visited the U.S. during his high school years and before and after his army service in the IDF. It was during those visits that Nadav developed a close and loving relationship with his uncle and aunt, Marc and Naomi Knoller of Teaneck, whom he saw often. Marc and Naomi have lived in Teaneck for 40 years and are members of Bnai Yeshurun.

Nadav and his wife and son had been in Teaneck for Sukkot 2023, visiting Marc and Naomi and his grandmother, who lives in Riverdale. They then flew to Florida to be with his other set of grandparents for Simchat Torah. When they heard war had broken out, Nadav spent the night on the phone trying to get on a flight back to Israel. When he arrived on October 8, he went straight to his unit, which was stationed up north on the Lebanese border.

After three months he was given five weeks off. He was then called up for a second three-month tour, this time in the south, adjacent to the Gaza border.

Nadav was killed during his third round of reserve IDF duty when he was stationed near the settlement of Netzarim. He was killed instantly by a roadside bomb as he and his unit fought to prevent Hamas terrorists from embedding themselves with the civilian population moving north.

At the time of his death, Nadav had spent 200 days on reserve duty.

In 2016 and 2018 Nadav spent a few months selling sukkahs in New York to finance his post-army trek to South America, where he worked with a Hasidic young man. They got along so well the young man jokingly said he would name a future son after him. Now married and expecting a baby, the Hasid and his wife decided that if they had a boy, they would name him after one of the IDF’s “holy martyrs.” His son is named Nadav Elchanon.

Eli described Nadav as an active, religious kid with ADHD for whom “school was not his thing.” He spent his formative years of high school in the hills of Karnei Shomron, where he grew up. Instead of learning algebra, he and his friend Nadav Schwartz decided they were going to raise sheep and live in the mountains of the Shomron. “They loved it,” said Eli. Nadav later returned to school, earning a bachelor’s degree from Ariel University in communications and economics and was working as a regional manager for Tikshoov, a large nationwide communications company based in Netanya, when war broke out.

Nadav, though, never abandoned the idea of a farm. Together with Schwartz, he was deeply involved in establishing the farm on government land in the northern Shomron, right above Harish. Today, his friend Schwartz lives there permanently with his wife, Bat-el, and their three small children and 500 head of sheep. As a memorial to Nadav, his friends built the “Mirpesset Shel Knoller,” a deck overlooking the Shomron that Nadav so loved.

“Nadav wasn’t a shy, quiet type who sat in a corner,” said Eli. “He was the life of the party. He was a people person who connected instantly with people he just met. He would very often connect people his age with each other and suggest they date.” That was the impetus of another project by his friends, who decided after he died that a matchmaking initiative would be an appropriate project in his memory.

“This is why so many circles of different types of people in different stages of his life were affected by his loss,” said Eli.

Laniado Hospital will also be honoring Nadav’s memory by naming an emergency room bay in the missile-protected emergency room currently being built.

According to Eli, Nadav was very outspoken about the absolute necessity of this war, the need to do what he called “the total knockout.” Although he was right-wing and religious, he didn’t see any contradiction in differences in religious views or opinions about the war, stating, “This is one country, one army, and we are all in this together.”

Recently, the Bergen County Jewish community completed another mission to Israel with its 30-member contingent led by Rabbi Elliot Schrier of Bnai Yeshurun, Rabbi Daniel Fridman of Jewish Center of Teaneck, and Rabbi Daniel Feldman of Ohr Saadya in Teaneck. Because of Nadav’s close ties to Teaneck, Eli was asked to speak to the group.

Rabbi Schrier was deeply inspired by a story that Eli told about Nadav’s relationship with his commander. “Apparently, the commander was from an entirely different background from Nadav; they differed on everything, from religion to politics to sports. But they had to spend long nights on guard duty together when they couldn’t take out their phones or distract themselves with social media, so they began to talk. And they used to talk about all the things they disagreed about and debate about them and argue about them, until eventually they became extraordinarily close friends, despite all their disagreements.

“Eli shared that when Nadav fell, there was one other chayal that fell with him, and that was this commander who Nadav differed so greatly from. To me, it’s inspiring to consider these two souls ascending to the uppermost chambers of shamayim together—perhaps still debating the merits of Beitar Yerushalayim vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv—but united in the highest sanctity of those who give their lives for the Jewish people. We would all do well to learn from their example. ה’ ינקום דמם ויהי זכרם ברוך.”

Rabbi Fridman was also deeply affected by the same moment. “On our most recent mission to Kerem Shalom, we had the honor of hearing from Eli Knoller, father of Nadav, HY’D. Eli stressed to us that his heroic son died together with a young soldier from a completely different background, with whom he was exceptionally close, named Eyal. They represented the unity of the Jewish people, in life and in death. To honor the legacy of two kedoshim of the Jewish people, Nadav and Eyal, now is the time for all of us to come together. Our most basic response to October 7, to those who never distinguish between Jews, whose total destruction they seek, must be achdut.”

For Eli and his family, it has been a roller coaster. Just weeks after Nadav’s death, his daughter was married. “We had to switch gears from mourning Nadav and be really happy for our daughter, which we certainly were, but it was hard,” he said.

“There is not a day or hour we’re not reminded about Nadav. We’re trying to stay strong as a family—the last thing Nadav would want would be for us to be down or not to continue to live our lives to the fullest, the way he demanded of himself.”

Sherry S. Kirschenbaum is a copy editor and occasional writer for The Jewish Link.