These days, before the opening of the Beijing Summer Olympic Games should be special for Eyal Mandel, 20, a member of the Israeli swim team who has trained for years. Unfortunately, things took a tragic turn for the worse on Wednesday when his dad had a fatal accident.
Eyal’s dad, Kusta, 51, was changing a light bulb near the family home in Netanya, leaning his ladder against a wall. The ladder slipped and he fell 4 meters, landing hard. MDA Emergency Medical Service personnel worked to resuscitate him, but they eventually were compelled to pronounce him dead.
Eyal was already in the Olympic village, preparing for his competition on Tuesday. It was 2:00AM and the family decided to wait until morning to tell Eyal, who they explain was extremely close to his father.
Two members of the team who are close to Eyal gave him the bitter news, explaining it would be his call – if he wished to return home or remain in Beijing.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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16 Responses
return home eyal. your father will be proud!! stay strong!
and ya? what did he choose
He decided to stay in Beijing.
What an embarrassment = Chillul Hashem !!!!
Boruch dayan emes!
To the Olympic swimmer Eyal;
Remember how you made your family proud of you.
May his mourners be comforted among all the mourners of Israel.
#3
this is not a chilul Hashem! the fact that he’s there at all is!!!!!!
To Number 3 –
This was not a chillul Hashem. Eyal’s father would have wanted his son to try and achieve that which he has been working for, for so long.
May Eyal bring a smile to his fathers face as watches from above.
Boruch dayan emes
He Should return home.
#3
What chillul Hash-m? He obviously is far removed from frumkeit and doesn’t know to sit shiva. The only shomer shabbos member is the lady in taekwando(?).
By the goyim, such a gesture is one of courage, and shows a great deal of honor of him towards his father. Of course its wrong by our standards, but he seems to be a well intentioned young man who should be regarded as a “tinuk shenishba”
BS”D
He decided to stay in Beijing.
What an embarrassment = Chillul Hashem !!!!
————-
He knows no better, and considering his father AH’s first name, his father did not know anything of Torah either as that is a short form of Konstantin, a Russian name.
(The strangest thing is that I have a personal minhag, almost a minhag shtus, not to go up on a ladder or use tools during the Nine Days. I shuddered when I read how this happened as I actually have a small repair that I put off for this reason.)
May we be spared from any further sorrow emanating from the travesty of yenne medine, by the replacement of the memsheles zadoin in E”Y with Malchus Beis Dovid so that this 9 Av will be a yom simcha vemishte!
The secular media spends the whole olympics finding tragedies with the atheletes, i do not understand why an olympic swimmer is newsworthy….
what a nisayon Rachmana Litzlan. We should not know of such things.
Hamakom yenachem….
I don’t think it is fair for anyone to judge a person in this situation. Am Yisroel should know of no more Tsa’ar.
wow- some of you live to get on these boards and call people “not really frum” and love to call “chilul Hashem.” I’ll bet it really makes you feel self righteous, and helps you not focus on what you need to work on. You have no clue where these people are comming from in a sense of having any concept of hashem- they may not be as frum as you, but they may have traveled far to get to where they are. But for those of you who love to call “chilul hashem” having no clue what these people even do or don’t know about hashem- how far have you come in your life? It is highly possible that HKB”H measures growth by where you are headed rather than where you are holding. work on yourself. Start with being dan lekaf zchus- a chiuv many of you conveniently chose to ignore. hmm. maybe that’s a chilul hashem.
#8
That comment sounds very, very secular. His father has now seen the light, and he is hoping more than anything else that he is chozer b’teshuva. I doubt that neshomos in the olam haemes really care whether or not their children make athletic accomplishments.
What? Swimming in the nine days? (just kidding)