Omer Bogomolsky celebrated his bar mitzvah in Moshav Moledet, his home community, a number of weeks ago. “It was a perfect simcha” his grandmother Rena Jacobson-Feldheim told Yediot Achronot.

Omer and his father Amnon headed for the United States on June 20th, a short time after the simcha in Eretz Yisrael for Amnon promised his son a bar mitzvah trip. However, on Thursday night, 26 Tammuz 5773 at about 20:25 the minivan driven by Amnon smashed into a guardrail at the base of the Sagamore Bridge in Bourne, in the Boston area. According to reports from local media, the victim’s van was smashed into a guardrail in the hit-and-run accident.

Amnon, a 44-year-old employee of Bank Leumi was killed in the crash and Omer sustained moderate injuries. A sister of the niftar, Dr. Vered Bogomolsky-Yahalom explains they were near the end of the trip when the fatal crash took place. She tells the media they were heading to New York City and from there; they were going to head home a few days later. Amnon was critically injured and died a short time later. All the other occupants in the minivan were injured but B’chasdei Hashem none have life-threatening injuries. Maariv reports that Omer is in an intensive care unit under observation, and his condition is described as “stable”. Family members add they hope he will be released in the coming days.

Vered explains that a rav from the Rhode Island hospital notified Amnon’s wife after speaking with Omer and getting details surrounding the accident. Israeli consular officials and members of the local Jewish community were doing their utmost over Shabbos to assist the victims in the hospital. Striking Israel Foreign Ministry officials push their strike aside to step forward and assist the family as much as possible.

Vered added that it was most ironic since her brother served as an officer in the IDF Tank Corps, in Lebanon and other conflicts, and he davka is killed in a vehicle on a US road.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)