Rockville native and resident Omer Balva, 22, died last Friday, Oct. 20, while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. He was killed by anti-tank missile fired by Hezbollah at Israel’s northern border, and at least three other soldiers were injured in the attack, according to the IDF.
An Israeli-American dual citizen, Balva was called to duty to serve in the IDF just last week, according to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. He was a staff sergeant reservist in the Artillery Corps.
“Omer was an unabashed advocate for the State of Israel,” read a statement from Rockville’s Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School, of which Balva was a 2019 graduate. “He was a beloved student who attended CESJDS from age seven through his high school graduation.”
Balva, a commander in the 9203rd Battalion of the Alexandroni Brigade from Herzliya, was the son of Israeli parents. He grew up in Rockville and moved to Israel after his high school graduation. He joined the IDF, studied economics at Reichman University in Herzliya and planned to eventually marry his girlfriend of more than four years.
Balva was visiting his parents and friends in Rockville for the Sukkot holiday when he was called up by the IDF.
“The entire Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School community, including alumni, students, faculty, and staff, is completely devastated and heartbroken to learn of the killing of Omer Balva ’19, who was proudly serving in the Israeli Defense Forces having been recently called up for reserve duty,” said Rabbi Mitchel Malkus, head of the school, in a statement.
Balva detailed his family’s deep ties to Israel in a class presentation posted online when he was a high school junior. His father’s family had been in the land since being expelled from Spain during the Inquisition, he wrote, and his grandmother survived a 1938 Arab massacre of Jews in her native Tiberias when she was hidden between two mattresses.
While his parents moved to the United States in 1996, he said the family spoke only Hebrew at home.
“One day I plan on moving back to Israel and raising my children in the Jewish land,” he wrote in the presentation. “My passion has always been to protect Israel and suggest what is best for what I believe is the greatest country in the world.”
“He was such a loving person,” Balva’s close friend, Ethan Missner, told the Washington Post. “He brought a lot of light to the world.”
Balva and Missner had spent the night before Balva’s return flight to Israel packing supplies for his IDF unit. They also put on tefillin, the leather straps and boxes that Jews wear on the head and on the arm, typically during weekday morning prayers, Missner’s father told the Forward.
One of Balva’s teachers, Akiva Gersh, wrote of him on social media, “Omer was that guy that everyone loved. The students. The teachers. Everyone. He always showed up with a smile on his face no matter what and was a natural leader who inspired others because of his contagious positive attitude. … Omer, it was a deep honor to know you. My heart is broken into pieces knowing that your life was cut so short. The world just lost an incredibly bright light.”
Balva is survived by his parents, Sigal and Eyal, and his three siblings, Barak, Shahar and Itai. He was buried last Sunday, Oct. 22, in the military cemetery in Herzliya.
Philissa Cramer, editor in chief of the JTA global Jewish news source, contributed to this report.
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