After a long road back, Yochai Badalov returned this week to Yeshivat Yerucham, the hesder yeshiva where he learned before the war. His friends and teachers met him with dancing and singing around his wheelchair.
Watch the moment:
"And the sons returned to their yeshiva"
Wounded bochur returns to yeshiva
Yochai Badalov, shot nine times in Shejaiya and left paralyzed, walked back into Yeshivat Yerucham this week to dancing and tears.
Two and a half years ago, Badalov entered combat in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza and was shot nine times. His condition was so severe that the soldiers with him thought he had been killed.
But he survived, and since then has been fighting through a complex rehabilitation. In testimony he gave earlier, he said that one of the bullets passed near his spinal cord and left him paralyzed from the neck down. Alongside the daily struggles, he described the progress he has made through hard work, and his determination to keep living, dreaming and creating.
The yeshiva wrote emotionally about his return: "After a long journey of rehabilitation, courage, determination and awe-inspiring faith, Yochai has come home. To the beis medrash, to the friends and rabbis who waited for him so much."
They added: "There are no words to describe this moment. Blessed is the nation that has this, blessed is the nation whose sons, soldiers and students are like these [people]."
The welcome for Yochai Badalov at the yeshiva| צילום: Photo: Yeshivat HaHesder Yerucham
