Opposite the Sea

In memory of First Sergeant Amit Yeori

Born in Jerusalem, 17th Kislev, 5754 (November 30, 1993). Fell in the Gaza Strip, 28th Tammuz, 5774 (July 25, 2014)

Amit Yeori’s great love was deep, clear water that you can dive into. Amit was always dreaming about long holidays at the sea. In Operation Protective Edge, those dreams were cut short. 

Amit was born in Jerusalem in 1993 to Einat and Shahar. He was older brother to Noam and Ido. Already in elementary school, Amit stood out as being affable, energetic and organized, as someone with strong opinions who would help others. At the same time, he loved to learn. He would go to school wearing shorts and a school shirt and in his backpack were one notebook for all the subjects and a bag of food. If he wasn’t on the running, cycling, basketball and swimming teams, he would have had to look for another school. 

Amit Yeori Z"l

As a teenager, Amit loved spending time with friends, but he also loved being alone in his room and playing the guitar. Early on, he took a couple of guitar lessons, but later on he learned from clips on the Internet or by listening to music. In particular, he was a fan of Assaf Avidan and Ehud Banai. He would spend time with his friends at their “hangout”—a bomb shelter they had fixed up. They didn’t like loud pubs. In the hangout, they played music and laughed for hours on end, until the neighbors complained. 

Amit loved to hike with his family and with his friends. He proved himself to have organizational skills and was always organizing picnics and hikes to the sea or to a spring. 

In 2012, Amit joined the army and served as a combat soldier and commander in the Engineering Corps. On his last leave, several months before his death, he spent a week diving in Eilat. 

The commander of the company described him as follows: “I saw a commander who was sure of himself, who had it together, someone with values who knew how to convey them to his soldiers. When the commanders were under pressure, he was calm. When we were tired, he went for a run. When we needed some rest from the soldiers, he went to talk to them till the early morning hours. Amit did everything in his own way and without boasting. He was sure about his path, always consistent, determined and energetic.”

Amit was killed during Operation Protective Edge on July 25, 2014. He was 21 years old. On Amit's tombstone it says: “From afar a light goes on. Don’t stray off course so that you will be able to return.”

Interview with Shachar Yeori, father of Amit Yeori z”l, who talks about memory and missing his son
 

Thoughts from the artist Dafna Avadish who created the film: 

Amit’s family described him as someone with deep inner calm. A young guy who was sure of himself and loved nature. Amit discovered sea diving not long before his death and I looked for a way to express all of that in the clip. I found a beautiful and gentle song by Zelda, “Opposite the Sea”, which is the ideal expression of Amit’s character. 

The clip tries to show his strong connection to water, to nature and to living creatures. The freedom and inner release that Amit felt under water are also an expression of his calm and confidence. The visual language – genuine pastel colors against a printed video – creates intimacy and an environment of memories, of nostalgia. 

In my view, a simple and mundane scene such as a long shower accompanied by music tells us a lot about Amit and his character. This is a simple moment but one with intensity and it creates a feeling of closeness to him. The transition from inside (the shower at home) to the outside (the underwater world) and again to the inside (the empty shower) is an expression of circularity that has been interrupted. Nonetheless, a goldfish swimming in the window of the bathroom brings with it optimism and light. This is essentially the essence of the film: a free spirit that contains pain, but also a great deal of beauty. 

I had the privilege of working on the clip with wonderful artists who were an integral part of it: Amir Lev, whose charming tune and its depth create a feeling of repetitiveness, like a consciousness of diving and meditation, and Erez Eini Shavit who designed the sound with infinite sensitivity and created the main transitions and connections between the shower’s flow of water and the flow of water in the sea.