Rebound

In memory of Yitzchak and Malachi Rosenfeld

Yitzchak was born in Maalot, 21st of Adar, 5740 (March 9, 1980). Fell in Nahal Tse’elim, 16th of Nisan, 5762 (March 29, 2002).

Malachi was born in Maalot, 2nd of Cheshvan, 5750 (October 31, 1989). Fell on 12th of Tamuz 5775 (June 29, 2015)

Yitzchaki infected his whole family with his love for Maccabi Tel Aviv and then he died. Malachi moved into his brother’s room and was infected with the family tradition, until the bitter end.

Yitzchak Rosenfeld
Yitzchak-Menahem (Yitzchaki) Rosenfeld was the oldest son of Sarah and Eliezer. He was born on March 9, 1980 in Maalot. He was named after his uncle Yitzchak Rosenfeld, his father’s brother who was killed during his military service. 

Yitzchaki’s parents, the owner of a Hasidic orchestra and a social worker, were among the first settlers in Kochav Hashachar, a community settlement in the Benyamin area, west of the Jordan valley. They moved there when Yitzchaki was six months old. Yitzchaki was among the first babies on the settlement and his soul was connected to the place from the beginning. He loved the land, the walking paths and the people and as someone who grew up and was nurtured in an embracing and loving greenhouse, he knew how to return love to all the people that he met. Later on, he wrote the following in his CV for the pilots course: “Both on the settlement and among people and friends, I am accepted and loved and I am in a good place in society and among those who surround me.”

Yitzchaki Rosenfeld z"l

Yitzchaki loved sports, basketball in particular. His main hobby was car mechanics. He especially enjoyed jeeps. From a young age, he devoted a great deal of time to cars of various types, both new and old, and he was subscribed to magazines on the subject. Furthermore, Yitzchaki was bestowed with golden hands and a wonderful ability to draw. He had a large collection of car drawings, which he planned to build in the future. He invested a lot of time in the planning of a dune buggy, which in the end he built with his friend, and the two travelled in it all over the place.

 
His many abilities included a wonderful voice; he recorded a song together with his father. Later on, it was played on the Hassidic hit parade. 

Yitzchaki joined the army in mid-March 1999 and completed the pilots course with honors. He loved the guys in the squadron and they recognized him to be a dependable friend who loved his fellow men. During the entire course, he got the highest marks on the social evaluation exams. 

In March 2002, during his service in the air force, Yitzchaki was killed in a road accident in Nahal Tse’elim. 

Malachi Rosenfeld
Malachi Rosenfeld was born on October 31, 1989 to Sarah and Eliezer Rosenfeld. Malachi had eight siblings, including Yitzchaki who died before him. On June 29th, 2015, 25-year-old Malachi and three of his friends—all of whom were on the basketball team of Kochav Hashachar—were on their way home from a game they had played in. 

Malachi was sitting next to his friend Hananel Cohen when shots were fired at them from a passing car. Malachi, who was closest to the passing car, was fatally injured and taken to Shaarei Hesed Hospital in Jerusalem. He died the next day.

He was buried in the cemetery in Kochav Hashachar, the settlement he lived in. 
Following is an excerpt from a letter written by Sarah and Eliezer Rosenfeld about their son: “Our Malachi was born about 27 years ago. Already in the delivery room we understood that he had a special soul. There was a bright light in the room and a “still small voice”. We have had nine children and 12 grandchildren and that was the only time we encountered such a phenomenon. 

Malachi Rosenfeld z"l

Malachi received many gifts from heaven. One of them was the gift of wisdom. Wisdom of the mind and of the heart. He had an encyclopedic memory. Anything he learned, read, heard was in his brain forever. Starting from intensive learning to general knowledge and ending with the smallest and funniest details of trivia, such as the average goals in the league, the names of capital cities, population densities of countries, etc. From a very young age, he was curious about numbers and mathematics in general. He multiplied numbers with three and four digits with lightning speed starting from preschool. Malachi was above average in school in everything he did and got a reputation for it. He completed a bachelor’s degree with honors at the Hebrew University and was accepted to a leading strategic consulting company. Anyone that met him knew that he had a promising future.
 
Malachi enjoyed acquiring knowledge and education. However, no less and perhaps even more, he enjoyed connecting with people. He was interested in humanity in general. He thought a lot about connections between the various people in the State of Israel and it was clear to us that he would invest his effort and knowledge in this as well, in order to bring people together, wherever they are.”

Interview with Hadas Elkayam Rosenfeld, sister of Yitzhaki and Malachi Rosenfeld z”l, who talks about the double loss, missing her two brothers and their love for Maccabi Tel Aviv, which was a family tradition until the bitter end
 

Thoughts from Reut Bortz who created the film
When I came to comfort my friend Hadas Elkayam, who is the sister of Yitzchaki and Malachi Rosenfeld z”l, after Malachi was killed, she told me the stories of a brave family that is blessed with strength, love and friendship. My familiarity with Hadas made working on the clip more personal, but also more complex and challenging. I wanted to preserve the memory of Malachi and Yitzchaki and the bond between them and Hadas and not to betray the wonderful people that they were, nor Hadas’ amazing personality. 

The basketball text that Hadas wrote connected all the dots in my view. The text describes the bond between the siblings and basketball, a central motif in the home, which began with Yitzchaki and continued with Hadas and then on to Malachi. Even after Yitzchaki’s death, the love of basketball did not diminish and continued on as a legacy to Malachi, who in turn passed it on to his little brothers and nephews. 

I chose to take Hadas’ powerful text and to select key sentences from it and around them I would build the film. The clip tells the story of the three siblings—Yitzchaki, Hadas and Malachi—in three parts. It starts with their common childhood and ends with the dream game of an adult Hadas playing with her brothers, at the end of which she remains alone. 

We experience the entire clip through Hadas’ eyes, together with voiceover and animation. The animation does not exactly match the text and provides it with a different visual interpretation. Nonetheless, it remains faithful to reality and the family experience. I chose to design the characters in a simple style and to use soft pastel colors for backgrounds in order to provide the clip with the feeling of a childhood memory. The motif of basketball serves as a framework into which I poured small moments of the dynamic between the three siblings: the facial expressions and the smallest gestures that express emotion. 

The clip creates moments that did not occur in reality but they illustrate the love, the brave friendship and the special connection between the members of the Rosenfeld family. I had the true privilege of processing Hadas’ intense text on her beloved brothers into a short film full of memories, small moments and a great deal of love. I feel that during the work on the clip, I got to know Yitzchaki and Malachi, the incredible young people that they were and the legacy that they left behind.