Yizkor: An Opportunity To Remember Our Heroes 

Sep 17, 2026 by Moshe Phillips

By Moshe Phillips

This Yom Kippur, thousands of mourners will remember at Yizkor their loved ones who were murdered during the Hamas-led October 7 terrorist invasion of southern Israel and in the last three years of war.

This year, I will be remembering Moshe Yitzchak Katz, HY”D, who was originally from New Haven, Connecticut. He was just 22 years old when he was killed in battle in Lebanon in March 2026. Sergeant Katz volunteered to fight for the Jewish people as a “Lone Soldier,” that is, a service member who does not have parents in Israel to support him or her.

When I first learned of Moshe Yitzchak’s tragic death, something written by famed author Herman Wouk (1915–2019) immediately came to mind. Wouk penned the below words as part of his introduction to the 1980 English version of Self Portrait of a Hero: The Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu. Yoni’s brothers, Benjamin and Iddo Netanyahu, put together the book.

“This is what a twentieth-century hero is really like. The lands of the free will need such men until the day when the last tyrannies that spawn the terrorists are faced down, and we enter the coming age of peace, the only long-range alternative to a planet of ash… Strange, slender, but strong threads tie me to this young Jewish soldier, whom I never met, and never heard of till he died…” — Herman Wouk, 1980

Yoni is perhaps the best-known Lone Soldier who left America to serve in the Israeli army.  He was killed in action combating terrorists during the Israeli hostage rescue mission at Entebbe in Uganda on July 4, 1976. Now, today, 50 years later, we have the hero Moshe Yitzchak Katz to mourn. Both Yoni and Moshe Yitzchak were paratroopers.

I do not know much about Moshe Yitzchak Katz, but I do know he died a hero, and that he is part of a group of young American Jews who made the choice to leave America and risk everything to defend innocent Jewish families during the existential war for survival that Israel now faces. And I believe no prayers I am able to offer at Yizkor could ever be enough for Moshe Yitzchak and his fellow fallen Israeli warriors.

In June 2025, mere hours before Iranian missiles began to terrorize Israel, I stood at the Western Wall, the Kotel, in Jerusalem, and witnessed many young American-born Jews standing shoulder to shoulder with their Israeli-born brothers as they took the IDF oath. It was one of the most emotional evenings of my life, and I wrote about it here: https://www.jns.org/column/moshe-phillips/a-single-night-in-jerusalem-made-me-rethink-everything-i-knew-about-israel

Later that June evening, in a home in Jerusalem’s Old City, I listened to a leader of Bnei Akiva of the U.S. and Canada tell the families of a half-dozen or so Lone Soldiers that these young men are the best that the American Jewish community has ever produced. He said that these new soldiers will be future leaders of Israel and the Jewish People. That they are “the Greatest Generation,” the American Jewish community has produced because they volunteered at a period in our history when they are needed and when there is serious risk.

I wish that Moshe Yitzchak Katz had been there that night with his parents to hear the words I heard, for they were incredibly inspiring. I have not done justice to the sentiments I heard that evening. And, selfishly, I wish Moshe Yitzchak had been there so that I could have had the honor of meeting him, of wishing him success in battling our enemies.

In classical rabbinic thought, the afterlife is referred to as Olam Ha’Emet, Hebrew for “World of Truth.” This is where Moshe Yitzchak Katz is now—a place where the Jews’ rightful place in the world is revered and never challenged, where lies about the Jewish people are never heard, and where the hero Moshe Yitzchak Katz is celebrated.

It has been reported that Moshe Yitzchak Katz was a Chabad Hasid. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902–1994), of Chabad, once stated: “G-d gave each of us a soul, which is a candle that He gives us to illuminate our surroundings with His light. We must not only illuminate the inside of homes, but also the outside, and the world at large.”

So please, take a moment this Yom Kippur and pledge this year to learn Torah, say a prayer, or do a kind thing in memory of Moshe Yitzchak Katz. Consider joining the larger fight to advocate for the State of Israel and the necessarily simultaneous struggle to help unify the Jewish community. Unity does not mean we all have to agree, but rather that we put aside our differences and learn to love and respect each other in order to make the Jewish community a welcoming place for all Jews.

Though I did not know him, I believe that my brother Moshe Yitzchak would want you to do all you can to show up for the Jewish People and show your love for your fellow Jews. There is no questioning the degree to which he loved you.