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Rabbi Wasserman and his family on a tank at Yad Lashiryon in Latrun.

tank?” This religious soldier knew Rina
from Bnei Akiva in Bnei Brak, and so he
knew who I was. He said he would bring
them to me. To this day, I wear those tefillin
every day!

How do you look back at the war and your

experiences now?
Many people focus on the failures of the
Yom Kippur War – how Israel was sur-
prised, and how close to 3,000 soldiers
were killed. While these are definitely
true, I don’t think people focus enough
on the fact that we ended up winning the
war! If we hadn’t stopped them, the Egyp-
tians would have rolled into Be’er Sheva
and the Syrians into Teveria. We prevented
the destruction of Israel and we have to be
thankful for and mindful of that. There
was also a significant role played by the
Hesder students, who served in hundreds
of tanks, making a major impact on the
war effort. Many Hesder students were
killed and injured in the Yom Kippur War,
and it made a big impact when Israeli soci- Rabbi Wasserman (middle) with fellow soldiers on their tank.
ety saw that yeshiva students took part and
fought side-by-side with the rest of Israel like a war movie. Decades later, I felt I was of what happened, and we took a photo
to defend our Land. ready to confront this – I gathered my chil- together on the tank. I think of that tank
On a personal note, for many years I had dren and grandchildren, and we traveled as my tank of victory, surrounded by my
some type of PTSD. I couldn’t hear tank to Yad LaShiryon, the Tank Museum at family in Israel. ◼
fire or even look at a picture of a tank, Latrun. There I climbed onto a tank with
and I certainly couldn’t watch anything my whole family, told them the story

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