The Rochester NY Christian Who Immigrated, Converted And Fell In Gaza Fighting

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Staff Sergeant Yonatan Dean Haim was killed two weeks ago in fighting in the south of the Gaza strip, but his funeral was out of the ordinary, corresponding to his remarkable life story as told to Israel’s Channel 12.

Yonatan was born as Jonathan Dean, the youngest member of a Christian family in Rochester, New York. His brother Randy said that Jonathan “died helping people, protecting them and loving them. The Shield of David is now on top of you to light the way for you.” Chad, another brother, added that Jonathan was a “wild, adventurous, loving and caring boy, who loved to help people. R.J. Williams, another brother, remembered that Jonathan had made a fundraiser for blankets for the homeless “before he was even old enough to drive a car.”

Jonathan’s life as an American youth should have been predictable, but his curiosity and relentless searching brought him to other places. In college he met and became close to Jewish friends, and started becoming interested in Judaism, Israel and the Hebrew language. Later Yonatan underwent a Conservative conversion and changed his name to Yonatan Chaim. When he completed the process he immigrated to Israel in 2020.

Yonatan studied for a second degree in disaster management but at the same time toured Israel, especially holy places, volunteered for Magen David Adom, visited Holocaust survivors and tried hard to integrate. Even before he knew Hebrew properly, Yonatan enlisted in the IDF and was placed in the combat engineering corps.

On October 7th, Yonatan called his brother Randy and asked him to prevent his mother from seeing the news of the attacks on Israel. Presumably Yonatan knew he would be involved in the fighting. Randy said that “When he immigrated to Israel, I knew in my heart that if he wouldn’t return to the US within a year, he would stay there forever.”

Yonatan’s funeral was complex. The first ceremony took place in an army base. Most of the eulogies were in English so that family members in the US could understand. His girlfriend Nagma Aharonov said that “He didn’t have an easy life and all the difficulties and things he went through caused him to want a better world.”

The second phase of the funeral took place with Yonatan’s family, after IDF officers and rabbinate staff had brought his coffin to New York for the second ceremony, which was directed by a rabbi but included a bagpipe dirge “Coming Home”. Two days later, a third ceremony took place in a local church.

R.J. says that “People claim his death was futile but that’s so untrue. He defended his country and his nation and will be remembered as someone who died for what he believed in. Yonatan always said “I won’t rest until this is over, this is my mission, my way, this is my calling.”

In a cemetery in Rochester, one grave will bear the IDF symbol and the name Yonatan Dean Chaim, a soldier who adopted a faith and country and paid with his life.