He hadn’t been in Israel a week after returning from Ukraine when 9-year-old Yoel Dovid Lenau was fatally struck by a cement mixer while crossing a busy street in Jerusalem.

Yoel Dovid and his parents, Rabbi Daniel and Nechama Lenau, serve as Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries at the Simcha School in Kiev, where the family lived until the war forced them to move to Israel. The children integrated into the Israeli school system, and Rabbi Daniel returns to Kiev fortnightly.

For Sukkot and Simchat Torah, the rabbi traveled back to Kiev with his two eldest sons, Mendy and Yoel Dovid. “Yoel Dovid took an active role in our holiday efforts,” said Rabbi Mordechai Levenharts of Chabad-Lubavitch of Kiev. “He helped hundreds participate in the prayer services, and shake the lulav and etrog. He took part in our Sukkot events between air-raid sirens and bombings.”

“This is a horrific tragedy,” Levenharts told Chabad.org. “It is incomprehensible.”

Israeli Police are investigating the circumstances of the accident.

Yoel Dovid returned to Ukraine for the holiday season with his older brother Mendy, assisting many with the mitzvot of Sukkot.
Yoel Dovid returned to Ukraine for the holiday season with his older brother Mendy, assisting many with the mitzvot of Sukkot.