Fundraiser held to honor and remember Plainview's Omer Neutra

Less than a decade ago, Omer Neutra’s family and many friends gathered at the catering hall inside the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset to celebrate his bar mitzvah.

Thursday evening, familiar faces and people Neutra had never met gathered in that very room for another celebration: the baking of challah bread to honor him and raise money for a handwritten Torah scroll to be placed in the synagogue and dedicated to preserving his memory.

The 21-year-old Plainview native, a member of the Israeli Defense Forces, died in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas militants, according to an IDF statement on Dec. 2.

Ira Kohler, Neutra’s friend since childhood and a paratrooper for the IDF from 2022 to 2024, was among about 300 people at the Syosset event.

"He gave his all for Israel and our people," Kohler said of his friend and fellow soldier. "He did so much, but at the end of the day, he was really someone that when you were talking to him, he gave you so much attention, he gave you so much love."

The attack by Hamas militants after crossing Israel's southern border with Gaza killed some 1,200 people. Israel declared war on Hamas in response. More than 46,000 people have died in Gaza since the start of the war, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The ticketed event in Syosset helped Neutra’s place of worship move closer to its goal of $100,000 for the Torah scroll.

The scroll, which Levenson expects to be dedicated next month, will be read aloud during services and centered among others, but is likely the first in the Jewish Center’s collection dedicated in honor of a military veteran.

Families dedicate Torah scrolls "to someone of fine, upstanding character," Levenson said. The baking of challah bread is a mitzvah, or a good deed, in the Jewish faith. Its braided structure represents why 300 were wrist-deep in dough Thursday evening as well as what many at the Jewish center believe is Neutra’s legacy: unity.

"I think it’s fitting for someone like Omer Neutra who really kept at the center of his core what it meant to be connected to other people, connected to community," Levenson said. "If other people, including teens and kids here, including my own, can learn from his example, I think we’ll go a long way in making this world a better place."

For more than a year after the attack, Neutra was believed to be alive and in captivity. The Plainview native’s family and community had hoped and prayed for his return home until Dec. 2, when the IDF announced on X that the platoon commander was killed the day of the attack "based on intelligence."

Neutra, the grandson of Holocaust survivors and son of Ronen and Orna Neutra, dual American-Israeli citizens who had also served in the IDF, deferred college at Binghamton University to join the Israeli military, Newsday previously reported. As a boy, the 2019 graduate of a Williston Park Jewish day school, Schechter School of Long Island, was captain of his soccer, basketball and volleyball teams. As a man enlisted in the IDF, he was in charge of a small base near the Gaza border when Hamas attacked.