The Israeli music world was stunned Thursday by the sudden death of Eliezer Botzer, the beloved singer-songwriter known for hits like "Zion" and "Pardes Rimonim." The father of eight and grandfather of two was returning home from reserve duty when he passed away.
"The light of my life, my beautiful man, without whom I am nothing, has gone to eternal rest," his wife Noa said at his military funeral in Safed.
Rabbi Yehuda Liebman, a close friend, painted a vivid portrait of the complex artist: "He arrived in the Shomron years ago with a wild mane of hair - a freedom fighter, a Safed child, a fierce Nachal commando. A giant with a vast heart, both untamed and miraculous."
Botzer embodied seemingly contradictory worlds - switching effortlessly between strumming his guitar and manning a MAG machine gun during his security duties. After settling in Yitzhar, he revolutionized Jewish music with his "wild rhythms and words of redemption."
Three years ago, Botzer promised to compose a song for the Bat Ayin mystic. Just last week, while serving in Lebanon, he reaffirmed that commitment. "You were always a soldier," Liebman said in his eulogy, "a soldier of revolutions, of the Land of Israel, of the Jewish people - a warrior and dreamer who never stopped playing life's strings until the final moment."
Butzer was laid to rest in Safed's military cemetery, near the Bat Ayin cave he loved, leaving behind a legacy of music that bridged secular and sacred, warrior and poet, heaven and earth.
