Tall, lean and ever so handsome, Yakir Hexter had all the right moves, especially when it came to “popping and locking.”
To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what popping and locking looked like until Yakir’s grandfather, Chris Hexter of University City, showed me a video of his grandson in action.
Apparently, Yakir, who grew up in Israel, had worked hard to perfect these staccato, very deliberate, body gyrations before sending a video to his aunt and uncle in St. Louis. The finished video shows off his prowess as he pops and locks — looking almost like a balletic robot — in time to Zara Larsson’s dance pop anthem “Ain’t My Fault.”
“It shows one of his significant attributes,” said Chris, 79, a retired lawyer and member of Central Reform Congregation. “(He had a) willingness to explore new things, and the patience to steadily learn, and confidence that over time he would.”
The truth is Yakir Hexter had many significant attributes. He was a barefoot runner and volunteered to help children with disabilities. His grandfather said he had taken part in a race across Jerusalem to raise donations for youngsters with special needs.
The eldest of Joshua and Chaya Hexter’s three sons, Yakir was in his second year of an architecture program at Ariel University in the West Bank. He had studied at the same yeshiva as his father — Yeshivat Har Etzion — which integrates intensive Talmudic study with active military service. There, he met his best friend, Dovid Schwartz, who not only became Yakir’s study buddy but also served alongside him in the Israeli army. Later, the two best pals were in the same reservist unit.
A day after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Yakir and Dovid were called up to serve in Gaza. On Jan. 8, the two combat engineers died together in a rocket-propelled grenade attack during intense fighting in southern Gaza.
Yakir Hexter was 26 years old, as was Dovid.
Yakir’s father and Chris’ son, Josh, grew up in St. Louis and attended Epstein Hebrew Academy and Block Yeshiva. Interestingly, neither Chris nor his ex-wife and Josh’s mother, Elizabeth, grew up Jewish. Both were Episcopalian.
But after they married, Elizabeth, whose good friend was Jewish, converted, and Chris followed suit. In time, Elizabeth became more observant, as did Josh. He celebrated his bar mitzvah at Bais Abraham Congregation.
Josh first went to Israel after he graduated from Block, then returned there for his senior year of college after spending three years at the University of Wisconsin. He graduated in 1992 from both Hebrew University and Wisconsin with degrees in Hebrew and U.S. history.
Josh stayed in Israel and made aliyah. He met Chaya, and the two married in May 1996. Yakir was born March 19, 1997.
Nearly every summer, Josh, Chaya, Yakir and, eventually, younger brothers Raphael, now 22, and Ezra, 20, would come to St. Louis to visit Chris and his second wife, Shellie, whom he married in 1980. Josh also had a sister in St. Louis, Anna, whom Chris and Elizabeth had adopted at birth and is African American and Jewish. Shellie had three children that she brought to the marriage with Chris; two of them were adopted and multiracial.
So, Yakir and his brothers had this large, extended, multiracial and multicultural American family in St. Louis whom they loved to visit, talk to on WhatsApp and amuse by sending the occasional video.
On those summer visits, an outing to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals play and a trip to Ted Drewes, whose frozen custard is kosher, were always on the schedule.
So enamored was Yakir with baseball that Shellie, who is a miniaturist and makes tiny homes and furniture, helped him build a miniature Cardinals dugout out of balsa wood, complete with a bat rack, benches, a soda can or two and some baseball gloves. It took them three summers to finish.
“That dugout is the only Cardinals dugout in Israel. It was taken back there,” said Chris, adding: “The thing about Yakir is that he was kind, competent, artistic, patient — one of the most central virtues you can have in life things to learn and never get riled. He had a very high threshold for working through frustration.”
Rabbi Moshe Taragin, who taught Yakir and Dovid at Yeshivat Har Etzion, wrote an essay after their deaths that appeared in several publications, including the Jerusalem Post and Baltimore Jewish Life. Taragin wrote of Yakir:
“He was artistic and an original thinker, who exhibited broad intellectual sweep. Additionally, he possessed strong moral integrity and conscientiously donated charity from his various side incomes. As he deeply valued time as a commodity, he also allocated specific hours to support the needy.
“Though he possessed strong moral fiber, he knew how to let loose with friends, be mischievous and have fun. He combined finesse, imagination, modesty, moral integrity, intensity and sensitivity.”
By all accounts, Yakir Hexter personified what it means to be a true mensch. When I asked Chris if he’d ask his son to speak to me about Yakir, I received an email back from Josh politely declining, at least for now.
“The pain and trauma surrounding this event are overwhelming for us and, at this moment, I find myself unable to engage in discussions about Yakir,” he wrote.
Chris told me that both Josh and Chaya eulogized their son, in English, at his funeral at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery on Jan. 9. I looked for a video of the eulogies and and found only one: of Chaya.
There she was, visibly distraught, choking back tears and her heartbreak but still managing to deliver such eloquence:
“You made motherhood so easy, so fun. You are a mensch like no other person, like no other man. You are a hero, but you were always a hero … even before this war. … Your generosity of spirit and giving and understanding and sensitivity to make everyone feel heard and understood and loved. …
“You never wasted a minute of your precious life. … You are a living example of chesed (kindness) mixed with understanding and sensitivity. So humble. I think that is one of your major traits. … You stood for all that is pure and good.”
Hamas’ attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza has devastated so many peoples’ lives in Israel, in Gaza, in the United States and beyond. How long will this war continue? What will be the ultimate outcome?
None of us know, but what we can do is remember individuals like Yakir and Dovid, who stood by their convictions and fought and died for the country they so desperately loved and its people they wanted to protect. That is a legacy to be proud of and to honor.
