Students mourn Weston boy who died 4 weeks after Israel bombing

Plantation, Florida — Daniel Wultz’s schoolmates planned to wear blue and white bracelets until the Weston teen who was injured in a Tel Aviv bombing last month returned home.

Instead, students at the David Posnack Hebrew Day School cut off the bracelets on Monday during an emotional memorial service, one day after he died in a Tel Aviv hospital. They plan to present the bracelets, which represent the colors of the Israeli flag, to Daniel’s parents before his funeral this afternoon.

“Daniel, you didn’t go alone,” said sophomore Sarah Azizi. “A part of us went with you the day God took you home.”

Daniel was critically injured in a suicide bombing on April 17 and died Sunday. At the time of the bombing, the 16-year-old was having lunch at an outdoor restaurant with his father, Tuly, whose leg was broken during the blast.

At the Plantation school, students crowded into a balmy outside courtyard, reciting prayers, sobbing and sharing memories of Daniel. His sophomore class led the service.

“We all knew him: his permanent smile, his love of basketball, and above all his love and devotion to Torah studies and God,” Azizi said. “Daniel has connected each and every one of us with his faith in God, hope and acts of everlasting kindness.”

Students remembered his penchant for challenging teachers.

“Daniel was someone who wanted to get his message across, be heard and share his passion,” said Shirley Nagar, sobbing. “How ironic that Daniel’s tragic ending will have been heard worldwide.”Students also questioned why their friend, who told his grandparents he wanted to stay in Israel forever, died so young.

“How could someone of such character, such faith in God be taken from us?” Nagar said. “How and why should we still have this faith?”

Two rabbis and two psychologists were on hand to help the students deal with such feelings, headmaster Laurence Kutler said. Students are traumatized because they lost a friend, one whom they prayed for and sent gifts to during the past month.

“The issues they’re dealing with are issues adults have trouble dealing with,” Kutler said.

Hundreds of people, including Daniel’s family and friends, also packed a small Jerusalem synagogue for a tearful memorial ceremony at the same time Monday.

“Daniel had the biggest heart in the world,” said his mother, Sheryl Wultz, according to The Associated Press.

Some family members recalled how Daniel had grown more religious in the past year because he felt he had a brush with death when family friends died in an airplane he was scheduled to be on.

During the Jerusalem ceremony, Wultz’s parents and his sister, Amanda, walked to the coffin. His father used a cane because of the leg injury he suffered in the blast.

“You left us, Daniel. You gave the fight of your life. I was honored to be your father,” he said, sobbing.

After the service, Wultz’s coffin was carried to an ambulance outside as rabbis recited prayers and mourners cried and wailed.

Tuly Wultz walked down the street and said the traditional Jewish prayer of mourning. He climbed into the ambulance and kissed the coffin.

Daniel’s 3 p.m. funeral service at Chabad Lubavitch of Weston is expected to draw hundreds, said Andrew Abraham, a family friend. The facility may place loudspeakers outside for the crowds.

“The rabbi really doesn’t know how many people to expect,” Abraham said.