A memorial mural featuring angel wings in a prominent city square in Israel.
A sand sculpture on the Tel Aviv beach.
An Israeli tank shell inscribed with a commemorative message.
Spontaneous Israeli public tributes that have poured in since last week’s assassination in Utah of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 31, who was admired in Israel for his staunch support of the Jewish state and had a large following across the Atlantic.
“If the world is divided into good and evil, then we lost a very important person on the side of the good,” Israeli artist Dudi Shoval, 33, who drew the mural, told JNS.
Shoval, an avid follower of Kirk, recounted going to sleep trembling after hearing of the assassination at a Utah college campus and waking up physically unwell the next day. He canceled his scheduled work and immediately began creating a mural in Kirk’s memory, now displayed in Ashdod at the square dedicated to the late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, who was killed in the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003.
“I didn’t know him personally, but I admired his views and his principles,” Shoval said, adding that he cried as he worked on the mural over the next four hours. “I valued how he went about his life.”
Elsewhere in Israel, the mayor of the coastal city of Netanya, which has a large French immigrant population, announced that a traffic circle will be renamed in Kirk’s honor.
“On behalf of the Municipality of Netanya and all its residents, I have decided to commemorate Charlie’s memory in a square that will bear his name,” Mayor Miriam Feirberg-Ikar said on Instagram, adding that those who visit will “remember Israel’s great friend.”
“Charlie Kirk: His Legacy Will Continue to Shine” was etched in the sands on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea beneath a cross and the Star of David, with two small Israeli flags hovering above.
Even Israeli soldiers joined in, with pictures circulating on social media showing an Israeli tank shell inscribed with the message, “In memory of Charlie Kirk.”
