Australian family mourns tragic loss of ‘beloved soul’
"He was extremely proud that the nature of his role was that you had to clear the way for other soldiers to be able to get through," says Zamir's Australian uncle Danny Brill.
The sorrow resulting from an Israeli military fatality in Gaza last Friday has hit home in Australia, where family and friends are mourning the loss of soldier Zamir Burke.
Staff Sgt. Burke, a 20-year-old Israel Defence Forces officer with Australian parents, was tragically killed during battle in northern Gaza.
Serving as a heavy equipment squad commander in the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion, he was struck by anti-tank fire while operating an armoured D-9 bulldozer. Another soldier was seriously injured in the attack.
Zamir’s mother Tammy Burke (nee Brill) was born in Israel but grew up in Melbourne, and his father Jesse (Yishai) Burke is from Sydney.
Tammy’s parents moved to Australia when Tammy was young, opening a pizza restaurant in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava, and her mother Rutti taught at Beth Rivkah Ladies College.
Tammy attended Bnei Akiva and moved back to Israel after studying speech pathology at La Trobe University and met Jesse in Israel, where they married and had four children – Zamir and his three sisters.
On Israeli radio this week, one of Zamir’s sisters described her brother as a “yedid nefesh” – beloved soul.
AJN director Anna Pasternak spoke to Zamir’s Australian uncle Danny Brill who lives in Israel. He shared that Zamir had Australian citizenship and while he had never visited Australia, Zamir dreamed of travelling to Australia and East Asia when he finished his army service. “He wanted to see his parents’ roots,” Brill said.
On serving in the Israeli army, Brill noted, “He was extremely proud that the nature of his role was that you had to clear the way for other soldiers to be able to get through.
“Part of his job was to go through tunnels and his team was part of a team that found one of the one of the kidnapped hostages, and he was extremely proud about that.”
Zamir served in Gaza for around eight months.
Brill said Zamir was dedicated to helping others, volunteering to support children with special needs with ambitions to one day open his own centre to assist children with special needs, along with one of his sisters who is a social worker.
At his funeral, his father reflected on Zamir’s love for science, especially physics, while his rabbi praised his sharp intellect and the deep questions he asked about Jewish theology.
“Zamir was a person who really believed that there needs to be good in the world, and that people need to do good,” Brill said.
While the family grieves, Brill expressed gratitude for the outpouring of love and support they had received, including from the Australian community in Israel.
“As amazing as we thought Zamir was, we realised that it’s just a drop in the ocean from all of the other people that he had affected in his life, from his volunteering, his friends, his army … So, we were just really loving how much we’re learning about all these other parts of his world.”
Writing in the Times of Israel blogs, Gila Isaacson, whose own son serves in the IDF and is a “dear friend” of Zamir, said, “Zamir was everything we hope our children will grow up to be.
“At just 20, he was already exceptional – a brilliant mind with a gift for mathematics and physics, matched by a soul that understood the deepest meaning of friendship and duty. He played guitar, bringing music into the lives of those around him. His generosity wasn’t just a trait; it was a way of life.”
According to the IDF, the total number of casualties across all fronts since the start of this war is at least 807.
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