The Ultimate Sacrifice: The Faith and Courage of IDF Widows
Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90
For Chava Zenilman, the dreaded knock on the door came at the close of a family Chanukah party. “At the time, four men in my family were fighting in Gaza, but the ‘modi’im’ [soldiers tasked with delivering news of a fellow soldier’s death] came straight up to me,” recalls the thirty-one-year-old mother of three. The news they shared was that her husband Ari, thirty-two, had been shot by Hamas terrorists who launched a combined barrage of gunshots and explosives from a school building just outside Khan Yunis.
At that moment, Chava joined a growing Israeli demographic: war widows.
“I understand that Hashem gave us this and that Hashem will send a nechamah,” says Chava. “I know my job here is to serve Hashem and to understand that we don’t understand. Our response is to improve our avodat Hashem and our bein adam lachaveiro.”
Chava is not alone in her expression of deep faith. Balancing grief with the need to persevere, many of these widows say that faith and community have helped them through their darkest hours.
As of this writing, the war has lasted over a year, and 310 women have lost their husbands defending the Jewish state. Of these, thirty-five were pregnant at the time they were widowed. By way of comparison, during the year before the war, the ranks of IDF and police widows grew by twenty.
Ari and Chava Zenilman. Chava, a thirty-one-year-old mother of three, became a widow last Chanukah when her husband was killed while fighting in Gaza. Courtesy of Chava Zenilman
“This is an enormous rise,” says David Metzler of the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization, a nonprofit NGO that works with the Israeli government to provide emotional and financial support to families of fallen soldiers.
How do these women cope financially?
The Defense Ministry provides a lifetime monthly grant of NIS 10,000, with additional support for underage children. That isn’t always enough. In April, a group of recent IDF widows lobbied the Knesset to increase the stipend.
Recognizing the importance of maintaining good mental health, the government provides an aid package that includes bereavement therapy and other psychological support. The package is flexible. “You decide what kind of therapy would be best for you and your kids—horseback riding, art, music,” says Chava whose children receive counseling. She receives counseling for herself as well to help her adjust to her new role as a single parent. “Ari left for war a week after our youngest was born. He saw our baby four times,” she says.
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion accompanied six-year-old Achiya Zenilman on his first day of school. Courtesy of Arnon Bossani/Mayor’s Spokesman
Chava, who lives in Ma’ale Adumim, is functioning well and caring for her children despite the hole in her heart. “It amazes me how heartbroken I am. I was devastated that this was what Hashem had chosen for me,” she says.
“We used to love Shabbat at home. My husband would take the kids to shul and put them under his tallit for Birkat Kohanim. Now, my six-year-old son struggles to find his place in shul without a father to guide him.”
Living as fully as possible is a coping strategy for Chava. Right after the sheloshim ended, she returned to medical school. “I felt a need to be active, to do something,” she says. The medical school she attends allowed her to adjust her schedule so she could spend more time at home.
Balancing grief with the need to persevere, many of these widows say that faith and community have helped them through their darkest hours.
Still, it’s tough. Like many couples, Chava and her late husband, Ari, a computer programmer who attended Yeshivat Har Etzion, shared responsibility for taking care of the children and the home. “We were a team. We did what we needed to do, and the family came first. Ari was a great husband and father,” she says.
Her family—both her parents and her in-laws—helps. So do friends, and even strangers. “Every day, I have offers to take the kids to the park. People think of their strengths and how they can help.” In fact, at the beginning of the school year, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion accompanied six-year-old Achiya to first grade on his first day of school.
“We aren’t forgotten”
Another Gaza war widow warmed by the Jewish people’s collective embrace is forty-one-year-old Torah teacher Hadas Loewenstern, whose husband Rabbi Elisha Loewenstern, a software engineer and a serious Torah scholar, was also killed in Gaza on Chanukah. “An anti-tank missile shot him. It was a straight hit. He died on the spot,” she says.
Since then, Hadas, who lives in Harish, a city between Netanya and Haifa, hasn’t gone through a single day when she didn’t receive something. “Presents, money, food. It’s unbelievable. We feel that we aren’t forgotten. Much of this help is provided by strangers,” she says.
Right after thirty-eight-year-old Master Sgt. Loewenstern’s death, a dozen men flew in from the Five Towns on Long Island to comfort Hadas. “They sang and danced and brought gifts for my kids,” she recalls. She also recalls a Chareidi man from Brooklyn who arrived at her door just before Pesach. “He sat on my couch and said, ‘Whatever you need, we are with you.’” Another kindly stranger presented her with an envelope filled with blank checks. “I haven’t touched this money, and I don’t plan to, but the gesture was deeply moving,” she says.
What moves her is the feeling of unity underscoring these actions. “We are all brothers. Am Yisrael is bursting with love, and we are the ones to accept some of this love.”
Hadas Loewenstern, a forty-one-year-old Torah teacher, became a widow last Chanukah when her husband, Rabbi Elisha Loewenstern, was killed in Gaza.
With six children under the age of thirteen—the oldest twelve and the youngest not even a year old—Hadas has a lot to handle. “People always ask me what the most difficult time is. I can’t predict it. Whenever a woman needs her husband, when they consult with and are there for each other, that’s when I miss Elisha the most.”
But she is neither bitter nor angry. “Nobody stays in this world for more than 120 years,” Hadas is quoted as saying in an article on Aish.com. “The question is: how did you live in the time that was allotted to you? I look at Elisha and I say to myself—he passed the test with flying colors. He lived an exemplary life. And this also gives me comfort, because I know that G-d was very happy with the way Elisha lived.”
A month after her husband’s death, Hadas, determined to share her husband’s legacy with the world, began recording short videos, expressing her admiration for her heroic husband. The videos went viral. Since then, she has been interviewed on many popular podcasts and flies to the US to give talks, her stirring emunah captivating thousands of listeners. Every day, she speaks with Jews who come to see her from all over the globe. “Elisha lived a beautiful life full of love of Hashem,” she says. “When you have something this good, you want people to know it.”
Hadas senses that Hashem took her husband so the Jewish people could get to know him.
“G-d decided that Elisha should live in this world for thirty-eight years. He could have died in any other way, like in a car accident, and nobody would have heard about him. I truly feel that because of his special qualities and beautiful personality, G-d wanted the world to know about him.
“When you have a body, you are very limited. Hashem wanted Elisha to be unlimited. It has become my life’s mission to let every Jew know that a righteous man named Elisha lived in this world,” she says.
“I gave my husband to the Jewish people”
Shortly after the Hamas massacre, some forty pulpit rabbis and lay leaders from Orthodox communities around North America went on an OU mission to Israel. The itinerary included a meeting with Dana Cohen.
Dana is the widow of Aviad Cohen, who sacrificed his life on October 7 in defense of the Gaza border communities. The family lived in Shlomit, a Religious Zionist village situated four miles from the border with the Gaza Strip. After the Shlomit security team learned about the terrorist infiltration in the nearby community of Pri Gan on Simchat Torah, they mobilized to help their neighbors. On that fateful morning, Aviad, a member of the Shlomit security team, left to help defend Pri Gan, where he was fatally shot in a battle with terrorists.
At the meeting with the rabbis, Dana had a single powerful message for the group, recalls Rabbi Yaakov Glasser, the OU’s managing director of communal engagement: Klal Yisrael must have achdut. “I gave my husband to the Jewish people, and if it means there’ll be achdut among Klal Yisrael, I’m prepared to accept it,” Dana told the group. “But if the Jewish people are going to continue to fight with each other, then as far as I’m concerned, he died for nothing.”
Don’t Be Sad
Similar to some of the other widows with whom we spoke, dance and movement therapist Galit Vizel, thirty-five, is using her widowhood to celebrate her husband’s memory. Vizel’s husband, Chief Sergeant Elkana Vizel, thirty-five, was killed in January in an explosion that took the lives of twenty-two soldiers.
Galit Vizel and her husband, Chief Sergeant Elkana Vizel. Rabbi Vizel, thirty-five, was killed in January in an explosion that took the lives of twenty-two soldiers in Gaza.
“Elkana was a very special man who sacrificed himself for Am Yisrael,” says Vizel, who lives in Bnei Dekalim with her four children. A teacher and rebbi, as well as a gifted juggler, Rabbi Vizel had been injured during Operation Protective Edge in 2014. As a result, he was exempt from reserve duty and wasn’t called up on October 7. But he felt a need to join the fight. “He used connections to be drafted,” recalls Galit.
Since Rabbi Vizel’s passing, Galit has poured her energies into creating Beit Elkana, a center she hopes to build in Bnei Dekalim for people coping with pain, which was a dream the couple shared. The home will become a center for physical and emotional healing and will be equipped with therapy rooms, a therapeutic swimming pool, and a coffee shop staffed by special-needs adults. So far, she has raised one million of the eight million shekels needed to get the project up and running.
“I’m no longer a private person. I am a person of Am Yisrael. I give my soul to continue to live al kiddush Hashem and to raise my kids with joy,” says Galit.
I gave my husband to the Jewish people, and if it means there’ll be achdut among Klal Yisrael, I’m prepared to accept it . . . But if the Jewish people are going to continue to fight with each other, then as far as I’m concerned, he died for nothing.
Rabbi Vizel, a graduate of the Hesder yeshivah in Ramat Gan, wrote a letter to his loved ones before going into war. At his levayah, his widow read the letter.
If you are reading these words, something must have happened to me. If I was kidnapped, I demand that no deal be made for the release of any terrorist to release me. Our overwhelming victory is more important than anything, so please continue to work with all your might so that the victory is as overwhelming as possible.
Maybe I fell in battle. When a soldier falls in battle, it is sad, but I ask you to be happy. Don’t be sad when you part with me. Touch hearts, hold each other’s hands, and strengthen each other. We have so much to be proud and happy about.
We are writing the most significant moments in the history of our nation and the entire world. So please, be happy, be optimistic, keep choosing life all the time. Spread love, light, and optimism. . . . I was already wounded in Operation Tzuk Eitan, but I do not regret that I returned to fight. This is the best decision I ever made.
At a press conference held following the building collapse that killed the soldier, Prime Minister Netanyahu quoted from his letter, making Rabbi Vizel famous throughout the Jewish world.
The words in her husband’s last letter remain a source of strength for Galit. “Elkana died for the Jewish people,” she says. “That is the best way to die.”
Carol Green Ungar is an award-winning writer whose essays have appeared in Tablet, the Jerusalem Post, Ami Magazine, Jewish Action and other publications. She teaches memoir writing and is the author of several children’s books.