Israelis bereaved by Gaza war face lonely journey

“There isn’t a day that I don’t think about him. That I don’t think of my pain and the pain of the others whose children were killed. It is not easy,” says Shosh Goldmacher, whose son Nadav, a 23-year-old resident of the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, was killed by an anti-tank missile when he responded to a terrorist infiltration during Operation Protective Edge.

The attention of the Jewish community and the rest of the world is transfixed on the three Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris that this month took the lives of 17 people, including four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket. But last summer, a 50-day war with Hamas in Gaza claimed the lives of 66 Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and six Israeli civilians. More than four months after the end of the conflict — but still early in the grieving process — the bereaved families are working to pick up the pieces. 

Last month, OneFamily, an Israeli organization working to rehabilitate families that have seen members killed or injured by war or terrorism, held an event for 160 people from 50 families that suffered a loss from Operation Protective Edge. The event, also funded by the Iranian American Jewish Federation, offered a therapeutic environment for the families to heal together and to re-ceive financial aid for the coming year. 

OneFamily staff members had visited each home of the families that were bereaved by the Gaza war during the seven-day shiva mourning period, and the organization has offered counseling and other support to these families since last summer.

“It gives me tremendous joy to see all of you sitting together, eating together,” Rabbi David Baruch Lau, the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, said at the Dec. 31 event.

But in reality, the positive healing energy that the event sought to create is just the beginning of a lengthy process for these families. Rebecca Fuhrman, communications manager for OneFamily, said the families are already experiencing the forgetfulness of society.