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Israelis are going forward with their weddings despite war and loss in their own families
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Doron Perez thought he would be supporting his son Yonatan under the huppah at Yonatan’s wedding last week. Instead, it was Yonatan holding him up — and defying all odds to do so.
Yonatan Perez had been shot in a battle with terrorists on Oct. 7. His brother Daniel Perez was missing in action, and Daniel’s tankmates were dead and abducted. Their country had been plunged into despair.
And yet the family went on with the wedding on the date set months prior, despite the pain they all felt.
“We couldn’t really think about [the wedding] for the first few days, and with Yonatan injured, we didn’t quite know what to do,” Doron Perez, a rabbi and executive chairman of the Mizrachi World Movement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
But five days after the attack, when Daniel was officially declared missing and it became clear that Yonatan would recover enough to return to his unit, the path forward became clear. Yonatan and Galya Landau, whose family had been evacuated from their kibbutz, wed at Yad Binyamin, where the Perez family lives, on Oct. 17.
Yonatan Perez and Galya Landau are wed at Yad Binyamin in Israel on Oct. 20, 2023. Perez was wounded in the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and his brother was declared missing. (Courtesy Perez family)
“It wasn’t a difficult decision but it was difficult to go through the experience of the decision,” Perez said. The wedding itself, he said, was “a happy event” despite the circumstances.
“It just felt holy,” he said. “It felt like we’re living in a special time of big things happening … and even though the price has already been so difficult, the overriding feeling was one of happiness, one of just celebration.”
The family’s experience was an extreme version of what many couples in Israel are going through, as they decide whether and how to follow through with their weddings despite the pain and upheaval instigated by Hamas’ attack on Israel.
Some are downsizing their celebrations because family and friends from abroad are unable to come. Many also want to ensure that guests can get to bomb shelters if needed. Others are seeing the guest list grow as bringing joy to brides and grooms has joined the tasks for which Israelis are volunteering in droves.
Some couples are rushing their nuptials in advance of grooms heading to the reserves. And a few have gotten married on the front lines, their parents and fellow soldiers the only guests at ceremonies in the shadow of war.
Reuven Lebetkin, 25, and Shirel Tayeb, 23, were supposed to get married on Monday with many of their family members in attendance from overseas. Both moved to Israel with their families as children, Lebetkin from Miami and Tayeb from France. Instead, they had an intimate wedding at Israel’s northern border, where threats from Hezbollah in Lebanon loomed.
“That’s the date that we decided beforehand. We don’t believe that it’s good luck to push it off,” Lebetkin said. “Also, if we do it means that we give into the terrorism.”
The couple had chosen a song by Israeli musician Noam Banai to play during the veiling ceremony, called a bedeken. They were shocked to see Banai himself at the wedding, in a surprise organized by his friends. Banai ended up playing for the entire ceremony.
Other prominent Israeli musicians have made appearances at wartime weddings. The religious pop star Ishay Ribo played at a backyard wedding where the groom was on a 24-hour leave, according to a report in the Times of Israel, and Ivri Lider sang his hit “I was Fortunate to Love” at a wedding that was downsized from a 400-person hall to an apartment balcony. (Lider also sang the song at the funeral of a soldier who had planned to have it played at his wedding on Oct. 20.)
Hanan Ben Ari surprised another couple, Nadav and Noam, at their ceremony on a military base. Eden Hasson sang for a couple after encountering their wedding while visiting a military base to cheer up soldiers. And the singer Ariel Zilber posted a video of himself performing at a different wedding in the north on Thursday, a red carpet laid down next to a military truck, the bride wearing military attire along with a veil and flowers.
The weddings frequently go viral on social media, in an indication of how deeply the traumatized nation is craving signs of joy and hope.
For the Perez family, just being able to hold the wedding at all was a triumph. It was Yonatan who had alerted his father that Daniel’s tank was missing from their base near Kibbutz Nahal Oz — a fact they found reassuring. “It was a good sign,” Perez said, pointing to the tank’s indestructibility.
But Yonatan, who was shot in the leg during a five-hour gun battle in the Gaza envelope, painted a dire picture of the base, which was overrun by terrorists. “There was death and destruction all around. RPGs everywhere. Every army vehicle had been destroyed,” Perez said, citing Yonatan.
One of the soldiers from Daniel’s tank, Tomer Liebowitz, was found dead. Another, Itay Chen, was confirmed captured. Chen’s father, Ruby, last week also celebrated a lifecycle event — a bar mitzvah — in the absence of his older son, telling JTA that his youngest son “deserved to have a happy bar mitzvah.” Then he flew to the United States to lobby at the United Nations and in Washington, D.C., on behalf of his son and the more than 220 other Israelis taken hostage.
Daniel’s absence was palpable at Yonatan and Galya’s wedding. “When the rabbi mentioned him, it was very, very hard and I broke down,” Perez said. “I had my son holding me up, instead of me holding him up.”
His daughter, meanwhile, said the hardest part of the wedding was being pictured with all her siblings — minus one. “It was a moment that was hard, and we acknowledged that and validated it.”
But, Perez continued, even though Daniel’s “presence, or lack thereof, permeated the whole wedding, it didn’t set the tone.”
Jewish weddings have a built-in acknowledgment of catastrophe amid joy, in the breaking of the glass that takes place at the end of the ceremony. Jewish tradition also holds that weddings should go on as planned whenever possible, no matter the circumstances.
Perez said he had gained a new appreciation for those ideas, in an acutely personal way.
“Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn that it somehow is possible to live with such conflicting, contradictory feelings as deep pain, worry, dread, fear… and at the same time to marry off a son,” he said. “I have learned that it’s possible to do both. To sort of compartmentalize, and I think I did that at the wedding.”
He said he knows his family isn’t the first to forge forward in moments of crisis.
“I’ve also drawn a lot of strength that throughout the most challenging times, Jewish people got married and had families,” he said, citing the Holocaust as an example. “We are part of a people that sanctifies life. It’ll be a new dawn and a much better time for the Jewish people going forward.”
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The post Israelis are going forward with their weddings despite war and loss in their own families appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.