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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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Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students

Haredi Jewish men look at the scene of an explosion at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, on Nov. 23, 2022. Photo: Reuters/Ammar Awad
Israel’s military said it would issue 54,000 call-up notices to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students following a Supreme Court ruling mandating their conscription and amid growing pressure from reservists stretched by extended deployments.
The Supreme Court ruling last year overturned a decades-old exemption for ultra-Orthodox students, a policy established when the community comprised a far smaller segment of the population than the 13 percent it represents today.
Military service is compulsory for most Israeli Jews from the age of 18, lasting 24-32 months, with additional reserve duty in subsequent years. Members of Israel’s 21 percent Arab population are mostly exempt, though some do serve.
A statement by the military spokesperson confirmed the orders on Sunday just as local media reported legislative efforts by two ultra-Orthodox parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to craft a compromise.
The exemption issue has grown more contentious as Israel’s armed forces in recent years have faced strains from simultaneous engagements with Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, and Iran.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders in Netanyahu’s brittle coalition have voiced concerns that integrating seminary students into military units alongside secular Israelis, including women, could jeopardize their religious identity.
The military statement promised to ensure conditions that respect the ultra-Orthodox way of life and to develop additional programs to support their integration into the military. It said the notices would go out this month.
The post Israel to Issue 54,000 Call-Up Notices to Ultra-Orthodox Students first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich sharply criticized on Sunday a cabinet decision to allow some aid into Gaza as a “grave mistake” that he said would benefit the terrorist group Hamas.
Smotrich also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing to ensure that Israel’s military is following government directives in prosecuting the war against Hamas in Gaza. He said he was considering his “next steps” but stopped short of explicitly threatening to quit the coalition.
Smotrich’s comments come a day before Netanyahu is due to hold talks in Washington with President Donald Trump on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day Gaza ceasefire.
“… the cabinet and the Prime Minister made a grave mistake yesterday in approving the entry of aid through a route that also benefits Hamas,” Smotrich said on X, arguing that the aid would ultimately reach the Islamist group and serve as “logistical support for the enemy during wartime”.
The Israeli government has not announced any changes to its aid policy in Gaza. Israeli media reported that the government had voted to allow additional aid to enter northern Gaza.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The military declined to comment.
Israel accuses Hamas of stealing aid for its own fighters or to sell to finance its operations, an accusation Hamas denies. Gaza is in the grip of a humanitarian catastrophe, with conditions threatening to push nearly a half a million people into famine within months, according to U.N. estimates.
Israel in May partially lifted a nearly three-month blockade on aid. Two Israeli officials said on June 27 the government had temporarily stopped aid from entering north Gaza.
PRESSURE
Public pressure in Israel is mounting on Netanyahu to secure a permanent ceasefire, a move opposed by some hardline members of his right-wing coalition. An Israeli team left for Qatar on Sunday for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
Smotrich, who in January threatened to withdraw his Religious Zionism party from the government if Israel agreed to a complete end to the war before having achieved its objectives, did not mention the ceasefire in his criticism of Netanyahu.
The right-wing coalition holds a slim parliamentary majority, although some opposition lawmakers have offered to support the government from collapsing if a ceasefire is agreed.
The post Influential Far-Right Minister Lashes out at Netanyahu Over Gaza War Policy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media during a press conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at the Australian Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Aug. 16, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Tracey Nearmy
Australian police have charged a man in connection with an alleged arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue with worshippers in the building, the latest in a series of incidents targeting the nation’s Jewish community.
There were no injuries to the 20 people inside the East Melbourne Synagogue, who fled from the fire on Friday night. Firefighters extinguished the blaze in the capital of Victoria state.
Australia has experienced several antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023.
Counter-terrorism detectives late on Saturday arrested the 34-year-old resident of Sydney, capital of neighboring New South Wales, charging him with offenses including criminal damage by fire, police said.
“The man allegedly poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire before fleeing the scene,” police said in a statement.
The suspect, whom the authorities declined to identify, was remanded in custody after his case was heard at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Sunday and no application was made for bail, the Australian Broadcasting Corp reported.
Authorities are investigating whether the synagogue fire was linked to a disturbance on Friday night at an Israeli restaurant in Melbourne, in which one person was arrested for hindering police.
The restaurant was extensively damaged, according to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for Australia’s Jews.
It said the fire at the synagogue, one of Melbourne’s oldest, was set as those inside sat down to Sabbath dinner.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog went on X to “condemn outright the vile arson attack targeting Jews in Melbourne’s historic and oldest synagogue on the Sabbath, and on an Israeli restaurant where people had come to enjoy a meal together”.
“This is not the first such attack in Australia in recent months. But it must be the last,” Herzog said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the incidents as “severe hate crimes” that he viewed “with utmost gravity.” “The State of Israel will continue to stand alongside the Australian Jewish community,” Netanyahu said on X.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese late on Saturday described the alleged arson, which comes seven months after another synagogue in Melbourne was targeted by arsonists, as shocking and said those responsible should face the law’s full force.
“My Government will provide all necessary support toward this effort,” Albanese posted on X.
Homes, schools, synagogues and vehicles in Australia have been targeted by antisemitic vandalism and arson. The incidents included a fake plan by organized crime to attack a Sydney synagogue using a caravan of explosives in order to divert police resources, police said in March.
The post Australia Police Charge Man Over Alleged Arson on Melbourne Synagogue first appeared on Algemeiner.com.