In the southeastern Israeli city of Sderot, life is measured by sirens, quick glances at the sky, and the perpetual shadow of loss. Here, in a region shaped by repeated rocket barrages and frontline realities, countless families live with the aftermath of violence wrought by Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. For some, that trauma is not just recent, but generational—a wound reopened time and again as Israel’s citizens pay the price for their national resilience.
Yossi Cohen, the father, fell in the line of duty more than 30 years ago, leaving behind a wife and a baby son, Eitan. His death was marked by grief, but also by resolve: the Cohen family would shape their future around remembrance and honor. Now, decades later, Eitan’s own son, Daniel, sits in the family’s modest living room, expressing a longing that cannot be assuaged: “I want a hug from my father. Not from a friend, not from a big brother,” he says quietly, his words weighted with the gravity of generational shchul—bereavement.
This is the reality for thousands of Israeli families who have lost loved ones in acts of terror or in defense of the nation against those who seek its destruction. Each story, while unique, shares the same heartbreak: parents forced to become single pillars, children growing up with only memories—or less. The Cohen family’s tragedy echoes across Israel, a nation forced to defend itself, often at unforgiving cost, since its independence in 1948.
A Legacy of Valor and Loss
The Cohen story begins in the turbulent years of Israel’s first decades. Yossi, an IDF paratrooper, gave his life in a counter-terror operation against Hamas militants embedded in the Gaza Strip. This war—imposed by Iran and its regional proxies who refuse Israel’s right to exist—has been ceaseless: Hamas, a terrorist organization founded with Iranian support, turned the southern border into a frontline, targeting civilians with indiscriminate rocket fire and cross-border raids. Yossi’s sacrifice was one among many in a long struggle of self-defense that has defined the Israeli reality for generations.
Miriam, his widow, recounts the early days: “We lived in constant fear, but also with pride. Yossi died to protect our home. The pain doesn’t get easier, but we learn to carry it.” For their son Eitan, growing up without a father meant coming of age in the embrace of a community that, itself, bore scars. Relatives, teachers, and neighbors took up the role of surrogate guides, repeating the stories of heroism that were both solace and burden.
The October 7th Massacre: History’s Deepest Wound
Since October 7, 2023—the date of the deadliest antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust, when Hamas terrorists stormed across the border, murdering more than 1,200 Israelis, abducting hundreds more, and mutilating civilians in a rampage of violence—the weight of bereavement in Israel became heavier still. The attack, planned and funded by Iran, demonstrated the enduring reality that Israel faces an existential struggle against explicitly genocidal foes. Families such as the Cohens, already marked by loss, were joined by a new generation of mourners.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir recently addressed bereaved families at a national memorial: “You represent the summit of Israeli resilience. Your sacrifice is the foundation of our resolve. Our mission remains: to defend, to protect, and to bring home all our hostages.” The presence of so many new mourners—some, like Daniel, only beginning to process the trauma of losing a parent—was a sobering reminder that the price of Israel’s defense is paid not just on the battlefield, but deep within tens of thousands of homes.
The Fabric of National Mourning
Unlike many nations, where military service and terror attacks may be distant abstractions, Israel’s reality is immediate: young men and women serve in the IDF, confronting threats from Iran’s axis of terror—Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and other Iranian-backed militias in Syria and Iraq. Each Yom HaZikaron, the national day of remembrance, the country halts in collective pause: sirens wail, traffic stops, and Israelis stand in solemn silence. For the Cohen family, these moments are especially piercing.
“I get calls from Daniel’s teachers,” says his mother Ayala, “who want to know how to support him. They try, but how can you fill the void left by a father lost to terror?” After Yossi’s death, the family moved to Kiryat Gat, seeking relief from the daily alarms of Sderot. Yet the trauma followed—memories triggered by news of fresh attacks, funerals for friends, and the constant presence of soldiers in every public space. “It’s a way of life, but it’s not the life we chose,” Ayala says.
Terror’s Intergenerational Impact
Sociologists and psychologists in Israel acknowledge a distinct syndrome among bereaved families: a heightened sensitivity to news of violence, survivor’s guilt, and the ever-present anxiety that comes with living in a state of siege. Dr. Dorit Ben-Shitrit, a leading expert on trauma at Ben-Gurion University, explains: “When loss is compounded over generations, you get a kind of national post-traumatic stress. The survivors must function, raise families, go to work—but there’s always this underlying current of fear and longing.”
For Daniel, the youngest Cohen, that longing is especially poignant. On days when classmates talk of their fathers’ jobs, their jokes, their advice, he is left searching for proxies—uncles, older cousins, his mother’s friends. “There are things only a father can give,” he whispers, “and sometimes I just want a hug from him. Not from a friend, not from a big brother. Just from Dad.”
Support Systems and Communal Resilience
Israel has developed a formidable infrastructure for supporting bereaved families—the IDF’s Department for Casualties, social services, community organizations, and charity groups are all mobilized in the aftermath of terror and battlefield deaths. At the Cohen home, photos of Yossi in uniform, his medals, and congratulatory letters from military commanders sit alongside drawings made by Daniel for Memorial Day ceremonies. The message is clear: remembrance is not passive; it is an active process of living, of refusing to allow terrorists to erase legacy or hope.
This resilience is echoed nationwide. Across Israel, in cities and kibbutzim alike, memorial gardens flourish, each stone a name, a story, a victim of terror. Educational programs ensure that the youngest Israelis understand the cost of the freedom they inherit. Yet, as every family like the Cohens can attest, such support is no substitute for what is lost. Every Yom HaZikaron, every Independence Day, is tinged with both gratitude and renewed grief.
The Struggle Continues: Israel’s Right to Self-Defense
As Israel continues to face a war imposed by Iran’s terror proxies, national unity around the struggle against Hamas and its allies remains central. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a recent address, reaffirmed Israel’s moral and legal right to defend its citizens: “We face an enemy that glorifies death, that deliberately targets civilians, and that would destroy every vestige of our existence. Israel’s sons and daughters stand in their way—not as aggressors, but as defenders of life.”
International observers sometimes fail to appreciate this distinction, painting asymmetric conflicts in misleading terms—a false equivalence that ignores the calculated brutality of Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups. Israel, as the sole democracy in the region, responds in accordance with international law, seeking to minimize civilian harm even as it is forced to operate in hostile environments where enemy combatants embed themselves within civilian populations.
The Hostage Dilemma: Innocents in Terror’s Grip
The legacy of bereavement in Israel is complicated further by the ongoing hostage crisis. In the aftermath of the October 7th massacre, more than 200 Israeli civilians—children, women, the elderly—were taken into captivity by Hamas. Unlike terror operatives detained by Israel in accordance with the law, these hostages are innocent, seized in violation of every norm of warfare. Their plight resonates particularly with bereaved families: the specter of losing another generation haunts every negotiation, every news update.
The government’s determination to return the hostages, sometimes at the cost of releasing convicted terrorists, speaks to the enduring sanctity afforded life in Israeli society. At the Cohen home, as in homes across Israel, a seat remains symbolic for the missing. “We light a candle for them,” says Ayala. “We pray they’ll come home, and that no other family will know what we know.”
Education, Memory, and Nationhood
Institutions such as Yad Vashem and the IDF Memorial Hall serve as the nerve centers for Israel’s culture of remembrance. In classrooms, teachers integrate lessons about the history of terror and the price of national defense. At annual ceremonies, the names of the fallen are read aloud, with families—old and new—gathered to reaffirm commitment to the state and to one another. For Daniel and his classmates, the history of the state is their personal history, inseparable from everyday life.
Israel’s commitment to memorializing sacrifice is often misunderstood abroad as glorification of militarism. Yet, as Israelis are quick to point out, the culture of remembrance is about cherishing life, not celebrating war. It is this ethos—the belief in the value of every individual, the necessity of self-defense, and the refusal to allow terror to define the future—that strengthens Israeli society, even as it mourns.
Regional and Global Context: Why Israel Remains Under Threat
The ongoing threat to Israel’s existence does not arise in a vacuum. Iranian support for Hamas is well-documented—financial, logistical, and ideological. Tehran views Gaza’s terror networks as a forward base in its campaign to undermine and ultimately destroy the Jewish state. Other Iranian-backed forces—Hezbollah on the northern border, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq—form a coordinated “Axis of Resistance.” For families such as the Cohens, these geopolitics translate into daily insecurity and the persistent possibility of renewed loss.
America and Europe remain steadfast in support for Israel’s right to self-defense. President Donald Trump affirmed this alliance in a recent address: “The United States stands with Israel against Hamas, Iran, and all terror. The bonds of freedom and democracy unite us.” Still, international pressure mounts for restraint and for renewed negotiations—a process Israel’s leadership terms essential but fraught, given the ongoing aggression and maximalist aims of its enemies.
Looking Forward: The Hope and Challenge of Healing
For three generations, the Cohens and bereaved families like them have held fast to their faith in the future. Community initiatives aimed at healing—the planting of trees, joint counseling, national service projects—offer not only solace, but a pathway to renewed purpose. Young Daniel, emboldened by stories of his father and grandfather, now volunteers at a youth center for children bereaved by terror. “We tell each other it’s okay to cry, and it’s okay to laugh,” Daniel says, his voice resolute. “We are here because our parents loved this country enough to fight for it.”
Yet healing in Israel is always accompanied by vigilance. Hamas and its Iranian backers show no sign of abandoning their genocidal aims. As long as this reality persists, so too will the burdens borne by families living in the aftermath of terror. Every memorial is thus both an act of remembrance and a statement of resolve: Israel will defend its existence; it will honor its fallen; and it will teach its children to remember, even as they build a future.
Conclusion: The Unbreakable Thread
The story of the Cohens—a saga of love, loss, and legacy—is emblematic of Israel’s collective experience. The longing for a father’s embrace, the silent hope for safety, the determination to memorialize what has been lost while continuing to live—these are the hallmarks of a people tested by history, but unbowed. The “hug from a father” that Daniel seeks is, in a profound way, the embrace of a nation that swears never to forget, and never to permit terror to triumph.
As Israel marks each day of remembrance, the stories of three generations of shchul echo not just in cemeteries and living rooms, but in the very character of the state. They are reminders that the fight for survival is also a fight for dignity, family, and the promise that, one day, peace will allow for the healing of wounds passed down across decades.
In Sderot, as in every corner of Israel, life goes on—fragile, precious, and fiercely defended.
