On October 7, 2023, my husband was called up to reserve duty, leaving straight from our synagogue, with little idea when he might return. He spent the next three months in the South, securing the communities that were attacked and making sure there were no more terrorists wandering around undetected.
In a matter of hours, I was thrust into the role of a single mother. And like countless other spouses around Israel, I was asked to place the needs of the nation over the needs of our own families.
While my husband served the nation’s defenses, I stayed at home with our four children. As we watched the events unfold, we were all scared and uncertain about what the future might mean. At all hours of the day and night, I needed to juggle my children’s needs alongside my own personal tasks, responsibilities, and emotions.
Bereaved families
I am the executive director of the Koby Mandell Foundation, and long before October 7 we were working to support bereaved families – a service grown out of my family’s own personal tragedy, the murder of my brother Koby in 2001. So, in those dark days after Hamas’s attack, while I was trying to hold my own family – and myself – together, I also knew that this was a time where we, as an organization, were needed more than ever.
On one of the first days of the war, there was a knock at my door. I opened it to see a soldier standing there, breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath. In the three seconds it took him to catch his breath, the worst possible thoughts ran through my mind. I can still clearly recall how I thought he was going to tell me that my husband was never coming back.
Thank God, that was not the case. When he realized how scared I was, he apologized over and over. He had just wanted to borrow the keys to our shared office space.
Every day since, I thank God that it is not my story. However, it is an ever-present thought in my mind and in my heart that there are so many wives whose story unfolds completely differently.
Becoming a widow
On October 7, and over the course of the past two and a half years since, there have been hundreds of women who lost their husbands. For them, that knock on the door brought them terrible news and plunged them into the dark reality of becoming a widow.
Over the course of more than 300 days of my husband’s reserve duty, and knowing the dangers he faced, I was constantly aware that the difference between me and these women could be the smallest of things.
Despite the ever-present fear, I am cautiously thankful that my situation provides me with a very special relationship with the widows I meet. The personal lens with which I have experienced this situation better positions me and the foundation to help them to the best of our ability.
Healing retreat
During the first healing retreat we ran for widows from October 7 and the 12-day war of June 2025, the room felt so heavy, it was hard to breathe. We were met with the cruel reality of over 60 widows’ losses. Some with infants, others pregnant, many with children at home.
They had been thrust into their new reality: Most of them, in their 20s and early 30s with young children, had suddenly become single mothers. They were holding on by a thread. Even when they accepted all the help they could get, they were still being crushed by the weight of being alone.
After that first retreat, which was able to provide some reprieve, the widows requested that we launch a parenting course. The concept was both simple and critical in light of their circumstances: to give them the tools they needed to parent and provide for their newly bereaved children.
In one message I received from Dana, whose husband was killed on October 7, she wrote how meaningful the sessions were. “Thank you for being part of this complicated journey; thank you for helping me believe there is hope.”
Another young widow, Ayelet, wrote, “I want to thank you for creating a space where, no matter what we said, you made us feel that we are doing a great job. You provided us with a new language we can now use with our kids.”
Learning to love
When the parenting sessions were finished, we realized that what these widows needed were practical tools to be able to do the things that used to be their husbands’ responsibility.
We started a HandyWomen course, where the widows were provided with the actual tools to fix their own houses. From there, we moved on to financial support, teaching them about their rights, money, and investments.
All these courses and sessions were done by request of the women themselves, in accordance with the needs that they expressed.
In what could be viewed as tragic yet hopeful, we found that a common request was for a course on how to prepare for a second marriage. These women sought life skills that they thought they’d never need, such as how to start dating again, how to talk about it with the fallen husband’s family, and how to find the words for one’s own children and family.
Despite the highly sensitive nature of the course, I believe this was by far the most important one, and that it allowed us to impart the power of resilience. It gives me great joy to be able to share that six of the widows who took part in our program have since remarried – and more marriages are going to be announced soon, please God.
The 2025 retreat we held was noticeably lighter than the year prior. Some widows were already remarried, and one even showed up with a baby bump.
Despite the noticeable optimism, we know there is still so much pain and so much work to do. It is our honor to be able to support these widows on their never-ending journey.
And while I am grateful to see the smiles on their faces, we know that behind them are daily emotional and practical challenges – and hundreds, if not thousands, of orphans. To each of those women, and to each of those children, our pledge is that while we know this is a long journey with many ups and downs, we are a community that will always be there for them.■
Eliana Mandell Braner is the executive director of the Koby Mandell Foundation in Israel.