Ignored by state, girlfriends of fallen Israeli soldiers hold own memorial

By Roni Singer-Heruti
Haaretz.com

But for the improvised wall displaying photographs of young men in uniform - fallen Israeli soldiers - it would have been hard to understand just what was going on at Ben Shemen Forest this past Friday morning.

Next to the drinks tables and chairs beneath a large canopy stood groups of young women wearing oversized sunglasses, weeping and embracing each other.

The dozens of women gathered for the first time for a memorial ceremony organized by The Non-Profit Organization for Emotional Support of Girlfriends (Fiancees) of Fallen Soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces.

Fallen soldiers' girlfriends at the memorial(Tomer Appelbaum)

The organization was founded a decade ago by Phyllis Heimowitz and her daughter, Tamar Heimowitz-Richter, after her other daughter's boyfriend, Avi Book, was killed in Lebanon in 1997. They were later joined in running the organization by Rina Kahan, who lost her boyfriend in the Yom Kippur War.

Like Kahan, who married and raised three children but never got over the trauma of bereavement, many other women active in the organization went on to build new relationships while preserving the memory of their lost love.

The support groups run by the organization, mostly on a volunteer basis, cater to 270 bereaved girlfriends, no fewer than 43 of whom joined as a result of the Second Lebanon War.

The support groups are also open to boyfriends of female soldiers who were killed during their army service.

One of the women attending Friday's ceremony was Shani Omiel, 24, who lost her boyfriend, Merom Fisher, during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, when she was only 17.

"We had been together for two and half years, and the day they told me of his death my life ended. I soon learned that I didn't count in official bereavement circles," Omiel said. "That led me to become lost, and I didn't know where to get help. Today I can say that the organization saved my life."

Now, as then, the girlfriend of a fallen soldier has no official standing in the eyes of the IDF.

Frequently no one even takes the trouble to contact her to inform her that her boyfriend has been killed, let alone to come to her or offer emotional support.

This was the case, for instance, with Alex Vinokourov, a soldier herself today, who lost her boyfriend, Pavel Slutzker, two years ago in the same attack in which Gilad Shalit was taken captive.

"I was waiting for a bus at the station when suddenly I heard his name on the radio news broadcast and that he had been killed. I nearly collapsed," she said. "Later I found out that my parents didn't want to tell me until I came home, while Pavel's parents were immersed in their own pain," she said.

Vinokourov faces her grief alone; grief which even her close friends cannot really grasp. She tries to stay in touch with Pavel's parents and keep tabs on how they are doing, but that's about it. Her unofficial status as a bereaved girlfriend also translated into the numerous appeals she had to make to her commanders at the base to permit her to attend the ceremony.

Recently, the organization was recognized by the Defense Ministry, which cooperates by having the IDF's Bereavement Unit transfer to it the names of girlfriends of soldiers killed.