Hundreds of Israeli women whose lives have been forever changed by terrorism and war gathered at Jerusalem’s Ramada Hotel on Tuesday for OneFamily’s annual Women’s Empowerment Day, finding comfort, connection and hope during the Jewish calendar’s Nine Days, a period traditionally devoted to mourning national tragedy.
The ballroom reflected the diversity of Israeli society. Elderly women leaned on walkers while young mothers cradled babies. Religious and secular Jews, Druze participants and women arriving from communities in northern and southern Israel embraced friends they had not seen for months while welcoming newcomers into the OneFamily community.
Around tables laden with sandwiches, fruit and salads stood grandmothers, mothers, widows, sisters and sisters-in-law, each carrying a deeply personal story of loss.
Some had lost loved ones decades ago. Others were attending for the first time after being bereaved during nearly three years of war. Many were caring for relatives seriously wounded in combat.
“Every woman in the room has a story,” participant Judi Abramson Felber told JNS.
Founded to support victims of terrorism and their families, OneFamily has expanded dramatically since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, and the ensuing war, providing therapeutic care, retreats, support groups and financial assistance to thousands of bereaved families, wounded soldiers and survivors.
Healing through community
With founder and executive vice chair Chantal Belzberg unexpectedly in Canada because of a family illness, OneFamily CEO Moshe Saville welcomed participants to a day focused on healing through community.
“The connection created here is deeply meaningful because it provides a sense of belonging, reduces loneliness, and strengthens the inner resources needed to continue moving forward,” Saville said. “Our role is to continue accompanying families professionally, sensitively, and consistently at every stage of the rehabilitation process and their return to life.”
Belzberg later explained to JNS why the organization continues to hold the gathering each year during one of Judaism’s most solemn periods.
“For many years, OneFamily has marked the Nine Days by bringing together hundreds of women whose lives have been forever changed by terror and war,” she said. “During a period when we reflect so deeply on loss and destruction, we also choose to strengthen what has always sustained the Jewish people: our unity, our resilience, and our responsibility for one another.”
Bringing together women “from every part of Israeli society, religious and secular, young and old, from every background and every community, is in itself a powerful statement,” she said.
“They may have different life stories, but they all carry the same emptiness created by terror and war. When they come together, they remind one another that while none of us can change the past, together we can find the strength to shape the future.”
Finding strength
Throughout the day, prominent Israeli speakers encouraged participants to find resilience despite profound grief.
Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi opened the program with her trademark blend of Torah learning, current events and humor before concluding with a blessing. Rather than leaving immediately, she spent time throughout the ballroom posing for photographs, signing books and speaking with participants.
“She doesn’t just lecture and leave,” one bereaved Jerusalem mother told JNS. “She stays to interact. She gives more than 100%.”
Journalist and author Sivan Rahav-Meir shared stories of Israelis she has met since the war, highlighting examples of courage and faith. Television personality Tzufit Grant spoke about finding space to breathe despite overwhelming circumstances, while media personality Natali Dadon reflected on her personal journey toward spirituality through the teachings of the Tanya. Body-language expert Maayan Bashan concluded the formal program with an interactive session encouraging participants to pay attention to “the eyes.”
Lives forever changed
Not everyone who would normally have attended was able to be there.
Yael Shevach, coordinator of OneFamily’s widows program, was absent after a wildfire swept through Havat Gilad in Samaria this month, destroying her family’s home.
Shevach’s husband, Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a 35-year-old father of six and volunteer emergency medical responder, was murdered in a Palestinian terrorist shooting near the community in January 2018. Since then, she has devoted herself to helping women widowed by terror and war rebuild their lives through OneFamily.
After the fire, she wrote on social media: “There was a fire. The house is gone. We’re okay. Thank you all for your concern. I have nothing to say. And I have no home.”
Her latest ordeal underscored how quickly lives can change—and why the support network created by OneFamily remains vital.
Felber knows that reality firsthand. In 2018, her son Nathaniel, serving in the Nahal Haredi combat battalion, suffered a devastating head injury in a terrorist attack that killed two fellow soldiers. He survived but continues a lengthy recovery.
Felber told JNS she is encouraged by Israel’s growing investment in long-term rehabilitation for severely wounded soldiers, including specialized facilities for those suffering traumatic brain injuries.
Around her sat women such as Cheryl Mandel, whose son Lt. Daniel Mandel was killed during a military operation near Nablus in 2003, and Susie Weiss, who directs the Ochel Ari project, which has delivered more than 25,000 food and gift packages to IDF soldiers in memory of her son Ari Weiss, who was killed in Jenin in 2002.
For first-time participant Toby Greenbaum, whose son, reserve soldier Yishai Nataniel Greenbaum, was killed in Lebanon on Oct. 9, 2024, the gathering offered immediate connection.
“He was a father of four children and a social worker in Lod who worked with battered women,” she said of her son. “OneFamily is fantastic. I go there once every other week to Jerusalem for meetings, so I know some people.”
Creating hope together
As the formal program concluded and participants gathered for dinner, conversations continued around tables where strangers quickly became friends through shared experiences.
Belzberg said that sense of connection has been the purpose of the annual gathering for the past decade.
“There is no way to fill the void left by those we have lost,” she said. “But when women come together to listen, to learn and to inspire one another, they discover that hope is not something we wait for. It is something we create together.”
