This week I stood beside a young widow at the brit milah of her newborn son, a child who will know his father only through the stories others tell him.
His father, an IDF soldier, was killed six months ago during the Swords of Iron war. The baby was born after his father’s death, entering the world already marked by loss.
Family and friends gathered around the small celebration. There was joy in the room, but it was inseparable from the absence of the father who should have been there beside the mother, welcoming his son into the world.
Then the missile siren sounded.
Within seconds, the ceremony stopped. Conversations were cut short. Chairs pushed back. Relatives gathered children into their arms and hurried toward the nearest shelter. A moment meant to celebrate new life was suddenly overtaken by the same reality that had already shaped this child’s story before it began.
Across Israel, the return of sirens sends millions of people running for cover. It interrupts meals, sleep, school, work, and celebrations. For most, the fear is immediate and temporary. For the widows and orphans of fallen soldiers, it also carries something deeper: a return to the moment their world was first shattered.
Since the outbreak of the current war with Iran, the families supported by the IDF Widows & Orphans Organization have once again been living inside the familiar conditions of conflict: missile alerts, school closures, disrupted routines, and long hours in safe rooms. They are navigating these pressures while carrying an absence that is already central to daily life.
That is especially true for children. The instability of wartime can reignite fear and trauma that never fully disappeared. The sound of sirens, the tension in the air, the constant interruptions to routine, all of it can reopen wounds that are never far beneath the surface.
For widows, the burden grows heavier still. In ordinary times they are already carrying the full weight of parenthood while helping their children live with grief. During war they must do that under fire, while also managing the practical demands of daily life in conditions that allow for very little steadiness.
With families confined to their homes, maintaining connection with the bereaved families became essential for the IDF Widows & Orphans Organization. The daily online programming we provided for mothers and children created a space for activity, familiarity, and contact at a time when ordinary life had again been suspended. Even on Purim, under the shadow of missile alerts, families still received Mishloach Manot from us and joined an online reading of Megillat Esther. In periods of fear and dislocation, small traditions can carry enormous weight.
Israel often speaks about the strength of its society during times of war. That strength becomes visible in the quiet determination of families who continue to build their lives after tragedy. They raise children, mark milestones, and create stability where stability is hard to find. They choose life in the shadow of loss.
Their resilience is real, but it should never be romanticized. Resilience is not the absence of pain, and it does not lessen what they carry.
The baby whose brit milah began with a siren will grow up hearing stories about the father he never met. Like thousands of other children of Israel’s fallen soldiers, his life will be shaped both by loss and by the support of the society his father defended.
Standing beside these families is an act of compassion. It is also part of a deeper promise: that those who give their lives in defense of the country do so knowing their families will never be left alone.
Even in the midst of war, that promise must hold.
Because when war returns, these families relive a loss that never truly left them. And the least we can do is make sure they do not face it alone.
Shlomi Nahumson is the CEO of the IDF Widows & Orphans Organization