Some 80 children whose fathers were killed while serving in the IDF or other branches of the security establishment celebrated their bar and bat mitzvot at Beit Hanassi on Monday. One of those children was Gil Amitai, who lost his father, Lt.-Col. Yaron Amitai, in the early days of the Second Lebanon War. Speaking on behalf of his peers, Gil, with tears in his voice, recalled having been woken by his mother at 3 a.m. on August 13, 2006, to be told the bitter news that his father had been killed in action. "But we will continue life as usual," his mother had said stoically. The expressions on the faces of many mothers and youngsters in the room indicated painful memories of similar experiences. Gil said he he had always believed that a bar mitzva was a father-son thing. "I learned that you can have a bar mitzva without your father." What he missed most, he said, was his father's embrace and his laugh. Then, addressing himself to his absent father, Gil said: "You laid down your life for what you believed in so that we could live, and you always told us to be optimistic... " Arye Mualem, Head of the Defense Ministry's Department for Commemorating Soldiers, observed that the state's widows and children have paid a very dear price for 60 years of nationhood. "You have lost your fathers," he told the boys and girls, "but you should be aware that there are a lot of good people who care about you and who are doing all they can to give you a better future." Nava Shoham, who chairs the IDF Widows' Association, empathized with the youngsters' heartbreak when they attend bar or bat mitzva celebrations of friends who still have both parents. "We cannot take the place of your fathers, but we try to compensate," she said. "There's always a feeling of loss, deprivation and uncertainty," she said, "but you belong to the extended family of the bereaved." Referring to the warriors of the nascent state and those who fought in the ensuing six wars, President Shimon Peres spoke of the war that erupted in the immediate aftermath of the United Nations Resolution of November, 1949. "We didn't have an army or a state," said Peres. "They were four million and we were 650,000. We didn't have a hope. We didn't have a single cannon or a plane, and the UN, which had voted on our behalf, refused to give us arms with which to defend ourselves." And yet, for no logical reason, Israel emerged from that war victorious. "When your fathers went to war, they were willing to sacrifice their lives so that you could live in peace," said Peres. It was very important, he emphasized, that everyone remember this and take pride in it.
