In 1927, when editors worried there was nothing exciting to report Christmas week, Time magazine designated Charles Lindbergh, “Man of the Year.” In 1999, it expanded to “Person of the Year.” This year, it’s a group award – AI’s architects. Let’s start an Israeli tradition, honoring Israeli mothers as 2025’s Persons of the Year.
Admittedly, 2025 was tough. Israel’s multi-front wars persisted, despite a Gaza ceasefire. The country remained divided, with leaders left to right competing in their never-ending “who’s the most disappointing politician” contest. Approximately 200 soldiers died in Gaza. Iran’s evil missile strikes slaughtered 28 civilians.
Palestinian terrorists murdered over two-dozen Israelis, including last week’s under-reported Beit She’an ramming and stabbing.
Jew-hatred kept spiking, curdling haters’ souls, Left to Right, while menacing innocents worldwide. And sinister jihadist-generated lies about Israel, Zionism and the Jews, about genocide and starvation, polluted Western discourse.
True, I keep chronicling the many blue-and-white beams of light too. Israel triumphed militarily, humiliating Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. Israel’s economy roared, as its food-tech, pharma, and AI breakthroughs helped humanity soar. Mocking the worries about Europeans, Canadians, and even some Americans betraying the Jewish state, most Arab neighbors demonstrated growing respect for Israel because it walloped the Islamists and Iranian exterminationists.
Ultimately, Israeli mothers deserve credit for each of these triumphs. Like all mothers, they give life, the most godly act any human can perform. As Israelis, they’ve raised generations of superlative citizens, protecting their country while bettering the world. And today’s epoch-making miracles blazed the way for Israeli mothers’ longer-lasting gift to the future: launching a post-October 7 baby boom, not even waiting for postwar calm.
Israel’s mothers leading the way
Israeli mothers have been crowding maternity wards for years. Israel has long led the OECD in procreating, this key to communal happiness reflecting social strength. That’s why by late November, 2023, 17,629 babies had already been born in the seven weeks since rampaging Palestinians slaughtered 1,200 innocents. By 2024, births jumped 10% over 2023. Israel’s fertility rate of 3.1 children per woman nearly doubled OECD’s 1.59 average.
Israel’s fecundity phenomenon continued in 2025. From Rosh Hashanah 2024 to this Rosh Hashanah, 179,000 babies were born. Israeli Jews’ fertility exceeded Muslims’ rate for the first time, as Israel’s population hit 10.1 million.
Beyond the statistics, Israeli mothers’ everyday poetry and superhuman courage perpetually inspire. Imagine the bravery many needed to fight back tears while sending their children into battle October 7 – and every day since. Or the mettle required to send your 18-year-old into the army, today, after October 7, when our enemies reminded us how brutal they are and how costly our fight to defend ourselves can be.
Or the moxie required to keep working – as 70% of Israeli moms do – with husbands serving hundreds of days in reserves, understandably straining their finances, their relationship, and their children. Or the strength involved in burying a husband, a child, a grandchild, or what it’s like to feel so lucky that your child or life-partner was “only” injured catastrophically, as you pursue some semblance of normalcy while helping your loved one heal and rehabilitate.
Dolev Yehud was a medic murdered on October 7. Nine days later, his wife Sigi gave birth to Dor – generation – echoing her father’s name, symbolizing that life continues. Sigi Yehud sighs: “When you’re a single parent to four children, your options for falling apart are very limited.”
Consider the resilience hostage moms needed until Israel’s relentless pressure and American intervention freed the last living hostages. And the world should appreciate what it means for each Israeli mother to welcome a holy new child into this topsy-turvy yet still wonderful world. Some chose to have additional babies after October 7, to replace those lost.
Doron Katz Asher, along with two daughters aged two and four, survived 49 days in the hands of Hamas abusers. The Gazans murdered her mother and brother. Doron gave birth to her third daughter this March 12. “Bringing life into the world, a year after I almost lost my own, is the greatest gift we could ask for in the new year,” she rejoiced on Instagram. “My ray of light in the darkness.”
Israeli naming trends illustrate mothers casually mixing defiance, patriotism, and faith. Some new parents boldly named their children after Hamas’s targets – “Be’eri,” “Nova,” and “Oz” – which, added bonus, means strength. Some went nationalistic, with “Amichai,” my people lives; “Tekumah,” revival; or “Tikvah,” hope; the Jewish people’s national anthem.
Others, reflecting that one-third of Israelis have found greater faith in God since October 7, chose “Emunah” – faith; light-related names like “Ori,” and “Uri,”; or piety-affirming names, especially “Eliyah” – God is my Lord – which, Google’s AI reports, “saw the largest jump in popularity between 2023 and 2024 (rising from 796 to 1,033 babies).”
Admittedly, 2025’s traumas caused mourning, despair, and anxiety about the future. To banish anguish, here’s an exercise that also honors Israel’s 2025 Persons of the Year. Hug a newborn, giving the exhausted parents a break. Hold the future in your hands.
Feel the baby’s fragility, her trust in you as she wraps her little spindly fingers around yours. Breathe in synch with her. Ponder her constant second-to-second, day-to-day, week-to-week progress physically, emotionally, intellectually. Appreciate her potential to change the world, and still be improving it in 2100, when she will be 75-years-young. And revel in the leap of faith, hope and goodness each birth represents – especially if she’s your first child or grandchild….
The writer is an American presidential historian and Zionist activist born in Queens, living in Jerusalem. Last year he published, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath. His latest E-book, The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred was just published and can be downloaded on the JPPI – Jewish People Policy Institute – website.