As Alma Levin Fridman and Revital Shamir, two IDF widows, prepared to mark Israeli Memorial Day on Monday night and Tuesday, they spoke about life without their partners.

Maj. (res.) Itamar Levin Fridman, 34, served in the Eilat-based IDF counter-terrorism unit Lotar and was killed on November 11, 2024, in Gaza.

Maj. Mordechay (Moti) Shamir, 29, an officer in the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, was killed on October 7, 2023, while battling invading Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Re’im.

Fridman and Shamir are both active in the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization, and as young widows, their lives bear certain similarities.

Both of the couples met at a young age — the Shamirs while serving in the military, and the Levin Fridmans as teens in Eilat, in their local Scouts youth group.

After they were widowed, both women made crucial decisions about the next steps in their families’ lives.

‘I wanted to realize his dream’

Shamir gave birth in February 2024 to daughter Ori, their second child, four months after her husband was killed.

She then built the dream house that Moti had planned to construct himself in Yair Farm, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, where they had been living in a mobile home.

“It was his dream and his baby, and I understood that I wanted to realize that dream,” said Shamir.

Two months ago, Shamir and her two children moved into their new home; it was two days before February 28, the start of the joint American and Israeli war against Iran.

“I suddenly found myself in a big house with our own safe room after running in previous wars to my sister’s house,” said Shamir. “I felt isolated, carrying two kids during nighttime sirens, but then my friends ended........

© The Times of Israel