At Vayakhel, working together to build our Jewish community

In the fall of 2012, Israel was again preparing for war in response to the thousands of missiles being fired indiscriminately from the Gaza strip onto the population centers of southern Israel. As Eva Zrihen was posing for wedding photos in Tel Aviv, not 50 miles south her younger brothers, Sergeant Eliahu and Captain Emmanuel, were donning flak vests and ammo pouches and getting themselves focused for the challenge of entering Gaza in what was expected to be one of the most intensive and costly ground operations in modern warfare.

The Zrihen family was torn between tears of joy at experiencing Eva’s wedding and pangs of worry knowing her two brothers were about to engage in Operation Pillar of Defense. 

Eliahu and Emmanuel sent Eva a message telling her how sad they were to be missing her wedding, but that they expected there to be only tears of joy. They were all engaged in a mitzvah party, they wrote, just celebrating two different mitzvoth.

As the Zrihen family headed to the wedding hall, sirens wailed and rockets began falling, and everyone had to take cover in the bomb shelters. The wedding celebrations would have to wait.

Meanwhile, at aroud 9 pm, just outside the Gaza strip, it was decided that Eliahu and Emmanuel’s unit in the Nachal brigade would not be going in before dawn, and their base commander found Eliahu Zrihen with an important message: “You have 15 minutes to find your brother. Take my car keys and go dance at your sister’s wedding.” 

Their cell phones had been taken away in preparation for entering Gaza and there was no time to find them, so no one knew they were coming. Normally, by the time they would have gotten there the dancing would have long been over, but a few missiles from Gaza delayed everything.