In a deeply moving wedding, Rabbi Tamir Granot officiated the marriage of Roni — once engaged to his late son, Amitai, killed in Lebanon — to an elite IDF officer, in a union born of shared grief and resilience.
On Monday evening, a wedding unlike any other unfolded — one woven from heartbreak, courage, and the will to live on. Rabbi Tamir Granot, head of Orot Shaul Yeshiva in Tel Aviv, stood beneath the chuppah not just as a spiritual leader, but as a bereaved father, officiating the marriage of Roni, the woman once engaged to his late son, Amitai.
Amitai, a commander in the 75th Battalion of the Saar MeGolan Formation, was killed by anti-tank fire on the Lebanese border, just a week after the October 2023 Hamas attacks. He and Roni had planned to wed during his first leave from the frontlines — a day that instead became the day of his death.
The groom, known only as A., is an officer in an elite IDF unit. The match was made by Tsofia, mother of another fallen hero — Lieutenant Ivri Dickstein, a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, killed in Lebanon — along with her friend Efrat Ben Shlomi.
The ceremony became a living testament to how shared grief can forge new beginnings. For those present, it was a moment where the shadow of loss met the light of hope, and where love dared to grow again on the scarred soil of war.
