Israeli rabbi officiates wedding of fallen son’s ex-fiancée

Rabbi Granot's son, Tzvi, was killed defending a northern Israeli moshav from Hezbollah terrorist in October 2023 (Image: courtesy)[Missing Credit]

Granot, who was killed aged just 24, asked Roni to marry him shortly before his death on October 15, 2023, defending Shtula, a moshav on the border with Lebanon, from an incursion by Hezbollah terrorists. The weeks following his engagement “were the peak of his happiness in life,” Rabbi Granot said of his son.

At Tzvi’s funeral, Rabbi Granot was struggling with his personal grief, that of his wife, Avivit, and their six children. Yet in that moment, he also considered Roni’s future. “I felt a statement, a cry, rising from within in me, that I needed to convey to Roni: I told her then: ‘Choose life’,” he recalled.

And the wedding was another day of conflicting emotions. Granot and his family “felt joy” at Roni’s wedding, he said. But there was also “pain, a feeling of terrible loss” because it should have been Tzvi getting married. “Yes, also that feeling was in the mix. But then that gets replaced by happiness for Roni and her husband,” he said.

But Rabbi Granot said his joy is informed by his understanding of Jewish history and destiny, he said.

“The word in Hebrew for ‘crisis’, mashber, also means the place where a woman gives birth”, he noted. “So this realisation that, out of crisis, comes birth is reflected in our language from millennia ago, it is part of our DNA and it’s the reason that not only were we able to withstand catastrophes that very few if any peoples recovered from, we were able to leverage them into betterment: They propelled us forward, we built on them,” he said.

But is it natural to celebrate wholeheartedly after marrying off the ex-fiancée of one’s slain son?

“Seen from a certain perspective, maybe not,” Rabbi Granot said. “But then ours is a people whose path often travels the supernatural. And when you take that into account, then, yeah, it’s pretty natural for us.”