Yehoshua Shani, the father of Capt. Uri Mordechai Shani, describes a deeply personal day that began with prayer at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, continued to his son’s grave on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, and ended at the wedding canopy of Uri’s widow, Miriam, and her new husband, Ofek. For Shani, the sequence linked private grief with collective hope and symbolized what he called the continuity of the Jewish people.
He said he and his wife opened the day by praying at the graves of the patriarchs, asking for the well-being and victory of the Jewish people in the war. He said that at the Cave of the Patriarchs they drew strength from the roots of the nation, and then he went to Mount Herzl to pray at the grave of his son, who fell in battle. There, he wrote, he stood between the beginning of the nation and one of its heroes, and felt both intense sorrow and a surprising sense of life.
Shani said that bereavement can feel empty if life is seen only as a private possession, but that his son lived a fuller, more collective life, which made it impossible, in his words, to remain stuck in death and despair. He described the wedding of Miriam and Ofek as a victory of faith, spirit, and the refusal to be broken, even after severe blows.
He framed the day as part of a long chain stretching from Abraham and Sarah in Hebron through generations of Jews who sacrificed themselves for the people, to “heroes of our generation,” including Uri. Shani said the enemy only knows how to destroy, while the Jewish answer is to rejoice, live, and build homes, families, a people, and a future. He closed by inviting the public to join the celebration and prayer for “the raising of Israel’s horn,” and congratulated Miriam and Ofek.
