Yael Shevach, the widow of the late Raziel who was murdered near Havat Gilad, does not want to be called a widow: "We are not in danger" • She finds solace on social media: "There are people there that I would not meet anywhere" •
Yael Shevach.
"Raziel is present in every corner"
Photography:
Efrat Eshel
"Just before we went to the funeral I gathered the whole family and told them, 'We will not be a family that falls, we will be a family that lifts.' I said this to myself, too, that I want to look different from what widows look like. She is sad, and she is not necessarily lonely, poor and supported. "
About three years after her husband, the late Raziel Shevach, was killed in a terrorist attack near Havat Gilad, his widow Yael collects the fragments in her own special way. Strength and pain, sadness and black humor.
These days she is publishing a new and shaky book called "A., Widow", which she has been writing since the night of the murder and for a long time.
In recent months, she has been given the title "network anchor" due to quite a few viral posts on social networks.
"Can't stand the word"
"I can not stand this word, 'widow,' I do not like it and do not like this phrase, it does not represent me in any way," clarifies emphatically.
She thinks this phrase "introduces someone weak, poor. I may have thought of 'terrorist model' because sometimes I participate in advocacy activities, so I said I 'model terrorism' because I tell the story of widows who have been victims of terrorism. But do not like that I use it. What. For, I certainly feel much more like a terrorist model than a terrorist widow. "
Still, she recounts dealing with the loss that her husband's presence in their home has not expired.
"You can see it in the pictures on the walls. He is also present in his essence, and I follow his educational doctrine, one by one, in his own way. It's something I pass on to children - Dad's way. We sing the Shabbat songs that Dad loved, have Rosh Chodesh meals." .
She sees her activity on social networks as welcome and allows her social dynamics, alongside commemorating her late husband.
"It's a great platform to meet people I would not reach anywhere else," she says with a doubtful look. "Think of Iris Lael from Haaretz, what about her and me? Thanks to Twitter, we met and became friends. We have respect in correspondence and sympathetic comments."
And she's not the only one.
"I started," Shevach describes, "talking on Twitter with former MK Ayelet Nachmias-Rabin, from work.
She asked if I wanted to come pick up Lego for my kids.
We met, and we remained friends. "
The full interview - in the Shabbat supplement of "Israel Today".
