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| Colonel Yair Ben Shalom with Lilian Sarembock, Helen Gordon, and Leone Lasker. |
On Monday evening 6 April members of the Cape Town community were deeply moved at a gathering hosted by the WPZC to meet Colonel Yair Ben- Shalom.
Colonel Ben-Shalom works in an exceptional unit of the Israeli Defence Forces, of which few have heard. This specific unit — the Department of Casualties — is committed to taking care of families whose children have been killed, taken prisoner or have gone missing in action while in the army.
Since 1947, Israel has lost 18 022 soldiers. One of the obligations of the IDF is ‘never abandon servicemen’, and thus the people of this unit establish a lifelong relationship with the families of lost, injured or missing soldiers. They are the ‘voice of the army’, giving a human face to the values the IDF hold in such high esteem.
The unit operates to ensure that they are there for the family every step of the way. Within half an hour of a soldier’s death or injury, a highly trained ‘informer’ is sent to the family’s home to break the news. It is a difficult and painful task but they fulfil their mission by being there to assist the family all the way — with the funeral and shiva. Thereafter they leave them and don’t make contact again — so that the family will never have to re–live that terrible ‘knock on the door’.
After the shiva, a ‘liaison officer’ contacts them and establishes a lifelong relationship with the family.
The unit also runs summer camps and events for the bereaved families, so they can have space to express their grief in a supportive environment with people who have also suffered such loss. They can simply be with each other, and not be judged if they ‘laugh or dance’ as they attempt to move on.
The unit is also dedicated to the families of the Missing in Action (MIA). These are heartbreaking stories of families who do not know if their children are alive or dead. There is also continuous and committed work in the area of Body Not Recovered (BNR), where the unit looks for the graves of soldiers who disappeared and have never been found.
Colonel Ben-Shalom’s audience at the Albow gathering was profoundly touched, knowing that there is a division dedicated to assisting a society that has to endure such losses.
All who had the privilege of meeting and hearing Colonel Yair Ben–Shalom are most grateful to shaliach Yossi Eshed for bringing him to enlighten them on so poignant, powerful and heroic a topic.
