Caring for Families of Reservists
The Fellowship | February 29, 2024
“I froze on the spot. I didn’t want him to go,” says 35-year-old Pazit of the moment when her husband was called up for reserve duty to fight Hamas in Operation Swords of Iron. He was called up right on October 7 to report to his unit.
“I thought that he would go, and I would never see him again. I was afraid he was going to die in battle,” Pazit explains. She worried for her three young children: Eitan (7), Avigail (6), and Harel (4).
Pazit tells us that all day on October 7 she heard the rocket fire continue and alarms sound. “I decided to go with my children to my brother’s house,” she says. After a week, the mother and children returned to their apartment. “The home looked the same from the outside, but it felt empty without Tal,” adds Pazit.
Now Pazit is taking care of the house, has taken over Tal’s business, and manages the three kids all by herself. The children miss their dad as well. The oldest boy has started acting out at school, which he never did before. And the middle girl doesn’t want to sleep in her own bed at night anymore. “Her father has been gone for a long time, and at her age, it’s hard to understand that,” says the mother.
“The assistance I get from The Fellowship really saves me. I get cooked meals and it saves me time to cook… Thanks to you I manage to deal with all the difficulties. There is especially mental difficulty.
“The Fellowship gives me the strength I need now. I want to tell all the people in the U.S. that you are helping to protect Israel. My husband told me, thanks to the fact that he knows that The Fellowship is taking care of our family, he can continue to fight and protect Israel.”