‘I’ve Been Running on Fumes’: Israeli Mothers Re-Energize While Husbands at War

Jerusalem, 17 March, 2024 (TPS) -- Rest, relaxation and pampering were a big part of the vacation, but for these 32 Israeli mothers, so was the opportunity to process the experiences of raising children alone while their husbands were fighting.

“It gives you strength, it gives you energy. It’s like giving gas to a car that’s on empty,” Racheli Matalon told The Press Service of Israel. “It’s like filling up a tank. For the last five months, I’ve been running on fumes. Taking care of yourself is no less important. I was always focused on my children and taking care of them and focusing on them. For myself, I was always the last one on my list.”

Matalon, of Karnei Shomron in Samaria, has been raising her four children alone while her husband, Yossi, was on reserve duty for 120 days. He’s home for now, but returns to service in April.

She and the other mothers were treated to a three-day vacation at the adult-only Almond Hotel in Neve Ilan. The three days featured workshops allowing the mothers to share their experiences, catch up on sleep, enjoy a massage, not to have to prepare food or clean up after meals, and have quiet “alone time” to reflect.

‘It Used to Kill Me When They Asked’

“Hearing the other mothers speak made me realize I’m quite normal, and what I’m going through is basically what everyone else is going through,” Michal Lichterman told TPS-IL.

Lichterman, a mother of five in Havot Yair in Samaria explained that her husband’s short 24-hour visits presented unexpected challenges that were shared by the other women.

“For me, that was the hardest moment because they suddenly come back, and it’s as if our lives went back to normal. It’s such a short time and you want to do so many things, and you don’t have a lot of time because you know he’s going to go,” Lichterman said. “On one hand, him coming home is a relief and we’re happy. But on the other hand, I know that the minute he walks out that door, the kids fall apart because they have to say goodbye all over again. And they know they’re saying goodbye for a long time.”

Her husband, Yair, is a reservist platoon commander.

She added, “It gave me relief to hear it was the same for everyone else – that their coming to visit was very happy, but also very hard. I didn’t feel guilty, but it was weird. Why do I feel strange about him coming to visit? It would be very tough for me to hear the kids ask, ‘When is abba [Daddy] coming for a visit?’ What do you mean, coming for a visit? He lives in this house! It used to kill me when they asked. It made me want to cry.”

And now, Lichterman has a support group of new friends.

“They’re a group that understands me. People who haven’t gone through what we’ve gone through don’t understand,” she said. “People think they get it, but if you don’t live it, you don’t understand the little things that build the experience of being so lonely with your kids and worrying about your husband.”

 

A Chance Encounter

The vacation was the result of a chance encounter in February.

Shiffy Slomowitz — a mother of two whose husband is a reserve officer in an infantry unit and who organized the vacation — went out to eat with some visiting relatives. A man in the restaurant wanted to make a toast, “So I told him we should make a l’chaim that my husband and all the soldiers should come home safe from Gaza.” Slomowitz recalled to TPS-IL, referring to the Hebrew word for a toast.

“He said to me, “Your husband’s fighting in Gaza? What can I do for you?,” Slomowitz recalled.

“I was like, ‘So nice of you to ask. I would love to go on a vacation, me, myself and I after this war so I don’t have to take care of anybody and somebody can take care of me – like make sure I eat, I sleep, give me a massage.’ So he says an amount of money and says ‘It’s yours. What else can I do for you?’”

With roughly 360,000 Israeli reservists mobilized since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Slomowitz added that she would like to take other mothers on vacation.

“They all deserve a few days off,” she insisted.

Before long, Slomowitz was organizing the hotel, arranging professionals to lead different kinds of workshops, and holding a raffle on Instagram. She invited mothers to bring a friend and had 700 women — 350 pairs — apply.

“When I go on vacation, one night is never enough. As a mother, you’re always waking up early, so it’s only the second day that you sleep in. You need a significant amount of time to take everything in and enjoy it,” Slomowitz said.

“We’ve been through a really hard time, and it takes time to open up and share and let it out. You also need enough time for it to be meaningful and fun. Listen, we need a break from our kids. I want to miss my kids.”

She added, “I feel like the women have been holding in so much. It’s hard because we have to be there for our kids and we have to be there for our husbands because they’re going through what they’re going through. It’s not like once the men are back home, the house is back to normal. They’ve changed, the house has changed, everything has changed. There isn’t really an opportunity for mothers to process what we’ve been through.”

‘Mind-Boggling’

With her husband away, Slomowitz said one of her biggest challenges was answering her children’s questions with confidence.

“As a mother, usually I’m very confident in my answers that everything’s going to be okay,” she explained. “But I don’t have that confidence anymore because I feel like I’m in a situation where I have no control. That’s the hardest part. And cleaning up the mess at the end of the day. Usually, my husband does that.”

The donor wants to remain anonymous, so Slomowitz isn’t sharing his name. But whoever he is, there are now 32 deeply appreciative families.

“It’s just mind-boggling that somebody thought of us as well, and saw how hard it was on us, the women and not only the soldiers, and understood the hardships we went through and is giving us recognition,” Matalon said. “I believe once I’m stronger and my husband goes in a month and a half, I’ll have much more energy to give him as well. Once he knows I’m stronger, it’s much easier for him to be stronger.”

Slomowitz’s husband, Gal confirmed Matalon’s point.

“When you go in to fight, you try not to think too much about your home and you try to stay focused. Knowing that your wife is behind you, supporting you and holding up the family and making sure the kids get what they need helps you operate and stay focused,” said Slomowitz, a reservist officer in an infantry unit. “I know people whose wives had a harder time and couldn’t operate. It definitely hurt the job they were doing.”

He added, “It’s great to see the appreciation that people have for the mothers. They’re not always at the front of the photos, but they’re a big part of holding the army and the country together.”