Miriam Peretz accompanied her granddaughter to the chuppah: "It shouldn't have been this way"

Miriam Peretz, an Israel Prize laureate and educator who lost two of her sons in IDF battles, shared a personal text on Instagram following the wedding of her granddaughter, Hillel Miriam. The granddaughter married her chosen one, Oz Vach, an officer in the Golani Brigade, in a ceremony held in the presence of family members.

The bride is the daughter of Major Eliraz Peretz (of blessed memory), who fell in 2010 during an encounter in the Gaza Strip when she was only five years old. Peretz was accompanied to the chuppah by her mother, Shlomit, and her grandmother, Miriam.

"In my place, her father should have accompanied her, but Eliraz will watch over her today from heaven," the grandmother wrote.

Peretz described the difficulty of the moment of entering the chuppah alongside the joy: "Yesterday was a day when my heart contracted from the intensity of the pain, and in exactly the same measure expanded from the magnitude of the joy." She added that her granddaughter, who was named after her, "grew and blossomed in the shadow of her father's absence but was always wrapped in his spirit."

"Staying in the Golani family"

In the post, Peretz addressed the groom's connection to the brigade where her son served: "I imagine him laughing his familiar laugh and saying to her: 'In the end, you took a Golani officer, you are staying in the Golani family.'" She noted the physical resemblance between the daughter and her father and saw in the establishment of the home a continuation of life in the country.

"Today we will be moved, there will be tears of longing, absence, and great pain, but there will be more tears of joy," Peretz emphasized, and concluded her words with a blessing for the young couple. According to her, her son Eliraz was a man of joy, and the very existence of the event constitutes a victory of continuity over bereavement.

From public activity to the Israel Prize

The story of the Peretz family became part of the public discourse in Israel after Miriam also lost her eldest son, Lieutenant Uriel Peretz (of blessed memory), in battle in Lebanon in 1998. Since then, she has dedicated her life to lectures and public activity on issues of leadership, resilience, and unity, and even ran for the presidency of the country.

Over the years, Peretz has supported many bereaved families across the country, and her work earned her the Israel Prize for Lifetime Achievement in 2018. The current wedding serves as a personal milestone for the family that illustrates the routine of life alongside ongoing loss, as reflected in the messages she spreads to the public.