What It Means to Be a Mother in Israel
By: Shannon Bennett, ICEJ USA Communications Director
Israel observed Yom HaZikaron, the day of remembrance for those fallen in battle and victims of terrorism, beginning at sunset on April 29 through April 30. Several staff members from ICEJ USA were in the land alongside their colleagues from around the world for ICEJ’s annual International Leaders Conference. The conference opened that evening with a heartfelt and raw message from Gideon and Nelli Bayer, the parents of Urija Bayer. The Bayers are a German Christian family who moved to Israel to help Holocaust Survivors in northern Israel. Urija, as well as his three brothers and sisters, volunteered to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). He was a sergeant first class in the elite Maglan commando unit. On December 14, 2023, Urija was mortally wounded, giving his life for the people of Israel.
The reality of what it means to be the parents of an Israeli soldier was poignantly expressed by Gideon and Nelli. They raised their family in the northern town of Maalot, and all four of their children chose to serve in the Israeli army.
When the knock came at the door, they didn’t know which of their children had been injured—three were deployed at the time. After learning it was Urija, they kept vigil at his hospital bed in Beersheba, surrounded by other Israeli parents praying for their wounded sons. “There was an amazing unity,” Nelli recalled. “Everybody was hugging each other, praying for one another.”
Urija was eventually declared brain-dead. Despite being a Christian, he was honored with a rabbinical funeral—an extraordinary act of solidarity from the people of Israel and their local community in Maalot. “It was the biggest funeral ever,” Nelli said. “Schools were closed, and students lined the streets with flags, saluting the coffin as it passed.”
In those sacred moments of grief, the Bayers were drawn into something deeper. “God allowed us to go into the holy of holies of the Israeli soul,” Gideon said. “We joined the families who have paid the highest price. And if those families are not standing, the nation itself cannot stand.”
In Israel, the parents of fallen soldiers are revered. Their grief is not private—it belongs to the people. It is a grief that binds.
Nelli later read these words at her son’s funeral:
“To be an Israeli mother means to wake up with the hope that no war or other solider will hurt another Israeli child. To be an Israeli mother means that when your child is born you start counting the days until he is drafted into the army while hoping there might be peace one day in the land. To be an Israeli mother means to feel both a living fear but also a living pride that you feel for your son. To be Israeli mother means I am an Israeli mother, and it means that for me, I let all four of my children go and serve in the army. And as a Christian, I believe our Lord will bring them back safely home. To be a part of the people and feel like a mother for the whole people. And therefore, as Israeli mothers, we hope that all the mothers in Israel will have only tears of joy and that their children may grow up in freedom and in peace. And every mother is proud to raise their children here, and they’re standing beside their children in prayer.”
After the funeral, an Orthodox woman approached Nelli with tears in her eyes. “You gave your speech in German,” she said. “On both my husband’s and my side, all four grandparents were Holocaust survivors or victims. I never thought I could listen to that language again. But when you spoke—something healed in my soul. You are my sister.”
The story of the Bayer family is not just one of sorrow but of sacred solidarity and faithfulness. As German Christians who answered God’s call to serve in Israel, Gideon and Nelli Bayer embraced a life of compassion, sacrifice, and profound identification with the Jewish people. In their mourning, they were drawn into the very heart of the Israeli soul—into what Gideon called the “holy of holies.” Through the ultimate sacrifice of their son, Urija, they were embraced not as outsiders, but as family. Nelli’s words at his funeral, spoken in German, brought healing to the granddaughter of those who suffered and were murdered in the Holocaust—revealing that in God’s redemptive plan, even the deepest wounds can be touched by grace.
Being a mother in Israel means living with both trepidation and tenacity, raising children with faith and hope, and carrying not just your own children, but a whole nation’s, in your heart.
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