Avi Harush and his son Rif Four days before he received the knock on the door informing him that his beloved son Rif had died on the battlefield, Avi Harush felt that it was going to happen.
“I started eulogizing him and felt great distress. I even told my wife, and she was somewhat mad at me for saying it, so I kept it to myself,” Harush said in a phone interview with the Journal. “With every day that passed, I felt that Rif was not coming back. I found myself mourning him while I was driving and then was scolding myself for doing so.”
Then came April 6 – and that knock on the door – and Harush knew that premonition was right. The next day, he buried his only son.
Rif Harush was a combat soldier serving in the combat unit Egoz. He fell in the Gaza Strip during the battle at Khan Yunis. He was 20 years old and had enlisted in the IDF only two months prior to the outbreak of war. His father said it was important for him to take on a meaningful role.
Before entering Gaza, Rif wrote letters to his family, like many IDF soldiers who are asked to write letters in case something happens to them.
“Why do I risk my life? They did it before me, and they will do it after,” he wrote. “I’m doing it for that elderly lady who is telling me thank you and cries. I’m willing to sacrifice my life for my family, so they will sit peacefully and know that behind them stands a giant army that will watch over them as long as we are on our feet.”
Rif was killed alongside his commander, Captain Ido Baruch, and his comrades, Sergeant Amitai Even Shoshan and Sergeant Eilyahu Tza’iri.
During the shiva, many bereaved parents came to visit Avi and Sigal Harush. Some had just lost their children in that war and some had lost them in previous wars or terror attacks. “Quite a few of them told me they felt like me, that during the few days before their child got killed, they felt it was going to happen,” said Harush.
A week after the shiva ended, it was Passover. Rif’s parents and his older sister Zoe, 26, booked a hotel in the desert and stayed there for a couple of days. They didn’t feel ready to celebrate the holiday, and Harush said he isn’t sure if they’ll celebrate Rosh Hashanah in October. “It’s going to be weird because Rif loved the holidays so much, and it will be difficult to celebrate them without him.”
The death of his beloved son changed his life in many ways. For one, he decided to quit his job in marketing. “I want to start doing things that have more meaning and help others,” he said. “I can’t elaborate more about it now because it’s still in the early stages.”
Secondly, the family decided to leave Kibbutz Ramat David in northern Israel where Rif was raised and buried and move to Tel Aviv. They needed a change, to start a new chapter in life.
Another decision he, his wife and daughter have made is to continue living and not let grief overcome them.
“It’s a matter of choice,” he said. “The minute I understood that Rif was killed, I knew I needed to choose life. I’m happy that Zoe and Sigal have chosen the same. Still, it isn’t easy. We still experience daily heartache, hour by hour, even minute by minute, but still we choose to live because that’s what Rif would have wanted us to do.”
“The minute I understood that Rif was killed, I knew I needed to choose life.” – Avi Harush
Throughout the interview, Harush doesn’t express any anger toward the Israeli government or the IDF. He said that at first, he was angry at them and then at Rif for running into the line of fire.
“But with time, you understand that no one forced him to enlist in this unit and risk his life,” he said.
What pushes him forward is the hope that one day he’ll be able to have a grandson using Rif’s sperm. Many bereaved parents in Israel have fought to allow them to have a grandchild. However, it’s extremely rare. In fact, in 2003, the Israeli attorney general ruled that only a wife or a girlfriend could use the sperm of a deceased partner, not his parents. Since then, every once in a while, there are articles about bereaved parents who are appealing the court to allow them to extract their son’s sperm and have a grandchild (by a surrogate or a woman who is interested in carrying and raising the child). Most often than not, their request is denied.
After Rif was killed, sperm was extracted from him, per the request of his family. Although the law allows parents to request sperm extraction, it’s not as easy to get an approval to have this sperm used, especially if the deceased wasn’t married or was in a relationship.
“We are now working to pass a law allowing parents to use their son’s sperm to have a grandchild,” said Harush. “We know Rif wanted to have children. He even knew what he is going to name them.”
Harush said that he had spoken with families who are fighting this in court for over 12 years and are spending hundreds of thousands of shekels in legal fees.
“It shouldn’t be this way. We had lost so much and that’s the least that the state of Israel can do for bereaved families.”
When commended for being so strong and optimistic despite everything he had gone through, Harush admitted he has his breaking points.
“We, the bereaved families, are good actors. From the outside, we seem okay. I’m going out, sitting in coffee shops, meeting people, and it seems like life has gone back to normal. What you don’t see is the constant longing, the pain of thinking about all the things Rif wanted to do but won’t. Rif was full of life, he traveled Israel and the world, he had many friends, he loved listening to music and loved to laugh. I don’t think I had ever seen him sad. He really loved life.”
Harush paused, then continued, “If we had the chance to ask Rif, he would have said, ‘Go on living, live life to the fullest, go and do things you love to do and be happy’ and that’s what we intend to do.”
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