A touching meeting took place at Rambam Health Care Campus (Rambam), in Haifa, Israel when IDF Brigadier General (Res) Zvika Halperin met his grandson for the first time, and then returned to the battles in the south of the country.
For nine months, Yamit Halperin-Shemtov (29) of Kiryat Bialik, awaited the birth of her first child and the Halperin family’s first grandchild. The mother went into labor during a time marked forever in the history of Israel, October 7 and into the following Sunday.
During the emotional time in Rambam Health Care Campus’s labor and delivery room, Halperin-Shemtov often thought about the unimaginable difficulties of that fateful day. At that most important moment in her life, her father, IDF Brigadier General (Res). Zvika Halperin, former Deputy Commander of the Northern District in the Home Front Command, was on the southern front, taking part in a campaign that was raging against Hamas terrorists who were brutally murdering Israeli citizens, perhaps the most difficult day that the State of Israel has known.
On Sunday, following the birth of Halperin-Shemtov’s son, her father traveled from southern Israel to Rambam to meet his first grandchild, and to derive strength from the miraculous new life.
“I don’t know where he is now,” says Halperin-Shemtov, “but I am filled with joy that my father was able to meet his grandson. This is such a complicated reality--the blending of supreme joy and overwhelming grief.”
In a social media post, Halperin-Shemtov explained that the birth of her son was accompanied by feelings of fear for his future. Halperin-Shemtov recalled that she awoke early on the morning of October 7. She and her husband watched in horror as the news covered the horrendous Hamas terrorist attacks on the Israeli communities near Gaza. That afternoon, Halperin-Shemtov went into labor. On the way to Rambam, she could not stop thinking that terror and bloodshed would soon reach here, and that she would be giving birth with sirens wailing and the sound of missiles crashing.
Upon arriving at Rambam, Halperin-Shemtov was met by her amazing midwife, who accompanied her throughout her labor and delivery. Halperin-Shemtov had one request – that she deliver her baby after midnight, as she knew that October 7 would forever be a day of national mourning.
At 1:52 a.m. on October 8, Halperin-Shemtov’s son was born and her father arrived late that same day straight from the battlefield, still wearing his military uniform, to meet his grandson. Halperin-Shemtov says, “I looked at the two of them, a small light in the vast, terrible darkness. At that moment, my heart was bursting and for the first time I understood the love, fear, and hope of a mother.”