“I lost my dear husband on Shabbos kodesh“* She wipes her tears and talks about four-month-old Hodaya who never saw her father* Five orphans who can’t find comfort

The Malchi home. The middle of shivah. Mrs. Miran is sitting, her shirt torn as required by halacha, with an endearing baby on her lap. Hodaya is four months old, and will never see her father. In a broken voice Miran says, “Hello, my name is Miran Malchi; I’m 35 years old. I lost my dear husband this week, on Shabbos kodesh. Four months ago we discovered the disease, and truly until the last minute we were cheerful and optimistic, and didn’t allow him to worry for even a minute.”

In the touching clip she shares the battles and the tremendous efforts they made for his recovery, but they didn’t believe that the worst of all was yet to come.

“Five sweet children are left with me. [Hodaya] is four months old. Last Shabbos we lost him. He was the father of my children- Hodaya’s father, and she never knew him.”

Rabbi Shimon Malchi worked as a handyman. He engaged in physical labor many hours each day, and supported his family respectably. With his passing, the family is left without a father and head of the family, and also without a breadwinner. The mother is a full-time homemaker and they have no other sources of income.

In the clip, Miran says that he was the sole breadwinner: “He was also a husband who cared for me and supported me- all these years he supported us. I didn’t think for a minute that he would really be niftar.”

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In addition to the four-and-a-half month old baby, there are four other children at home. The oldest is eleven, and then a nine-year-old boy who now has the heavy responsibility of saying ‘Kaddish’ l’ilui nishmas his departed father, a seven-year-old boy who started first grade while they were sitting shivah for his father, and a five-year-old boy.

At the end of the clip she appeals to the heart of Am Yisrael, her voice broken and pained: “Now I’m forced to ask for help. And I thank everyone who contributes.  And I believe that AmYisrael is holy- they will really help. They won’t abandon me.”

“The family is simply shattered,” says the aunt, the young widow’s sister-in-law. “They talk about him all the time; they miss him so very much. He was the life of the household; he gave them joy and created a family atmosphere. This wasn’t a regular father; he was much more. A really special father, as if he tried to shove many years of fatherhood into the short time he had with his children. He gave them this in very concentrated portions…”

“What can I say- the situation is not simple at all,” summarizes the sister. “She’s broken, shattered. This isn’t something one recovers from so quickly. I hope she’ll recover later, that she’ll manage to return to routine to the best of her abilities, because the children need a mother who is healthy and whole. It’s not healthy to grow up in a home where there is only one parent, and that one is a ‘shattered vessel.’ But in order for her to recuperate, we need to be strong, to give her strength, to assist her so that at least their financial state will be reasonable. At the same time, she needs a lot of therapy. I really hope that we can enable her to have this, b’ezras HaShem, together with the entire community who will stand by her side at her difficult hour and support her to the best of its ability.”

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