In a perfect world, Jonathan (Joni) Meir Ken-Dror z"l and his girlfriend Yael Rozman z"l would be celebrating Tu B'Av like in the movies, with a hug facing the sunset and a bouquet of red roses. But unfortunately, in the crazy world we live in, vile murderers brutally cut down the lovers on October 7, and their moving love story was severed.
"When I used to meet Yael, I would call her 'my future sister-in-law,'" Tom, Jonathan's sister, recalls. "Once she whispered to me, 'Stop, you're pressuring Joni' – but who cared, I wanted him to get engaged. Today, all their friends are getting married, and it's really hard because it's clear to me that he would have proposed. He was already talking to my mom about a ring."
If there's a small piece of comfort in this tragedy, it lies in the connection that was formed after the death of the two. On October 7, Tom and her sister Danielle met Yellena, Yael's sister, for the first time. The three understood that fate had connected them – and since then they haven't separated. They even have a tradition they created for themselves – they fly together on vacation abroad immediately after Memorial Day, with the mothers of Yael and Joni.
"Between me and Yael, there was an 11-year age difference", Yellena recounts. "For many years, I was an only child, and suddenly I returned to that same point at an adult stage of my life. It was terribly difficult. Now I received Tom and Danielle as sisters, and their children as family."
Tom adds, "Yellena is like the aunt to the children. She watches over them, buys them gifts. I won't forget that during the shiva she came and asked, 'So now you're my sisters?' Even our WhatsApp group is called 'Sisters or Not to Be.'"
Jonathan from Hod Hasharon met Yael from Kfar Saba when they studied business administration and marketing at the Rupin Academic Center. Initially, they emphasized that they were friends only, and nothing more.
"Yael told me about Joni from school and said he works in a coffee shop", Yellena recalls. "One day, I sat in that coffee shop without saying who I was, and Joni was a total catch. Usually I'm critical of waiters, but he was fire."
Over time, the connection between the two grew warmer. Family meals, joint vacations, and finally moving together to a modest apartment in Florentin. "The way we met Yael, we said 'she's ours,'" Danielle remembers. "We always asked her and Joni when they would get married, because we knew it was heading in that direction."
"She didn't leave him wounded"
On October 7, Danielle and Tom were unaware that their brother and his girlfriend had attended the Nova Festival. Yellena also wasn't in on it, but as soon as the alarms began at 6:30 a.m. she texted Yael – "Awake?"
"Yael answered relatively quickly, 'We're at a party in the south, it's over,'" Yellena remembers. "She said there's chaos and they're packing up. I wrote 'Find a protected space' and asked her to send me a live location. The moment she sent it, I closed the phone and made myself coffee. I was convinced they were already managing. After fifteen minutes, I checked WhatsApp to see where they were and realized they were stuck. I texted Yael to drive to the parents of my friend, who live in the area. She wrote that there's chaos and stopped answering. My last message to her was 'Is Joni with you?'"
Only on Monday, two days after the massacre, the Rozman family was informed that Yael was murdered, and only toward the end of the week did the Ken-Dror family receive the terrible news that Jonathan also didn't survive.
Gradually, details began to emerge about what happened that black Saturday morning. A friend who was with the two in the car and managed to survive said that immediately after the first missiles were fired, they packed up from the festival and got in the car, with Jonathan sitting in the driver's seat. At the exit from Re'im parking lot, the turn north was blocked by police, so they drove south toward Gaza Division, and after four kilometers, they encountered terrorists.
"They passed by a Hamas squad, and according to the friend, Jonathan ran over one of them and continued driving", Danielle recounts. "The shooting didn't stop, and Jonathan caught a bullet that hit the main artery in his right arm. They were forced to stop by the roadside and get out. The friend left them when they were still alive."
The story details were completed only after Jonathan's personal belongings were returned to the family, including Yael's mobile phone, which was found beside him. It turned out that at 7:38 a.m. four calls were made from the device – two to the police, which weren't answered, and two more to Magen David Adom. The last call, between Yael and the dispatcher, lasted 5:40 minutes.
"Yael took care of Joni when he was wounded. She's our hero, she didn't leave him until the last minute," Tom says. "I would have preferred a different ending, and that at least she would come out alive, but when they left the car, he was in really bad condition. You also hear her telling Magen David Adom that he's losing a lot of blood and that his face is pale. She was focused, tried to explain where they were located, and said she couldn't leave him. I think she understood she was losing Jonathan, and at some point, the call became difficult. You hear in her voice that she understands the terrorists are closing in on them. In their lives and their deaths, they weren't separated."
Yellena didn't hear her sister's last phone call; it was too hard for her, but she read the transcript. "I couldn't contain this thing, but I know there's no way Yael would have left Joni, just as he wouldn't have left her", she's convinced. "Not even a slim chance of 0.001 percent."
Danielle nods, "When people tell me 'your brother was murdered', I always correct that I didn't lose just him, but also Yael. People think she's not from the family, but she is. We lost two."
Last breaths in the recording
Only a month after Joni and Yael's deaths, the sisters decided to enter their rented apartment and found notes the two had written to each other, fragments of lives that were cut short. "Yael and Joni were positive people full of joy of life, who left quite a mark on this world", Tom says. "Within the absence and crazy pain, there are two families that united movingly. We adopted each other as sisters, and our mothers are really good friends. We celebrate holidays together as a whole family. In the end, this is the gift they left. True, it hurts that we didn't meet at a bachelorette party or wedding, and that we had to meet under such circumstances, but there's an amazing connection here of cruel and shared fate."
The three know that at least for them, the circle is closed, unlike many who remained without answers about what happened to their loved ones that Saturday. "We have a narrative, but there are families who know nothing and received only a box," Danielle says. "With all the difficulty of hearing the recording and my brother's last breaths, at least our story is complete. That's why a national commission of inquiry must be established. Not just so people will be held accountable, but also so everyone the event touched will understand what happened, where we fell, and what there is to learn from all this."
