Sarah Vaspi, a bereaved mother, grandmother and widow, was laid to rest yesterday in the northern village of Yesud HaMa'ala. Her daughter, Vered Vaspi Tsabari, mother of Captain (res.) Arnon Benvenisti Vaspi, who fell in Gaza in the Swords of Iron war, eulogized her and spoke about her personality in an interview with Kan Reshet Bet.
"Only now, out of the great pain, do I realize how much my mother knew how to feel the pain, but also to love and enjoy this thing called life. She had a full and beautiful life. She didn’t live in despair," says Vered.
Vaspi was 86 when she passed away. She managed the internal medicine department of the Ziv Medical Center in Safed for forty years. She was the seventh generation of her family in Israel and was born in Yesud HaMa'ala.
Sarah's husband, Lieutenant Colonel Yoav Vaspi, fell in the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Her son, Corporal Arnon Vaspi, fell in Lebanon in 1983, and her grandson, Captain Arnon Benvenisti Vaspi, a combat officer in the Givati Commando Unit, fell in Gaza in November 2023.
Vered shared her mother's great pain when her grandson fell in battle: "I buried Yoav, I buried my son Arnon, but I can't take the loss of my grandson Arnon, she told me. I reminded her that she is a hero, and in contrast to the people of Israel who were persecuted in the Holocaust, here she has the privilege of being a mother of heroes who could fight back."
She noted that her family was not chosen only for suffering, but was also chosen for greatness, and so it is today: "I am proud to be Arnon's mother, Arnon's sister, the daughter of Yoav and Sara. I am surrounded by great people who contribute and give to others."
Even in her last years, Vered and Sara were involved in giving to soldiers; cooking and supporting the soldiers in the north. Vered opened "Arnon's Place" in Rosh Pina, "a café, a place to commemorate my Arnon and connect the different parts of the nation."
"Only when I became a bereaved mother was I able to understand her, and like her, I chose to continue building. Thanks to them, we are here, and my mother was supporting of them," Vered concluded.