Full circle

Parks Authority worker finds lost wedding ring of terror victim’s wife

‘This was not how I wanted to say goodbye,’ Yael Shevach wrote to her late husband after losing the gold band; internet do-gooders and a team of searchers help her find it

Eid Najum holding Yael Shevach's wedding wing, July 4, 2021. (Israel Nature and Parks Authority)
Eid Najum holding Yael Shevach's wedding wing, July 4, 2021. (Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

Yael Shevach didn’t remove her wedding ring after her husband, the late Rabbi Raziel Shevach, was killed in a terrorist attack in 2018.

But on Friday, while she was hiking in the Ein Prat Nature Reserve in the West Bank’s Judean Desert, it slipped off her finger and disappeared, for what she thought was for good.

In a heartfelt Facebook post weaving together the loss of both her husband and the ring that represented their bond, Shevach wrote, “This was not how I wanted to say goodbye. Not without a prior decision. Not without choice. That’s not how I wanted you to disappear from my life.”

With the post going viral, some internet do-gooders turned to the Israel Nature and Parks Authority to try and locate the ring.

Rabbi Raziel Shevach (c) with his family, in an undated photo (Courtesy of the family)

Unbeknown to Raziel, who was observing Shabbat in her West Bank home of Havat Gilad, the team at Ein Prat “enlisted for the mission, and despite the slim chances, stubbornly searched every corner of the site,” the Authority said in a Sunday statement.

And, after hours and hours of searching, “stubbornness paid off,” said the Authority, announcing that park worker Eid Najum had found the ring on Saturday and that it had been returned to Shevach after Shabbat.

Yael Shevach (L) holding her wedding wing after it was found by Israel Nature and Parks Authority worker Eid Najum, July 4, 2021. (Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

Kobi Helfgott, director of the Ein Prat Nature Reserve, said, “Last night I called Yael and told her that the ring had been found. I sent her a picture of the ring while talking to her and then I heard “yes, yes, this is the ring!” It was a very exciting moment… after 24 hours of searching.”

Eid Najum holding Yael Shevach’s wedding wing, July 4, 2021. (Israel Nature and Parks Authority)

Raziel Shevach was gunned down by Palestinian terrorists in a drive-by shooting outside the Havat Gilad outpost in the northern West Bank on January 9, 2018.

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