Two years after terrorists killed his wife and daughters, Leo Dee is set to remarry

Life has been an “emotional roller coaster” since Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife, Lucy, and daughters Maia and Rina were murdered by terrorists as they drove through the West Bank on April 7, 2023.

“It starts with shock,” Dee said, describing his recovery process this week to The Times of Israel. “Then there is extreme pain, numbness, and confusion. Then, gradually, you start to pick yourself up and rebuild from scratch.”

That fateful day, terrorists associated with Hamas rammed Lucy, Maia and Rina off the road near the Hamra Junction, as they made their way through the Jordan Valley toward Tiberias, and then shot them at close range before fleeing. Both daughters were pronounced dead at the scene, and Lucy died of her wounds two days later.

At the funeral for his wife, Dee called Lucy his “best friend.”

“We literally traveled the world together. We [moved to Israel] together. We built a new life for ourselves in the Promised Land,” he said before thousands of mourners at an emotional ceremony.

Now, with the announcement of his engagement to Jerusalem resident Aliza Teplitsky, Dee will start to build a new life again.

Dee, whose tragedy touched many Israelis in 2023, shared the news on social media earlier this month, offering a moment of light to many people hunkered down in shelters as they braced for missiles during Israel’s war with Iran.

After dating for three and a half months, the two will marry and live in Dee’s current home in the West Bank settlement of Efrat, he told The Times of Israel.

During the attack in April 2023, Dee and his three other children were driving in a separate car and didn’t see the deadly assault take place. He has learned to accept that what happened was beyond his control.

There is one question that I’ve learned you have to ask: What if God planned it this way, and this is all part of his plan? If you ask that, you start to realize that your job isn’t to question your choices, but to make the best of the situation you are currently in

“People ask me all the time, ‘What if?'” Dee said. “What if we hadn’t moved to Israel? What if we had left the house later that morning? I’ve learned that you can’t ask that question because there are so many possibilities.

“But there is one question that I’ve learned you have to ask: What if God planned it this way, and this is all part of his plan? If you ask that, you start to realize that your job isn’t to question your choices, but to make the best of the situation you are currently in,” he said.

Life choices

Dee, 53, grew up in London, England, and started to become religiously observant at age 17 while he was volunteering on a kibbutz in Israel.

“I spent a Shabbat in Jerusalem and ended up joining a religious program in the Old City,” he said. “That, combined with many years of positive interactions with religious Jews and rabbis during my youth, set me on my path.”

Dee studied at the University of Cambridge for four years and then worked in venture capital for 10 years before joining the British rabbinate. After working with two synagogues in the UK, he and his family moved in 2014 to Efrat.

Dee worked in sustainable development and gave lectures on religious topics, while Lucy taught English at a nearby high school.

“We were married for 25 years,” Dee said. “She taught me how to be a good husband. How to listen, to be more thoughtful, and what it means to love.”

After Lucy was pronounced dead at the hospital, Dee was asked if her organs could be donated. On the advice of a rabbi, he approved. Ten days later, Dee and his children were brought to meet five people whose lives were saved by those transplants.

“We weren’t sure how we would feel meeting them, but it brought us tremendous comfort knowing that, despite the tragedy, some good had come out of it,” Dee said.

Dee says he thinks about Lucy, Maia and Rina all the time. “But I don’t always cry when I think about them,” he said. “I think about our positive experiences together and what I’ve gained from them. That helps me rebuild.”

Dee also takes pride in his surviving children: Keren, 21, working with kids at risk in her role in National Service; Tali, 19, who serves in the Air Force; and Yehuda, 16, studying in a high school yeshiva.

Finding new love

It took time before Dee felt ready to look for love again.

“About a year ago, I was home for Shabbat by myself for the first time in years, with all my kids away,” Dee said. “Towards the end of Shabbat, in my empty house, I sat down and cried, sobbing in the stillness for half an hour. I realized at that point that I didn’t want to be alone anymore.”

Shortly after that, Dee started dating.

“I was probably introduced to about 100 women, and I went out with about 30,” he said. “I think anyone who has been on the dating scene knows that it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”

It was difficult on many of the dates to avoid dwelling on the effects of the terror attack, Dee said.

“I guess I naturally gravitated towards women in caring professions, and a lot of the conversation would revolve around healing from trauma, which is what I speak about when I travel and lecture,” he said.

“When I met Aliza, interestingly, none of the conversation was about that, because we connected over so many other things. We’re both sort of complex personalities, but we have some of the same complexities, which was a breath of fresh air. She is optimistic and has a great sense of humor.”

Dee’s children helped him arrange to pop the question.

“When I proposed to Lucy so many years ago, it wasn’t very romantic, and a bit of a disaster, so I decided I would do a better job this time,” he recalled. “But when I told my kids how I planned to propose, they said ‘No way,’ and they organized it for me instead. They set up a nice little table with food and music at the Ari Fuld lookout point in the Oz Vegaon outpost nearby, and 20 minutes after she said yes, they all came by to take pictures.”

Now, as he prepares to stand under the wedding canopy again, Dee is hopeful that his pain will make him a better person.

“I am not one person anymore,” he wrote in an essay penned after his engagement. “I am a mosaic — pieces gathered from a 25-year marriage, from raising five children, from loss, and from healing.

“Lucy was perfect for me for our idyllic 25 years together — the ideal partner for a young man finding his way as a rabbinical student, exemplary as a mother of five, and the spiritual architect of our home. But tragedy rewrites a person.”

“Tragedy taught me how to see what matters,” Dee wrote. “It left behind only the meaningful: friends, family, and purpose.”