'Everything I have is yours'

‘You taught me how to love,’ tearful MK Yehudah Glick says at wife’s funeral

Yaffa Glick dies six months after suffering severe stroke, is buried in Jerusalem, survived by husband and 8 children

Likud MK Yehudah Glick speaks during the funeral of his wife, Yaffa Glick, at the Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem, on January 1, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
Likud MK Yehudah Glick speaks during the funeral of his wife, Yaffa Glick, at the Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem, on January 1, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

At the funeral for his wife Yaffa, Likud MK Yehudah Glick eulogized her, saying that she had “taught him how to love.”

Yaffa Glick, who died on Monday, had been in a coma for six months after suffering a severe stroke. She was 51.

“Everything I have is yours,” the lawmaker said through his tears during the afternoon ceremony at Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetery.

He said that she had taught him to be sincere when he said “thank you,” by thinking about what he was grateful for. “You taught me not to say ‘how are you’ without actually caring about the person,” he said. She had also “taught him how to love,” Glick said.

“It was not by chance that all the ‘invisible’ people were attracted to you,” he continued. “We would go to a wedding, suddenly you would disappear and I would eventually find you sitting with someone on the side. I would say, ‘Do you know her?’ ‘No, but I saw she was alone, and that something weighed heavily on her, so I came over to speak with her.'”

Friends, family, and Knesset Members, attend the funeral of Yaffa Glick, wife of Likud NK Yehudah Glick, at the Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem, on January 1, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

He spoke of the sense of gratitude the two of them had, which led them to adopt two children in addition to their own six.

Yaffa Glick suffered a severe stroke on June 23, shortly before Shabbat began. “On Friday when the stroke happened everyone knew straight away because they didn’t get their usual WhatsApp ‘Shabbat Shalom’ from you,” Glick said in his eulogy.

He thanked all those who attended the funeral, “from left and right, Jews and Arabs, from inside the party and outside the party.”

Earlier, Glick announced his wife’s death on Facebook, sharing photos of “the love of my life.”

לפני דקות אחדות אהבת חיי החזירה נשמתה לבוראהברוך דיין האמת ????????????

Posted by Yehudah Glick on Sunday, December 31, 2017

Yehuda Glick was almost killed in a 2014 assassination attempt due to his advocacy for Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount site. His wife had been hospitalized in the same ward where he was treated. After her stroke six months ago the lawmaker tweeted that following his shooting, “she asked for prayers for me. Now, after a severe stroke, she needs your prayers.” He also said that he had prayed for her recovery during a visit to the Temple Mount in August, despite a ban on Jewish worship at the holy site.

The timing of Monday’s funeral caused a mini-crisis in the government, when the opposition joined the coalition Yisrael Beytenu party in refusing to have one lawmaker bow out of an upcoming vote on a bill to shutter mini-markets on Shabbat, saying they would not offset Glick’s absence even though such a move is a customary gesture of courtesy in such cases.

Likud MK Yehudah Glick is speaks during the funeral ceremony of his wife, Yaffa Glick, at the Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem, on January 1, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Hours before his wife’s funeral, Glick took to Twitter to implore lawmakers not to turn his bereavement into a political battle.

“I beg of you,” he wrote, “that my dear wife’s funeral should not become the subject of a fight. Please increase love and positive energy.”

The death of Yaffa Glick was met with an outpouring of condolences from across the political spectrum.

“My condolences to MK Yehudah Glick on the death of his wife, Yaffa,” tweeted President Reuven Rivlin. “Together with all of the people of Israel, I followed her sad story and was impressed by the family’s devotion.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement, said he had spoken with Glick to convey his condolences.

“Together with all of Israel, we mourn her death and send strength to him and his family in their time of deep sorrow,” he said.

Likud MK Amir Ohana, who served as a volunteer bodyguard for Glick in the hospital during his recovery (and before both had entered Knesset) also paid tribute to Yaffa Glick.

“I got to know her during the difficult times, after the failed assassination attempt against Yehudah,” wrote Ohana on Twitter. “‘A soul woven with threads of steel and silk,’ Jabotinsky wrote of women, a description tailor-made for Yaffi.”

Most Popular
read more: