Although the final letter of the famous Israeli hero and spy, Eli Cohen, to his very young wife was released many years ago, the letter in its original form was returned to Israel after 60 years.
Sometimes I can’t even remember my pre-Oct. 7 self. When life was so different. When death and sadness and fear weren’t a natural part of the day. When it was before the time of those two dreaded words “hutar le-pirsum, released for publication,” became part of Israeli life.
The idea and thought of a last letter of a hero felt like a unique, historic kind of letter. I remember reading the words of Eli Cohen’s final letter to his wife, a young mother at the time.
In the letter, Cohen bestowed upon her the gift of release, the gift of permission to continue living life to the fullest, when so much life was still left for her to live.
Eli Cohen closes his letter with loving words, final kisses to his loved ones and a request for prayers on his and his father’s souls.
This anguished time of war, when the words of so many final letters penned by youngsters have become part of our current atmosphere, gave Eli Cohen’s letter a different tone.
These days, wherever you go in Israel, last will and testimony stickers including a sentence from young fallen soldiers’ final letters are everywhere. A piano in Eilat is stickered up; so too, the high and grand ancient stoned entrance to Jaffa Gate and all over downtown Jerusalem. Bus stops, train stops and so many random places. The moving words, the sad final letters of the soldiers are written upon the city walls.
In fact, I have encountered these stickers holding lost soldiers’ final words in Budapest and Athens, too.
Amplifying their last words has become a sense of mission for many Israelis in commemorating their lost comrades in arms.
With the very real possibility of imminent death, these letters are written with brevity and crystalline clarity about what is important to them to impart. These young men who just yesterday were carefree become teachers of deep character and wisdom.
Experiencing so viscerally the knowledge that life might truly and permanently be coming to an end is transformative.
Many of the letters are similar in their themes. Many express love, gratitude, optimism, care and appreciation for life.
It’s absolutely heartbreaking to read these brief notes. I’ve seen some notes copied in the individual’s own handwriting with their smiling picture at the side.
Soon after I read about the news of Eli Cohen’s final letter arriving in Israel, the smiling face of another fallen soldier came across my screen. So young. Radiating so much joy. His final letter was there too, right alongside his picture.
Not a lone, famous and historic letter from 60 years ago. But right now, joining hundreds of other final letters from beloved young fallen soldiers we have come across in some shape or form in the last 19 months.
His name was Yosef Yehuda.
What a soul.
What idealism. What a sense of purpose. What moral clarity.
Yosef Yehuda had just become a married young man; his chuppah was two months before he wrote those words, which turned out to be his final letter.
He penned the letter to his family on this past Holocaust Memorial Day, as he was in the throes of the uncertainty of a war zone.
In contrast to the times of the Holocaust, when Jews didn’t have a country or military of their own, he expressed how privileged he felt to serve in the Israeli army and to have the ability to defend The Jewish people.
At the moment of the piercing Holocaust Memorial Day siren, he found himself on a tank, in military uniform, with a gun in his hand, in the midst of protecting the Jewish people. From this perch, he was able to see the fields of the Gaza Envelope communities of Nahal Oz and Kfar Aza, just beyond, in full bloom again — after being decimated on Oct. 7, 2023.
He knew what he was fighting for. This time, it would be different from the siren, the Holocaust Day sign for the murdered six million.
It absolutely breaks the heart that while Eli Cohen’s letter was a one-off, in today’s reality of this continuing heartbreaking war, final letters has become a genre.
There is something so powerful about the last word. That last written word. The word that speaks even after the person himself or herself is painfully no longer. I take each one I read as a spiritual will and legacy of the soldiers who wrote those precious words. Because of the way they died, falling in battle to protect us and our freedom to live as Jews, the feeling is that they have transcended the identity of mere mortal, rising to something so much more noble that I, a mere mortal, will never grasp.
The tragedy of the soldiers’ youth is so often highlighted in these final letters. We know whatever it is that was written, was written from a place of looking death in the eye. What’s remarkable is that these notes consistently lack bitterness or regret. Rather, they so often communicate a clarity, a purpose, a love of the land and of their people. A profound understanding of their role in protecting it. In a word: Valor. Courage. Hero.
Heroes, to a level we can only imagine and be indebted to; heroes spurring us to recommit to living lives that would make their priceless and searing sacrifice in the line of duty meaningful and worthy. It is incumbent upon us to choose. We don’t celebrate death for its own sake. What’s valued above all is life. “L’Chaim!” — to life! — we voice when we toast and raise a glass of wine.
Those letters, though. They are often inspirational, but are so very wounding. There is correspondence and then there is final correspondence. In WW I, when letter writing was the primary form of long distance communication, the British Army postal service delivered around two billion letters! Thousands of letters crossed the English Channel each day.
These last letters of farewell are like no other. When the danger of battle is just beyond, something inside that has never before been tapped will rise to the fore, and spill out from deep within.
These soldiers are so young, and they write their words in the shadows of impending military action, with the full knowledge that they are written to be read by their loved ones whom they might be leaving forever. The force of this grim task animates their words.
And to think of the soldiers walking among us. Soldiers, thousands of soldiers, with such farewell letters like these being carried by them, tucked somewhere, with the deep hope and desperate prayer that they shall never be read. It’s a startling thought.
In war, every soldier looks the same, wears the same olive uniform. Each of these letters, though, is so very different. A different persona is humanized, reflecting something so intimately unique about each of them and their bond with their parents, children, siblings, spouse or other loved ones.
So often the letters of the soldiers are from men so young they haven’t even quite begun living their lives yet and are still primarily part of their nuclear family of origin.
Their final message of love to their parents, and in a sense what feels like a final message to each of us too, is so very emotional to read.
The endless regret for these beautiful people and all that could have been and is now lost is devastating.
It feels so wrong, so unjust. War steals so many things, from so many people. Ultimately, it steals the best and the most precious lives.
As true and wise and noble as Yosef Yehuda’s legacy words are to us — about his Jewish pride in being a part of a generation with the privilege to protect our people — living through an ongoing war truly is hell, and emotionally I can’t help but feel each day, let it end, let it end.
The hell of war doesn’t spare anyone. In different ways, everyone, innocents on all sides, too, pay a terrible price.
Those fallen warriors, though — we are indebted to them.
These last letters of farewell in the soldiers’ own words shine an intimate light on the very human and brutal cost of war.
When I’ve picked up one of these last letters stickers, I feel I am holding something sacred in my hand. A sense of deep sadness envelops me.
There was a time when the final letter of Eli Cohen held great interest to me. Today, it was simply a painful reminder of how all too pervasive this kind of letter has tragically become.
© IJN 2025
