“I’ve reached the limit of how much I can worry,” Ronen Yahalomi said from Vienna, where he has joined efforts to find his sister Mali and her daughter Liel, who have been missing since Friday.
Ronen, Mali’s older brother, arrived in the Austrian capital on behalf of the family and has spent recent days in contact with Austrian authorities, Israeli officials and members of Vienna’s Jewish community as the search for the two women continues.
The disappearance has already prompted an extensive investigation, with Austrian media reporting that the Mossad is also involved in efforts to locate them.
“You have to understand,” Ronen told ynet. “Last Monday we celebrated her 50th birthday in Modi’in.”
According to Ronen, Mali had virtually no advance notice of the trip. Liel had organized it as a surprise gift for her mother, booking the flights as well as accommodations in Prague and Vienna.
“The whole trip came as a surprise to her. She had no time to prepare for it,” he said.
“The trip to Prague was planned by Liel as a surprise gift. Mali had no idea about it. That’s the impression everyone had. Liel organized everything, bought the plane tickets and booked a room in Prague and a room in Vienna.
“How much time did Mali really have to prepare?” Ronen said. “The party was Monday, and they left the next day, Tuesday.”
That detail has taken on added significance amid speculation surrounding the circumstances of their disappearance, including claims linking it to Mali’s senior position at Bank of Jerusalem. The rumors have already affected the bank’s share price.
Ronen said he had no information supporting such theories.
“I have no idea about that,” he said. “I really have no idea. I don’t get into rumors. My sister earned well and was completely financially independent.”
A police source has said the investigation is being handled by Lahav 433’s national financial crime unit because of its capabilities, its contacts with police and law enforcement agencies abroad and its experience managing complex international investigations. All possible directions are being examined.
Mali and her daughter Liel
Mali grew up in Tel Aviv’s Yad Eliyahu neighborhood in a secular family and became religious after completing her military service. She later married another ba’al teshuva, and the couple divorced when their two children were young.
She raised the children while studying and building a career, eventually earning a master’s degree in economics and reaching a senior position at Bank of Jerusalem, where she works in the bank’s control division overseeing money transfers.
Relatives describe her as responsible and stable, a devoted mother and, for the past six months, grandmother to a baby boy born to her eldest son.
“She and her children are religious, but they’re not fanatics,” relatives said. They are familiar with the secular world and live comfortably alongside it, they added.
Travel was something Mali and Liel shared. This was not their first trip together. Ronen could not recall every destination, but said the two traveled once or twice a year, usually for several days, and regularly sent videos and remained in contact with the family.
This trip initially appeared no different.
Shortly before Shabbat began, the women sent a video from the studio apartment they had rented in Vienna. Liel filmed the room, her mother and herself reflected in mirrors. Both sounded happy and pleased with the apartment.
Nothing in the video appeared to suggest what would follow.
The women observe Shabbat, making several details of their final known movements particularly puzzling.
They rented the Vienna apartment for only one day and apparently left on Saturday. Their phones’ final location signal was also recorded that day.
“When religious Israelis come here, they usually make contact,” a secretary at the city’s Chabad House told ynet. “They reserve a place for a Shabbat meal. We didn’t hear anything from them. Nothing.”
The apartment in Vienna where missing Mali Yahalomi and her daughter stayed
(Photo: Zeev Avrahami)
The central mystery remains how two adult women, traveling together, could disappear without leaving an apparent digital trail.
Their phones were last located near a public park by Vienna’s main railway station. After that, there was nothing.
In an era when phones, credit cards and smartwatches routinely leave electronic traces, disappearing without a detectable trail is extraordinarily difficult, particularly for travelers who need navigation, public transportation schedules and other digital services to move around an unfamiliar city.
The apartment where Mali and Liel stayed Friday is in Vienna’s fourth district, at 13 Hauptmannstrasse, about two kilometers from the city center. The address contains a courtyard with several buildings and roughly 60 apartments.
Reaching major tourist attractions or Jewish institutions generally requires public transportation, an unusual choice for two women who observe Shabbat.
Also unexplained is why they apparently carried their belongings on Saturday and traveled roughly 2.2 kilometers from the apartment toward the central railway station.
For now, those questions remain unanswered, leaving Ronen and the rest of the family waiting for any sign of Mali and Liel.