As Israel confronts a new war with Iran, women across the country are showing extraordinary strength and resilience, according to Lihi Lapid, author, speaker, and wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Lapid spoke to the ILTV Podcast ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8. Her recent book, I Wanted to Be Wonderful, now available in English and a USA Today Bestseller, blends literary fiction and autobiography to explore motherhood, marriage, and female identity, including raising a child on the autism spectrum.
Lapid highlighted how 30 female Israeli Air Force pilots and navigators have participated in the strikes on Iran, according to the military.
“It's so amazing,” she told ILTV. “Such strength and such bravery.”
But, she said, it is not only those who take part in military action who are demonstrating courage.
“All of Israel is now on the frontline because the missiles can hit everywhere,” Lapid said. “Each mother is a little bit running a war room, handling the kids, the family, the house, making sure everyone gets to the shelter. There’s the burden of worrying about our sons … and the wives of soldiers.”
Lapid said these women need to take time to care for themselves. She compared it to the safety instructions given on an airplane, when the stewardess says that a parent traveling with a child should help themselves before assisting the baby.
“You need to be strong in order to take care of your kids,” she said. “I think women usually put themselves last. They take care of everybody else before they take care of themselves. And if there's this thing that I want to tell women is when you are unhappy, the whole house is unhappy. When you are tired, you can't give the patience and the love and the caring that the rest need, and especially in a time of war.”
Over the years, Lapid said she has learned that it is okay to ask for help. When someone offers to bring something or assist, she now says yes, and she encourages other women to do the same.
During the conversation, Lapid also shared stories from her book, which is fiction but based on a great deal of real life. One of the most difficult moments she described came from her own marriage.
She recalled a story about a man who comes home but pauses outside the door. He hesitates before going in because he expects tension once he enters.
The story, she explained, was actually about her husband.
“It was the most heartbreaking thing that I can hear, that someone is not rushing into his home to just rest and get a hug and and when I was a wreck, and yes, I had a girl with special needs, I had all the reasons. But the day that Yair sat with me, and he looked at me and he said, ‘that's the family we have,’” Lapid recalled. “'This house needs to be a happy home again.'”
She said it took time, but she eventually made a decision to be happy. Happiness, however, is not something that simply appears or lasts forever. It is something people must choose by allowing, as she described it, “moments of happiness that shine.”
“You need to stop and be happy from those moments,” Lapid continued.
Lapid also brought some laughter to the conversation. She recalled a moment after giving birth when she developed a breast infection and followed her doctor’s advice to place cabbage leaves on her breasts between nursing. At the same time, Yair Lapid was in the United States dining with Julia Roberts.
“I was like, no, this can’t be. I am here with the cabbage,” she said with a laugh.
Watch the full interview: