After Maj. Itamar Elharar was killed in a 2022 friendly-fire incident, Or struggled to imagine marrying again. Then she met Yotam, who had served with him in the Egoz unit, and discovered that remembrance and new love could exist side by sideFor nearly a year, Or Elharar Spielman has once again been a married woman. Her first husband, Maj. Itamar Elharar, was killed in a friendly-fire incident that shook Israel in 2022. He was 26, and they had been married for less than two years when the tragedy ended their life together.Today, she lives in Jaffa with her husband, Yotam, who served alongside Itamar in the IDF’s Egoz commando unit. “I believe there are people who can marry widows and people who cannot,” she says with a smile. “He is one of the people who can.”GalleryOr Elharar Spielman with her husband, Yotam. 'Some people can marry widows, and some cannot' (Photo: Courtesy)This is Yotam’s first marriage. He had been single before meeting her. “I didn’t date many people before him, but with the few men I did meet, I knew within minutes that I was going to end it and that it would not continue,” she recalls. “With Yotam, there was something different.“The fact that he knew Itamar made it simpler. I felt I didn’t need to try to explain who Itamar was because he already knew him. On our first date, he told me that Itamar used to speak about me and tell him about me. That allowed me to enter the relationship more easily and to place my heart in his hands more easily.”The couple met through a mutual friend who connected them. “When Itamar was killed, Yotam was also an officer in the unit,” she says. “Yotam knew who I was because he attended the funeral, the shiva and the memorial ceremonies, but he never approached me.“It was not as though he immediately agreed to date me. Many people were involved, people who knew both of us, soldiers and commanders from the army who encouraged him and told him it was the right thing.”Did he have reservations?