“We are not accountable for the cards we are dealt with, but we do get to choose how to play them, and however we decide to play them, is what our lives will look like. My life has been tossed around like a fishing boat in the midst of a tsunami. It fell apart, and I reassembled it to suit me perfectly. It wasn’t simple, and it didn’t happen overnight. It took me four years to understand where I wanted to go, to express the optimism and strength within me, and to give others the strength to move forward with courage.”
When the late Michal Admoni wrote these words, she was unaware of the cruel way her life would end. But what she wrote wasn’t simply a euphemism. Michal fully embraced life even after she was injured and became disabled. She fulfilled her dreams and did everything she could to take hold of her life and help others in similar situations cope with the challenges of disability and pain. She did this through her books, the lectures she gave, the assistance she lent others, and even on her “therapy porch” (as she called it) at home, where residents of Kfar Aza would come to talk with her about anything they wished, receiving a hug or a piece of warm, loving advice. “We are a family that rises from crises; we always seek the light in a genuine way, not just in theory,” says Doron Admoni, Michal’s widower. “I know that’s what Michal would have wanted.”
Michal was born on May 5, 1966, in Kibbutz Beit Keshet. When she was five, she moved with her family to Ein Vered. She served in the IDF as part of a Nahal group [Nahal – a special IDF program that combined community building and military service] and later worked in the education system of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, three miles east of Gaza. It was there she met Doron. This was Doron’s second marriage, and together they raised four children—two from his previous marriage and two they had together.

Long before October 7, Admoni faced difficulties and pain that changed her life: “20 years ago, Michal had a medical procedure that went wrong. It left her injured and disabled, suffering from excruciating pain daily. She underwent rehabilitation for six months at Loewenstein Hospital. After half a year there, I told her ‘Come on, let’s go home’.” They returned to their home in Kfar Aza and continued her rehabilitation there, installing aids to assist Michal. She, for her part, never gave up. At first, she used a wheelchair, and later crutches. “We did everything,” recalls Doron, who dedicated his life from that moment on to helping her rehabilitate, with the help of the entire family. “She slowly learned how to do everything and worked very hard on her rehabilitation. After almost a year, her medical condition worsened again, and she suffered a pulmonary embolism. For three days, she was clinically dead but she survived that as well. Each crisis strengthened our family, and we learned to cope,” says Doron. After another round of rehabilitation, Michal returned home.
Michal never gave up on herself, but as a resident of the Gaza border region dealing with a disability, she found it objectively challenging to cope with the endless rocket attacks that require residents to rush to bomb shelters. Her injury and rehabilitation brought Michal an extraordinary gift. She had always loved writing and had received praise for her talent. She began writing posts on her Facebook page almost daily. Due to her medical condition, she was in constant pain, and the keyboard became her refuge. Eventually, she was told that she was onto something real with her stories, and the idea of turning them into a book took shape. “Since Michal was in great pain, it was hard for her to sleep. She would wake up every morning at four AM and write on the porch. She began working with an editor, and it took two years of writing until her first book was published. She was ecstatic— on cloud nine,” Doron recalls with a mix of excitement and sadness.
He says that from the moment her book Five Years & One Day (Raiti Tsvaim Behirim in Hebrew) was published, Michal became a changed person. As she put it, the period following her severe medical ordeals and disability turned her into someone who pursued her dreams to the fullest. “She called me her ‘dream fulfiller,’ and was very active and full of daring. You could even say she reinvented herself. She studied medical coaching and began helping people in crises. She began working with nonprofits and the National Insurance Institute [Bituah Leumi], offering guidance and traveling the country with her story and her zest for life, inspiring others and leading groups. She didn’t care about making money off of her story. She didn’t earn anything from it. She wanted to help people,” he says. When her book came out, Michal began offering lectures based on it. People from all over the country came to hear her story. She used those lectures as a way to convey her message: Don’t sink; grow from the pain.

“We translated the book into English, and it’s sold on Amazon. I can’t describe how happy that made her; it was her self-realization. And then she thought about writing the second book,” Doron tells us. Five Years & One Day was published in 2018, followed by Bata Elai (You Came to Me, Hebrew) n 2021.
Michal’s books were not autobiographical, but they certainly dealt with topics close to her heart, focusing on coping with crises and disability. Five Years & One Day tells the story of Ella, a young woman who gets injured in a car accident and is hospitalized in a spinal cord injury rehabilitation unit. She must relearn how to live life and how to control her body. Ella feels like a prisoner in the ward and inside her own body. She wants to feel like a desirable, sexual, vibrant young woman again, and she begins to open up to the world again thanks to a budding new love. You Came to Me, Michal’s second book, revolves around Mika, a divorced mother of two daughters, who is no stranger to disability. The plot unfolds about three years after a skiing accident and a failed medical procedure that has left her on crutches. Mika focuses on motherhood, work, and friends, completely pushing away anyone trying to get close from the outside. Her firm refusal to attend a reunion with her high school classmates leads to some surprising heated correspondence.

Despite the difficult themes addressed in Michal’s books, they are also filled with humor, love, and passion. What sets her works apart—and perhaps makes them stand out as innovative in the Israeli literary landscape—is their approach to broken bodies and souls from a different perspective: one of growth, vitality, and even sexuality. Passion radiates from her pages, refusing to isolate people with disabilities from sensations of pleasure, lust, and sexuality. “Her stories are ultimately tales of love that teach us how to live and feel desirable, even if you’re not a typical person or you have some sort of particular limitation,” Doron says. Michal herself said that the words burned within her and that the moment pen touched paper, she found peace.
One month before she was murdered in the October 7 massacre, Michal told Doron that she had finished writing her third book. She didn’t get to see it published. “I’ll start working on the book,” Doron says painfully. “I’m not at that stage yet, I’m not mentally ready to bring myself to do it, but of course, I’ll publish it in the future.”
On October 7, Doron was in the U.S. with his daughter. He was texting with Michal, and when she didn’t respond, he flew back to Israel, certain of what had happened — Michal and Guy were murdered. “I felt something impossible to explain. God sent me a feeling. I landed in Israel, and I was informed unofficially. I had anticipated it all, and I was right. If their fate was to be murdered, at least they were together.” After the horrific massacre, rescue teams found Michal and Guy together, embraced and lifeless. At Doron’s request, they were buried together in the military section of the Tel Mond cemetery.
After their deaths, Doron committed himself to continuing the legacy of Michal and Guy. “This is our life’s mission. I rented an apartment in Herzliya with our youngest daughter. Our older daughter lives in Shefayim, and my other son lives in the U.S. We’re trying to stay active. Beyond Michal’s book, she had fallen in love with a place in Greece and dreamed of having a vacation home there where she could write, overlooking the sea. We bought that house not long ago. Now I’m renovating it, and it’s going to be a special place—the home of Michal and Guy.”

Doron is a shy man who doesn’t like to be in the spotlight, but Michal’s captivating energy and support swept him along. After her death, many people approached him to talk about the books she wrote. “In a way, the books also tell our story—a story that can’t be taken for granted. I didn’t marry a disabled woman. At first, when we discovered her disability, I didn’t know what would help her. But little by little, I learned. The love between Michal and me always flourished. Our son Guy, who was murdered alongside her by Hamas terrorists, always said we taught him what relationships and love truly are.”

The family bond is also deeply felt within the pages of Michal’s books. The extended Admoni family loved to travel and attend Hapoel Tel Aviv games, and they believed in expanding their horizons and fulfilling their dreams. Michal’s relationship with her son Guy was an especially close one. “From the moment he was born, they were bonded as one; they never left each other’s side.” The deep bond between Guy and Michal was highlighted in all the texts and eulogies written in their honor. Even at a young age, Guy, a young IDF officer, showed himself to be a sensitive, brave, and determined boy who knew how to respond to the many challenges his family faced. Their close relationship was built on a foundation of mutual respect and deep commitment to one another. For many years, he worked with children and adults with disabilities. He was a guide in the Amichai youth movement’s Hod Hasharon branch and also worked with children at a special needs center in Gan Liman in Kfar Saba.
Six days before she was murdered, Michal wrote on her Facebook page: “I love to follow my heart because my heart takes me to wonderful places.” Michal’s enormous heart continues to beat in spirit through the books she wrote, the people who loved her, and of course, the incredible connection she shared with her son Guy. In her life as in her death, Michal Admoni is a symbol of the power of hope and faith, and the ability to find light even in the darkest moments.
Read more at: Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project