Siblings often play an essential role in our lives, offering built-in companionship from childhood through adulthood. But what happens when tragedy strikes, and the family as you knew it begins to unravel?
I sat with Jacob Ness at Mount Herzl, beside his younger brother Josh's grave, to hear his story. Jacob describes Josh as stubborn and caring, with a strong sense of justice and fairness that stayed with him throughout his life.
No warning signs
Looking back, Jacob cannot point to anything that foreshadowed Josh's death. He remembers the last family seder, in 2019, when they laughed and played games late into the evening. A few days later, Josh went to Haifa for a short visit. He took his life there at the age of 18. He had programmed his phone to send a message to his parents after it was too late.
For Jacob, one of the hardest parts is not knowing what Josh was struggling with, why Josh chose to keep it to himself. Mental struggles are not like physical ones; they rarely announce themselves, and that makes the grief harder to hold.
Growing up
Jacob remembers Josh as funny, stubborn, and caring, a brother who wanted things to be right. He had a deep sense of fairness and would get upset when something felt unjust. When Jacob was allowed to skip school, Josh could not understand it. He believed in doing things properly: going to class, studying, passing the tests.
The three brothers, Jacob, Josh, and their younger brother Jonah, wrestled, laughed, and fought like any siblings. Their relationship had its ups and downs, but care and connection ran underneath.
Jacob remembers a small ritual from their childhood. He and Josh would use their hands as puppets, giving each one a name, a personality, a voice. It was a simple, innocent thing. Later, Josh brought the idea to his friends, showing them how something small could turn into something fun.
As they grew older, Josh wanted more independence: his own space, his own room, his own life. When he became a counselor in Bnei Akiva, Jacob was curious to watch him in that role, but Josh made it clear this was his world, and he wanted to keep it his own.
He often tested boundaries, including the question of why Jacob could skip school while he was held to the rules. Eventually, frustrated with the school system, he moved back to the United States to finish his GED. Even then, Jacob says, he saw nothing that pointed to a deeper struggle.
At the time of his death, Josh was serving in the army. He had no known history of mental health difficulties, and his passing came as a shock. Only days before, the family had been together, laughing and talking. Then he went to Haifa for a short break, planning to meet someone, and did not come home.
Grief and loss
When Jacob's parents arrived in Haifa, they met the truth. There was nothing they could do.
The funeral brought family together, and it also exposed the emotional strain that comes with this kind of loss. Some relatives struggled to accept that Josh had taken his own life. It was a painful stretch of time, but Jacob stayed close to his parents through the worst of it.
The ripple effects
Jacob reflects on how October 7 deepened the weight of their grief. His mother felt isolated and unsure how to place her son's death inside the collective grief that followed the war. There was a quiet divide between families who had lost loved ones in battle and those whose losses had come differently.
Jacob has found strength in community. He talks about the value of simply showing up for others, through shared routines or something as ordinary as walking together to the grocery store. In those small moments of connection, he has found comfort and meaning, even as his family continues to live with a loss no one saw coming.