23 Years After Losing His Family And His Sight, Oren Almog Finds Love

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — Twenty-three years after a suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant left him blind and claimed the lives of five members of his family, Oren Almog has found the love of his life.

Almog, now 33, married Israeli filmmaker and producer Rotem Alima, 38, just before Rosh Hashana. Their story began almost exactly a year ago, when Almog had just arrived in New York to pursue new business opportunities, according to a Yisrael Hayom interview.

A message posted in a WhatsApp group for members of the Israeli high-tech community caught his attention. It was a matchmaking message written by Alima, who lives and works in Los Angeles.

“If that message had been sent one day earlier, when I was still in Israel, I would never have answered it,” Almog recalled with a smile. “When I realized Rotem was from Los Angeles, I thought I had to make a big effort to win over someone from Hollywood. It took me two days to write her a carefully thought-out response.”

It worked. The two began talking on the phone, and their first conversation lasted six hours.

“From the very first phone call, I put everything on the table,” Almog said. “I told Rotem, ‘I don’t want to meet unless you look at my Instagram and understand that I’m blind and have scars.’ On our first date, I already told her, ‘You’re going to be my wife.’ I felt it more strongly than anything.”

Alima felt the same immediate connection. “There is something about Oren that is victorious, captivating and magnetic,” she said. “I know and believe with all my heart that within a few years he will be able to see again.”

Almog was just 10 years old when his childhood was shattered. On October 4, 2003, he went with his family to spend the day at Bat Galim beach in Haifa. They later went to the nearby Maxim restaurant. At 2:18 p.m., Palestinian suicide bomber Hanadi Jaradat entered the restaurant and detonated an explosive belt. Twenty-one people were killed and 58 wounded.

Almog suffered severe injuries, including extensive damage to his face and left hand. He spent a week under sedation and on a ventilator at Rambam Hospital. When he awoke, he was blind in both eyes. He then learned the full extent of the tragedy: his father, Moshik; his brother, Tomer; his grandparents; and his 10-year-old cousin, Assaf Steyer, had all been killed. His mother and younger sister were moderately wounded.

“I remember that after the explosion there were a few seconds of silence, and then screams and crying from every direction,” he recalled.

The explosion at Maxim restaurant, 2003

The young survivor eventually decided that the tragedy would not define the rest of his life. “I initially went through very difficult crises and didn’t know how I would get up from the devastation and loss,” he said. “But something in me refused to give up on life.”

He learned Braille and how to use screen-reading technology, returned to school and gradually became independent. Through the Etgarim organization, he took up sailing and eventually won a bronze medal at the World Blind Sailing Championships. In 2008, he was chosen to light a torch at Israel’s Independence Day ceremony.

Oren at the Blind Sailing Championships

He later volunteered for the IDF and successfully joined an intelligence team in a classified unit despite his disability. After his military service, Almog entered the business world, investing in startups and becoming a partner at Fox Capital Management, which manages billions of shekels. He also lectures internationally about resilience and has addressed the United Nations Security Council.

Alima, meanwhile, had built a successful career in the entertainment industry. Originally from Kadima in central Israel, she studied film at Tel Aviv University and later moved to Los Angeles, where she established a production company and worked on major television, technology and entertainment projects.

The two met in Los Angeles shortly after beginning their long-distance relationship. Almog flew there alone from New York only a week after they started talking. “It was one of the craziest, scariest and bravest things I’ve ever done,” he said. “I was flying to meet a woman and I had no idea what she looked like.”

Alima made her own effort to understand his world. She repeatedly walked around her Los Angeles home wearing a blindfold and even walked outside with her eyes closed, guided by her dog, to experience some of the challenges Almog faces.

At their first meeting, she reached for his hand and asked if she could hug him. “That was my way of telling him, ‘I see you’ — not the scars and not the blindness,” she said.

Their relationship quickly became serious. At one event in Los Angeles, actress Gal Gadot reportedly asked them, “Wait, aren’t you a couple?” The pair now joke that Wonder Woman was the first person to recognize their relationship.

The couple’s story also unfolded against the backdrop of October 7 and another devastating loss for Almog’s extended family. Shortly before the Hamas attack, his family gathered to mark 20 years since the Maxim bombing. Among those present was his second cousin, Yam Goldstein-Almog, who was later murdered with her father, Nadav, in Kibbutz Kfar Aza. Yaam’s mother and three siblings were abducted to Gaza and later released after 51 days.

“I suddenly found myself on the other side,” Almog said. “The one who worries with the family and feels the chaos, anxiety and loss. The one who comforts, hugs and answers difficult questions — how do you continue from here?”

Then came another extraordinary moment: the man responsible for planning the Maxim bombing was released as part of a hostage deal with Hamas. For Almog, the news was deeply painful. Yet he ultimately supported the deal.

“It was a huge shock at first,” he said. “But I managed to collect myself, put the pain aside, wipe away the tears and say that I support the deal. There is nothing greater in life than Israeli hostages being released from captivity and coming home.”

He later wrote about his position in an opinion article and received an unexpected late-night phone call from then-Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, who told him he had been impressed by the way Almog had dealt with such a complicated issue.

The couple is now preparing for their wedding in Israel, with another celebration planned in Los Angeles later this year. They expect to maintain a life between Israel and the United States for now, but hope to raise their future children in Israel.

For Almog, who has spent much of his life learning how to navigate a world he cannot see, the relationship has brought a different kind of vision. “I can’t see how beautiful she will be in her wedding dress,” he said. “But I will certainly feel it. I’ve done my research, gathered my intelligence, and I have a picture in my head of the woman who is the love of my life.”

Alima describes the relationship in similarly simple terms. “Our world has become so much better since we met,” she said. “We learned how to live together, how to manage, and how to be there for each other.”

And after everything Almog has endured, the next chapter is one he never could have predicted: a wedding, a new family and a future built not around what he lost, but around what he found.