A special note to readers: I will be going to Eretz Yisrael and plan to visit the families who last week suffered the lose of the pillars of their families – fathers and husbands who were also great rabbis – in a ghastly massacre perpetrated by Arab terrorists in a Har Nof synagogue.
I would like to take with me letters from Am Yisrael – letters of consolation that will convey to the families that we are one big mishpachah and we feel their pain. If you would like to send such a note, please e-mail it to me at [email protected].
Last week I wrote of the ruthless cruelty of Ishmael that will continue to wreak havoc in Israel and throughout the world. Alas, even before that issue of The Jewish Press hit the newsstands, precisely the kind of thing I wrote about fell upon a peaceful family neighborhood in Yerushalayim, a neighborhood that is home to many shuls and yeshivas, a neighborhood where righteous people awaken early to pray.
On the morning of Tuesday, November 18, beasts in human form invaded a morning prayer service and slaughtered four rabbis, wounded several other people in the synagogue, and killed a Druze police officer responding to the attack.
Such scenes of carnage have become all too common in recent years with the spread of violent Islamist fundamentalism. Each day brings news of beheadings and bombings in every part of the world where Muslim terror groups have established a presence. And all too many of us have learned to take it in stride, to react with a few words of condemnation before quickly moving on to other things.
Back in October 2000, two Israeli reserve soldiers lost their way near Ramallah and fell into the hands of a group of Arabs. They butchered the soldiers and threw their remains from a window to the frenzied mob waiting below. Even as they did so the killers proudly and happily held up their bloody hands in victory. The mob danced and stomped on the body parts until blood covered the streets. There were photographs in the papers as well as widespread shock and outrage. But the Second Intifada was breaking out in full force and as the incidents of savagery became everyday occurrences, the media lost interest and focused more on Israeli acts of retaliation than on the terrorist atrocities that sparked those retaliatory measures.
This one-sided approach to reporting the news continues to this day: Jews are the murderers and Arabs are the victims. And it’s not only the media but some of our own people as well who have moral blinders on. (I recently heard a Jewish professor tell an interviewer said that entire fault is Israel’s because Israelis have chosen to be occupiers.)
But the problem goes well beyond radical academics and biased journalists. Little Arab children are indoctrinated to hate Jews and cheer terrorist massacres like the one in Yerushalayim last week. The murder of Jews results in Arab celebrations. Candy is given out and songs are sung. The killers are not killers but martyrs to be glorified and idolized.
I have tremendous difficulty dealing with this. I remember the days of our deportation in Hungary. Nothing was sacrosanct. They invaded our synagogues and left blood everywhere. How could I ever forget that? Even so, I truly hoped it would be just a memory. That I would see it enacted again in my own lifetime is something I never anticipated. The tragedy of mankind is that nothing changes and evil is always with us.
What are we to do? Where are we to turn?