Hundreds of mourners gathered at the cemetery in Kfar Etzion on Sunday to pay their final respects to Maia (20) and Rina (15) Dee, who were murdered by a Palestinian Authority terrorist on Friday near the Hamra junction in the Jordan Valley.
The funeral of the two sisters took place Sunday afternoon in Gush Etzion at the cemetery in Kfar Etzion. May their blood be avenged, and may their memories be a blessing.
The two sisters were riding in a car with their mother Leah (Lucy, 48) this past Friday when a Palestinian Authority terrorist opened fire at their vehicle near the Hamra junction near the moshav of the same name, in the Jordan Valley.
Leah was critically injured and is now fighting for her life in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center. Her husband, Rabbi Leo Dee, was riding in a separate car ahead of her own, and turned back immediately upon hearing the gunshots. The rabbi was present when paramedics were forced to declare the deaths of his two daughters and evacuated his wife to the hospital.
The gunman remains at large.
Prior to the funeral those who live in Efrat lined up outside the home of the family with flags to honor the two girls. The family, which made Aliyah to Israel from Britain, lives in the Gush Etzion town of Efrat.
The girls’ sisters and friends wept throughout the proceedings and following the burial as they said their final farewells at graveside.
Rabbi Dee described his older daughter Maia as an industrious and friendly young woman in her second year of national service.
“My beautiful perfect Maia, we named you ‘God’s water’ and you were a friend to so many, flowing between so many different groups,” her father said in his eulogy.
“You were always an angel. Now you will always be our guardian angel.”
About his daughter Rina, the rabbi said she would “tidy the youth club for hours, by yourself. People loved you and knew they could depend on you,” he said.
The rabbi added that much like the Biblical Matriarch Sarah, who is buried alongside her husband Avraham at the Cave of the Patriarchs – “the Cave of Doubles,” he said – Maia was to be buried alongside her younger sister Rina who dreamed of “traveling the world – but now you’re traveling to heaven.”
Maia and Rina, he said, “you are two flames who have not gone out. You will bring more light to the world. You have inspired and loved us; in return we will love you forever.”
The rabbi also described his agony over how to tell his wife about them when she “wakes up.”
The sisters’ mother Leah (Lucy, 48) remains in critical condition, sedated and intubated.
It was announced at graveside that the seven-day mourning period, the shiva, will begin after the end of the Passover holiday. A short period of nichum aveilim – comforting the mourners – took place outside the graveyard as the hundreds of Israelis who came to say their last goodbyes lined up to comfort the living.
