Shaarei Shamayim

ZACHOR 5771

Itamar & Japan: Profiles in Heroism 

This was a heartbreaking week. The pictures from a devastated Japan continued to pour in of how on top of the rubble of the earthquake, 30 feet of water, in an unprecedented tsunami, brought unimaginable devastation. We pray for the souls of the victims and healing for the families.

How many of you know that there was an incredibly cruel terrorist attack in Israel last Shabbos? I only found out about it because I bumped into an Israeli friend on Sunday who told me about it. I looked in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution on Sunday and in  Wall Street Journal on Monday and found just a small paragraph with a headline like, “Settlers Attacked In Israel,” as if nothing unusual occurred. But this was one of the most brutal attacks ever and there was hardly even a whimper from the rest of the world—more about that in a minute.    

Apparently, the terrible catastrophe in Japan and the terrorist attack in Israel had given Iran the idea that while the world wasn’t paying attention, they could now send a boatload of weapons to Gaza to help wipe Israel into the sea. Fortunately, the Israeli navy was paying attention and intercepted the boat this past Wednesday demonstrating why Israel was wise to stop the flotilla of boats to Gaza last year.

Let me add a word about the press coverage of the terrorist attack. The Los Angeles Times had the obscene head line: “Settlements Provoke Baby Killing” as if it was the murdered victims fault. The Miami Herald reported on the massacre but in the accompanying picture chose to show a frightened Palestinian mother standing next to her children as the IDF searched for the killers. The message? Israeli soldiers bully defenseless Palestinians. And CNN’s website had the headline: “Israeli Family of 5 Killed in ‘Terror Attack’” with quotations around “Terror Attack.” Then, CNN went on to pretty much confirm that it does not consider the killing of Jewish settlers to be an act of terrorism.

Let me tell you what happened in that attack. Last Friday night, terrorists snuck into the Jewish community of Itamar, in the West Bank. There they broke into the home of Rabbi Udi and Ruthie Fogel. The terrorists savagely killed 35-year-old Udi as he slept in bed after Shabbos dinner. They then stabbed and cut the throat of his 4-month-old infant daughter, Hadas, lying next to him. His wife Ruthie was brutally murdered as she exited the bathroom. The murderers then entered another bedroom and viciously stabbed and slit the throats of Udi and Ruthie’s sons, one the tender age of 4, the other 11. Thankfully, the terrorists missed one door where 2 other Fogel children, were sleeping. The kids heard the ruckus and hid under their bed. The Fogel’s 12-year-old daughter soon came home from being out with friends and discovered her home soaked with blood and her family murdered. She then let out a scream of unimaginable pain and anguish that could be heard from one side of Itamar to the other.

Hamas praised the terrorists as heroes. They said the Fogels’ death was welcome and the beginning of the demise of the Jewish people. They gave out candy, baklava and other sweets in celebration on the streets of Gaza City, Nablus and Jenin. Children were savagely murdered and the Palestinians celebrate with dancing and eating chocolate! These are the same people who danced in the streets on 9/11 as 3000 Americans were brutally murdered. Is this our partner for peace? How can we negotiate with a people that cuts the throats of our babies and children? Golda Meir once remarked, “We will have peace with our neighbors when they learn to love their children as much as they hate ours.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas responded by condemning the attack and saying, “A human being is not capable of something like that.” Perhaps that’s just the point—Palestinians sometimes don’t behave like human beings. What prepares a Palestinian terrorist to slit the throats of Israeli children and kill their parents in cold blood? Part of the reason is a persistent indoctrination of hate from their leaders, media and especially their schools. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, speaking at the funeral of the Fogel family said: “As long as this murderous education goes on, as long as the incitement continues, any agreement we sign is not worth the paper it will be written upon, because it will be immediately violated by those who are the products of this education.”

Abbas took issue with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s accusation that the Palestinian Authority incites against Israel in its mosques and schools. But just hours after the Itamar massacre, Abbas met with young Palestinians taking part in a song competition glorifying suicide bombers. 2 months ago he awarded $2000 to the family of a terrorist who attacked IDF soldiers. Last week, the PA’s official daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida announced a football tournament named after Wafa Idris, the 1^st female Palestinian suicide bomber, and 3 weeks ago PA TV, broadcast videos glorifying the terrorist Habash Hanani, who in May 2002 entered Itamar—the site of last week’s massacre—and murdered 3 Israeli students. Literally, as Israel was burying the Fogel family, Fatah—the political party of Abbas—in a sick fest of death, celebrated the naming of a square in Al-Bireh, a town adjacent to Ramallah, after the “martyred” female terrorist Dalal Mughrabi who led a massacre in 1978, killing 38 Jews, including 13 children.

This is Shabbat Zachor, the Sabbath of Remembrance, when we are commanded to remember the savagery of the people of Amalek as they attacked the Jewish people from behind when they left Egypt. They attack for no reason—just because they were Jews. The Torah commands us, Timcheh et zeycher Amaleyk mitachat hashamayim; lo tishkach, “Eradicate the memory of Amalek from under the heavens; do not forget!”

We must not forget that evil lives in this world and that it’s our task to identify it and to wipe it out. Let me tell you about evil. Do you know what these terrorists did to 4-month-old Hadas Fogel as she lay in the bed with her father? You won’t believe this and I’m only telling you this because we need to understand this evil. They cut off her head!!

We cannot allow the world to ignore evil—as they have this week by either ignoring what happened as did all the major television news programs or by putting the story of the Itamar massacre on page 11 in a small paragraph or by blaming Israel, saying it was her fault!  

And we must fight evil by as well by celebrating life. I watched a UTube video of the shiva call Netanyahu paid to the Fogel family this week. The surviving daughter Tamar in tears asked him: Ma yikreh im taaseh mashehu, az America taaseh lecha mashehu? “What will happen if you do something, then America will do something to you?” In other words, this child has concluded that America would not permit her prime-minister to do what is needed to protect her or other children. Netanyahu’s response was: “They murder and we will build.” And so Netanyahu later announced the approval of over 400 new housing units in the West Bank. Yes, we will fight evil by celebrating life. “They murder and we will build.” These new housing units will allow the natural expansion of families in these communities ravaged by barbarism and savagery.

And we celebrate life in other ways. Tonight we will celebrate Purim. Purim is the story of ordinary people—like Mordecai and Esther—who became extraordinary in response to crisis and challenge. This week in Japan we have seen such heroism from the Japanese people as they quietly try to put their lives and country back together with unbelievable dignity. At the nuclear power plants, for example, people sacrificed their lives by going back in to try to fix things.

During shiva, 12-year-old Tamar Fogel said: “I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me and I will be a mother to my siblings.” Can you imagine how extraordinary the parents, Udi and Ruthy Fogel z”l, were to raise a child like this. Most 12-year-olds are busy with texting and IMing and facebook postings to their BFF. While our kids are doing that, this remarkable young woman is taking responsibility to act as a mother to her siblings. Tamar Fogel teaches us that heros come in all shapes, sizes and ages. May Hashem give her and us comfort strength. Amen!

                                    Rabbi Mark Hillel Kunis