Speechless in the Face of Violence

Oct 13, 2015

Dear Friend of The Fellowship,

They were all just driving home – Eitam and Naama Henkin from a class reunion, Alexander Levlovitz from a Rosh Hashanah meal, Malachi Rosenfeld from a basketball game with friends, and Danny Gonen from a weekend hike. They were normal Israelis going about their day-to-day life, none of them aware that they would be among the latest victims in a long string of senseless killings at the hands of extremists.

Not one of these Israelis made it home that day. Four of Eitam and Naama’s six children, who were sitting in the back seat of their family car, eventually did – but only after watching their parents brutally gunned down before their very eyes. They returned to a home, and a reality, that was irrevocably changed.

This past weekend two more Israelis – 41-year-old Nehemia Lavi and 22-year-old Aharon Bennett – were murdered by extremists, stabbed to death as they were walking in Jerusalem’s Old City. Aharon’s wife, Adele, still had a knife lodged in her neck as she stumbled away from the scene of the attack, seeking help for her injured two-year-old son.

Thank God Adele eventually made it to some Israeli authorities and is now in a hospital recovering from her physical wounds. It will take longer, I can only imagine, to heal from interacting with people who behaved so inhumanely. That is a reality we may spend the rest of our own lives trying to fathom.

These are just a few of the most recent attacks by extremists. In the past few months Israelis have been stabbed, shot, and stoned simply for being Israeli, and Jewish, and a symbol of the “enemy” that extremists have been trained to hate.

While just yesterday, you, our friends in Canada, gave thanks for all that God has provided, please also ask Him to provide His divine protection and peace for His children in the Holy Land.

With prayers for shalom, peace,

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein
President and Founder, International Fellowship of Christians and Jews^® of Canada

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