Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Terrorism

Showing posts with label Terrorism. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Has the Biden administration decided that Islamist terror is no longer a domestic threat?

On June 15, 2021, the Biden administration released the first U.S. National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

It was created as a response to the January 6 events in Washington, and it is mostly concerned with the threats of white supremacist terrorists, with a smattering of other potential ideologies:

According to this assessment, one key aspect of today’s domestic terrorism threat emerges from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists and networks whose racial, ethnic, or religious hatred leads them toward violence, as well as those whom they encourage to take violent action. These actors have different motivations, but many focus their violence towards the same segment or segments of the American community, whether persons of color, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, other religious minorities, women and girls, LGBTQI+ individuals, or others. Their insistence on violence can, at times, be explicit. It also can, at times, be less explicit, lurking in ideologies rooted in a perception of the superiority of the white race that call for violence in furtherance of perverse and abhorrent notions of racial “purity” or “cleansing.”

Another key component of the threat comes from anti–government or anti–authority violent extremists. This significant component of today’s threat includes self–proclaimed “militias” and militia violent extremists who take steps to violently resist government authority or facilitate the overthrow of the U.S. Government based on perceived overreach; anarchist violent extremists, who violently oppose all forms of capitalism, corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which they perceive as harmful to society; sovereign citizen violent extremists, who believe they are immune from government authority and laws; or any other National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism 9 individual or group who engages in violence – or incites imminent violence – in opposition to legislative, regulatory, or other actions taken by the government. Other domestic terrorists may be motivated to violence by single–issue ideologies related to abortion–, animal rights–, environmental–, or involuntary celibate–violent extremism, as well as other grievances – or a combination of ideological influences. In some cases, individuals may develop their own idiosyncratic justifications for violence that defy ready categorization.

Nowhere in this document does it discuss any threat from Islamic terrorists.

It doesn't even mention 9/11 once.

This is frightening. Federal authorities have foiled many attacks from Muslim extremists over the past two decades, both against Jewish targets and against governmental targets.

The majority of unsuccessful terrorist attacks foiled by the FBI and others in this Wikipedia page were motivated by Islamist ideology. And there have been hundreds of Islamist terror attacks worldwide in recent years.

It is mind boggling that given the history of Islamist terror attack attempts over the past two decades, the White House implictly declares that this is no longer a problem that deserves strategic thinking - and possibly resources.

Many lives have been saved by US intelligence services and police monitoring for domestic Islamist terrorists. No one can doubt that the desire from both ISIS-style groups and Iranian-aligned terror groups to kill Americans and specifically Jewish targets has not abated.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that this national strategy is partially motivated by political factors. American lives, and American Jewish lives, should not be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness - but this appears to be exactly what is in danger of happening.

(h/t JM Phelps)

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Of Angel Moms and Boys who are Murdered because they are Jews: Interview with Rivkah Moriah (Judean Rose)

Avraham David Moses was murdered on the eve of what is considered to be the happiest month in the Jewish calendar, Rosh Chodesh Adar. In the secular calendar, it was March 6, 2008, and Rivkah Moriah and her former husband David were preparing for a class to be given that evening by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Yeshivat Har Etzion. As the couple gathered source materials for the lecture, Rivkah received the first text message: “Attack in Mercaz HaRav, three moderately injured.”

We are used to these moments, here in Israel. Most of the time, our loved ones were nowhere near the scene of the attack, had left there hours before, or had just left and were only a block away and could hear the explosion and see the smoke. So we have learned not to get too excited when we hear of an attack on the news. We have learned to stay calm, to phone loved ones, and touch base.

That’s what happens most of the time. But that was not what happened to Rivkah Moriah and her son Avraham David. There was an attack, she tried to reach both Avraham David and his study partner, and all of her calls went unanswered.

Her calls went unanswered because her 16-year-old son and firstborn was murdered while studying Torah in a seminary study hall. Along with his study partner, Segev.

***

When I heard, I thought about running into Rivkah at the grocery store, just three years earlier. Her cart had been filled with ingredients to make lasagna for a crowd. She was preparing for Avraham David’s bar mitzvah. You could see how happy she was, it was in her eyes. He was her firstborn.

Rivkah and a very young Avraham David, her firstborn

And now, three years later, Rivkah was preparing to see her son buried, a good boy, a studious boy. A boy who was murdered while learning Torah.

How could a mother bear it? The short answer is no one could.

It is now 14 years since Rivkah Moriah became an “angel mom.” That’s a long time, almost as long as her Avraham David’s short life. And still, from my lucky distance, I can see the lasting impact, the sadness and the pain.

Blood-stained holy book at the scene of the Mercaz HaRav Massacre

Since it is Adar I have been thinking about this. I always think about Rivkah Moriah and her son Avraham David Moses in Adar. Adar is the happiest month of the Jewish year. It's the month of Purim, the month I got married, but it is also the month Avraham David Moses was murdered and his mother’s life changed forever.

I don’t want to forget that. I don’t think any of us should. We need to remember a boy who was murdered because he was a Jew, and the suffering of the family he left behind.

Avraham David with his little brothers, Noam and Chai.

No special wisdom is necessary to notice that parents don’t simply “bounce back” after their children are murdered by terrorists, lo aleinu[1]. That much we can see with our eyes. We wish we could help them, but there is not all that much we can do. They are in it, and we are not.

And still, there are two things we can do:

1. We can listen when grieving parents have something to say, and respect the enormity of their experience.

2. We can offer them opportunities to speak about their children and say their names, so we’ll remember them, too.

It was with these two thoughts in mind that I asked Rivkah if she would consent to an interview to explore her feelings and to talk about her son, Avraham David, HY”D.[2]

She gracefully agreed.

Varda Epstein: Can you describe for those unfamiliar with the Mercaz HaRav Massacre what happened that day?

Rivkah Moriah, today.

Rivkah Moriah: Avraham David was in tenth grade at the Yeshiva laTzeirim (Yashlatz), the yeshiva high school that is adjacent to and shares a campus with Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav. It was Thursday night and the first night of Rosh Chodesh Adar[3] and seder erev[4] had been early, so that the boys could set up the beit midrash[5] for singing and dancing to celebrate. Yashlatz celebrates every Rosh Chodesh, but the celebration of Rosh Chodesh Adar was known to be particularly festive. Groups of boys from other high schools were gathering to come join them.

While some boys were setting up the beit midrash, and others were involved with organizing refreshments, some of the most studious boys went over to the library at Mercaz HaRav to continue their learning.

It was a very warm evening, the first warm evening of the spring, and there were also groups of people in the yeshiva courtyard, enjoying the weather and unwinding after a long week in the study hall.

The attacker was seen carrying a large box into the courtyard from outside the compound. This box contained a Kalashnikov, approximately 900 rounds of ammunition, and two pistols. He opened fire in the courtyard, then entered the stairwell, where he shot a young man on his way to study. The attacker then went back out to the courtyard and entered the library, where he methodically shot those who were trapped and unable to escape.

The attacker was neutralized by an adult yeshiva student, Yitzchak Dadon, and an officer from the IDF who was at home on leave in the neighborhood, David Shapiro. It was all over in fifteen minutes, but not before eight boys and young men were murdered, several more were critically injured, and more were moderately injured while escaping. And those are just the physical injuries.

Five of those killed were high school students. The names of those who were killed are:

Neria Cohen 15

Segev Peniel Avichail 15

Yonatan Eldar 16

Avraham David Moses 16

Yochai Lifshitz 18

Yonadav Hirshfeld 18

Ro’ee Aharon Rot 18

Doron Maharate 26

Varda Epstein: What was it like in the early days, after the shiva was over? What was it like waking up in the morning and just getting through the days? How long was it before you found a way forward?

Rivkah Moriah: There was heavy shock. I only understood how much afterwards. It’s like when you’re traveling in heavy fog, and you can see what's right in front of you, but nothing else. I didn’t even see how much I couldn’t see. I was lucky to have a friend who used the phrase Person Bearing Great Sadness, and she helped me understand that what I most needed help with was getting the children out in the mornings. She came by every single morning till the end of the school year and then for another school year. At first she brought the sandwiches, and then she helped while I got the kids ready and made sandwiches.

At first, if each of my kids got to their educational framework for any part of a day, it was a good day. There were sandwiches for school, and a lot of cereal for supper. For a year, what I could manage for supper was what my friends brought or cereal. My success was that, during that time, we never ran out of cereal or milk. After a while, I’m not sure when, I started cooking pasta or ready-formed hamburger patties.

September 2010 – two and a half years later – I started opening envelopes again. The bills and everything else that was urgent had been taken care of by David, and a lot of other things just got put in a pile that was 2 1/2 years deep. Because mail is dated, it was the clear and obvious measure of when I came out of the fog.

Varda Epstein: What about the family? How did the terror attack—the sudden, violent murder of your son—affect his siblings?

The death of a sibling is highly traumatic. Not only did my kids and step kids lose a brother, but their own vulnerability was also heightened. I like to say that, when an individual family member has a crisis, ideally the rest of the family would come together to support them. When there is a family crisis, every single one of the family members’ functioning is compromised. Some of what was hard for my kids was that Mom was having such a hard time.

Varda Epstein: What are the lingering effects of a terror attack and brutal loss of a son and sibling? Do any of you suffer PTSD? Is there something that helps to mitigate the symptoms?

Rivkah Moriah: A shattering loss like this has pervasive influence. While PTSD has a formal definition that requires an official diagnosis, I can definitely say that there was trauma, and there is post-traumatic stress. There is also something called Traumatic Bereavement.

I have been lucky to have found a gifted therapist at the One Family Foundation. My children’s trauma has also been mitigated by the wonderful children’s programs and summer camps of the One Family Foundation and the Koby Mandell Foundation.

While, after fourteen years, there are many ways that we have adjusted to losing Avraham David, it is still, in some ways, an unfolding story.

I appreciate that the discussion of trauma is becoming acceptable in Israeli society. While some people are graced with post-traumatic growth, this is certainly not a given.

A trauma like surviving a school shooting can be unintentionally dwarfed by death or the grief of first-degree relatives. This concerns me. The students who were there and lived through it, and even those who weren't on campus but whose school was breeched and whose friends were murdered participated in comforting the families at the shiva and have continued to have done so at memorials over the years. They no doubt had and still have their own issues to deal with.

I hope that the shift towards increasing resources for those who have experienced trauma continues. It would be appropriate if we develop a better understanding of the grief and trauma of people in this position, so that they can be better supported, and not just be in a position where they are expected to give support.

Varda Epstein: Why do you think Avraham David was murdered while he was learning Torah? What is the significance of that for his legacy? What does it feel like to be the mother of a son who died Al Kidush Hashem[6]?

Rivkah Moriah: We may not realize it, but we need people who die Al Kiddush Hashem to strengthen our faith, for our faith is a kind of security. As he died his martyr’s death, Rabbi Akiva lengthened the recitation of G-d's unity in the Shema[7]. Rebbe Tarfon spoke of letters he saw flying in the air.

Many stories have been told about Avraham David and the other seven boys and young men who were killed in the massacre, and I think it’s right to honor their memories and grow in our faith with the retelling.

According to tradition, it is considered a privilege to die Al Kiddush Hashem. I think there are very profound and holy reasons for this idea, and it has really helped me.

Nevertheless, as Avraham David’s mother, and because of who I am, I also think of the rakes that tore Rabbi Akiva’s flesh, the fire and smoke that engulfed Rebbe Tarfon, and the fear and pain with which Avraham David died.

Blood-stained prayer shawls at the scene of the Mercaz HaRav Massacre

Varda Epstein: How have you tried to keep the memory of Avraham David alive for your family and for the world? Are you in touch with his fellow students or teachers? How does the yeshiva memorialize the attack?

Rivkah Moriah: Avraham David is very much part of our world. The nature of his presence and memory has changed over the years. For a while, I had to protect some of the younger kids from hearing about it too much.

There are kids in the family who don’t have memories of Avraham David. This needs to be navigated in a way that honors what has been hard and painful in their lives and helps them know the story that is their own story, without overwriting it with one’s own story.

Yashlatz has memorials that are suited to their students, which are very comforting to me having lost someone of high school age.

Mercaz has memorials that are appropriate to their own students.

With very few exceptions, Rav Yerachmiel Weiss, the Rosh Yeshiva[8] of Yashlatz at the time of the attack, has called every single erev shabbat and chag[9] for fourteen years. There are a few classmates who have maintained a close friendship with us, and many who participate in memorials. These connections are tremendously meaningful for me.

Grave of Avraham David Moses, HY"D. Murdered at age 16.

Varda Epstein: Talk to us about the contradiction of murder on the eve of the happiest month of the year, Adar. How do you handle that? Do you work on finding joy at that time, or is that just too difficult? How does the yeshiva handle a memorial like that on Rosh Chodesh Adar in a way that also honors the significance of that month, and the emotions we are intended to feel?

Rivkah Moriah: I’m letting this one simmer for me. I grapple with this every year, and I grapple with it in a more general way in an ongoing way. I’m beginning to accept that maybe the injunction is different for me.

A person who mustn’t eat gluten is exempt from the specific mitzva[10] of lechem mishneh[11] on Shabbat. Rosh Chodesh Adar is the very saddest day of the year for me, so there is a bit of a disjunct for me at this season. I am lucky to daven[12] in a minyan[13] that does not to sing Mishemishe[14] … when bentching Adar[15], purely for my sake. This kindness, and the kindness of others at this season, is my nechamah[16], which is akin to simchah[17].

Varda Epstein: What do you think Avraham David would be doing today, had he lived to fulfill his potential?

Avraham David Moses, HY"D

Rivkah Moriah: If he had continued on the path he had begun, he would have become a scholar. I have been told that his depth and breadth of scholarship was extraordinary for a teenager. This was one of the great losses to the Nation[18]. Avraham David wanted to marry young, and he had put great effort into refining his character. I would have loved to have seen him as a husband and as a father.

Varda Epstein: What can we, the Jewish people, learn from Avraham David Moses, HY”D? What can we learn from what happened to him?

Rivkah Moriah: Avraham David was very intensely Avraham David. While we can perhaps be inspired by him to pray or learn or perform mitzvot[19] with more intention, I think he can best inspire us to be more authentically who we ourselves are.

While I think many things could be learned from Avraham David’s death, and how he died, something I have learned is so subtle yet profound that I have to keep learning it over and over. This piece opens with why you want to write it. About the enormity of my loss. About opportunities to say Avraham David’s name. And that in a very real way, it is also your loss.

It is in this meeting-place, much more than a specific thing one could say, that nechama takes place.

***
Note to the reader: This was a difficult interview to conduct. I found myself afraid to ask the questions I wanted to ask. Afraid to pry. Afraid to cause further pain and hurt.

Perhaps it's because I know Rivkah personally, or perhaps because this time, the someone who lost someone is a mother, and the son she lost, died al Kiddush Hashem. For whatever reason, throughout the process of creating this interview, I felt like I was stepping into some kind of sacred realm and I wasn't sure I had the right to be there.

It is not an honor to have a child murdered. But Avraham David died al Kiddush Hashem. It says something about Rivkah, that she had a child who was holy beyond anyone I have known.

And it is an unspeakable crime that Avraham David is lost to her until the final redemption.

[1] Prayerful phrase that roughly means: “May it not happen to us.”

[2] Abbreviation for “Hashem Yinkom Damo.” When we speak of the dead, we normally say Olav/Aleha hashalom” May s/he rest in peace. But for martyrs, we say “May God avenge his blood.”

[3] beginning of the lunar month of Adar

[4] evening learning session

[5] study hall

[6] A death that sanctifies God’s name, for instance a boy murdered while studying God’s holy Torah, as is the case with Avraham David.

[7] The prayer that affirms belief in one God. The prayer is recited three times daily and also when someone is dying.

[8] Yeshiva head, a principal who is also a rabbi.

[9] Erev Shabbat and Chag (Sabbath and holiday eve, in this case, the approach of these holidays, before they actually begin.)

[10] Commandment

[11] We put out two loaves of bread to commemorate the double portion of manna we received in the dessert on the Sabbath.

[12] Pray (Yiddish)

[13] Quorum for prayer, congregation

[14] Traditional song for month of Adar. The Hebrew lyrics of the song mean: “Who that ushers in the month of Adar, increases joy.”

[15] Praying in the month of Adar

[16] Comfort

[17] Happiness

[18] The Jewish people.

[19] Commandments, plural of mitzvah.

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Fatah, which supports violence in its platform, threatens Israel again, as Palestinians celebrate terrorists

Mahmoud Abbas held a meeting of his Fatah Central Committee yesterday.

Its main accomplishment, if you can call it that, was a pledge to hold the Eighth Fatah Conference in March of 2022.

Abbas railed against Israel, as usual. And he issued threats, which the Western media will ignore.

He said, "We will not remain silent forever in the face of the intransigence of the Israeli occupation and its refusal to abide by signed agreements. All options will remain open to the Palestinian people and their leadership to preserve the Palestinian rights and principles that we will never accept to be compromised."

What options might he be talking about? For that, we just have to look at the Fatah Platform from the Sixth Fatah Conference of 2009, confirmed in the Seventh Conference in 2016.

In that platform, it says, "The Palestinian people’s right to practice armed resistance against the military occupation of their land remains a constant right confirmed by international law and international legality."

It is worth mentioning that Palestinians even admit that Palestinian culture is one of admiring violence and terror. Only last week, there was the opening of the "Bethlehem: Capital of Arab Culture 2020-2021 week." Here is one of the examples of Palestinian culture:

Palestinian Media Watch tracked down the pictures of the people portrayed on the walls, and calculated that they were responsible for the murder of 184 Israelis. The heroes included the organizers of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre as well as numerous suicide bombings.

Terrorism is Palestinian culture.

At the end of Abbas' address, he thanked the head of the PA Civil Affairs Authority, which led to obtaining approvals for 4000 Palestinians to receive identification papers and passports. Those approvals were given by Israel, not by any Palestinian institution.

If Abbas would thank Israel for the things it has been doing to make life easier for Palestinians (like approving 4G Internet), perhaps that would be more effective than the threats and embracing terror that have led nowhere for decades.

Hamas brags of killing Jewish children 20 years ago at the Sbarro pizza shop

The Al Qassam Brigades of Hamas loves to celebrate anniversaries of major terror attacks. The infamous Sbarro massacre, which happened on August 9, 2001, is no exception. Today is the Hebrew date anniversary of that attack.

It proves the utter depravity of not only Hamas but of all the Palestinians who celebrated at the time.

The ghoulish article exaggerates the death toll in order to make it sound even more "successful" than it was, claiming that 19 were killed. The facts are horrific enough - 15 murdered, including 7 children and a pregnant woman.

The Arabic text is revolting:

It caused an unprecedented state of terror and chaos among the Jews.
-....The operation is commensurate with the ability of the battalions to plan, develop and reach the depth of the enemy and in the most secure places, which astonished the enemy and made loved ones and family rejoice (and heal the hearts of a believing people).
...The mujahadeen chose the prime time for lunch at the restaurant.

Hamas freely admits that it targets Jews - not Israelis, not Zionists, but Jews.

In a separate article celebrating the "martyrdom" of the suicide bomber, Hamas describes the happiness of the Palestinians who heard about the attack. "Jenin received the news with demonstrations and rallies that came out to bless this qualitative process that gladdened the hearts of a believing people."

Interestingly, the article did not mention Ahlam Tamimi, the 20-year old monster who chose that restaurant as the target and who accompanied the suicide bomber while disguised as a Jewish woman.

Her description of going on an Arab bus as she escaped the scene is perverted and sickening:

Afterwards, when I took the bus, the Palestinians around Damascus Gate [in Jerusalem] were all smiling. You could sense that everybody was happy. When I got on the bus, nobody knew that it was me who had led [the suicide bomber to the target]... I was feeling quite strange, because I had left [the bomber] 'Izz Al-Din behind, but inside the bus, they were all congratulating one another. They didn't even know one another, yet they were exchanging greetings...While I was sitting on the bus, the driver turned on the radio. But first, let me tell you about the gradual rise in the number of casualties. While I was on the bus and everybody was congratulating one another....I admit that I was a bit disappointed, because I had hoped for a larger toll. Yet when they said "three dead," I said: 'Allah be praised'...Two minutes later, they said on the radio that the number had increased to five. I wanted to hide my smile, but I just couldn't. Allah be praised, it was great. As the number of dead kept increasing, the passengers were applauding.

We saw Palestinians celebrate murdered Jews only this past May. This isn't a one time thing - consistently, a vast majority of Palestinians have shown support for specific terror attacks after the fact, including, infamously, the 9/11 attacks that occurred only a month after Sbarro.

Here is a celebration after the 2014 attack at the Har Nof synagogue, killing four rabbis.

Ahlam Tamimi is still living a free, celebrity life in Jordan - not in spite of her murderous role but because of it. The parents of child victim Malki Roth, who are marking Malki's yahrzeit today, have been waging a heroic and lonely battle to convince the United States to extradite Tamimi, but even though King Abdullah visited Washington last week, nothing seems to have been done.

As gruesome as Hamas proves itself to be every single day, the international human rights community and As-A-Jew haters expend huge amounts of time and effort to try to prove that Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world while excusing the actions and words of Hamas terrorists.

Book Review: Reaching for Comfort by Sherri Mandell (Judean Rose)

Reaching for Comfort: What I Saw, What I Learned, & How I Blew it Training as a Pastoral Counselor, is the third of three books by Sherri Mandell on dealing with the loss of her son Koby Mandell, to terror. But know that Mandell is a writer by profession, and not by circumstance. She writes because that’s her gift: it’s what she does. The fact that she can not only write but has a heartbreaking story to tell, makes it all the more poignant to read her story, and hear her “voice.”

It’s difficult—even gut-wrenching—to read these works, but some would say, necessary. This is a human rights issue. Jews, like all other people, should have the right to live productive lives in peace, in particular in their indigenous territory. Jewish children, like all other children, should have the right to grow up unmolested by terror, no matter where they live.

In this new book, in which Mandell speaks of her experiences training as a pastoral counselor, we hear the voice of a mother who longs for comfort, who is seeking something to give her relief or at least a small respite from the feelings she goes to bed with at night, and wakes up to every morning. It is obvious to all who witness this sort of pain, even from the outside looking in: the pain of losing a child to terror never, ever leaves you. This book helps us see what this might be like, God forbid, even if only to the smallest degree (may we never need to understand it fully).

Mandell takes us along as she begins to visit hospitalized patients as part of her training. This takes place at a time when pastoral counseling is new to the scene of Israeli patient care. Many of the patients fail to understand the purpose of her visits and are reluctant to avail themselves of what she attempts to offer them. One understands that Mandell thought she'd be good at pastoral counseling by dint of her experiences as the mother of a terror victim. Her efforts at comforting patients and their families, on the other hand, tend not to have the desired effect.

Interspersed with Mandell's visits to patients (whom she describes as "fictional composites, drawn broadly from real stories") are her training sessions and meetings with Michael, her mentor and co-teacher of the pastoral counseling course. Michael leads the group through prayers and exercises, during which Mandell always seems to fall short in comparison with her classmates. Mandell's self-described inadequacies as a pastoral counselor are as puzzling to the reader as they are to Mandell. Her descriptions of her visits to patients, meanwhile, are compelling, and we know something they do not: that she is Sherri Mandell, mother of Koby Mandell, who was murdered in a brutal attack when he was only 13.

An Added Dimension

For this writer, there is an added dimension to this story of an effort to comfort others in the midst of grief. Having lived in Gush Etzion for a long time, through both intifadas, I remember when Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran were murdered. There was a media blackout at first, but we understood that children had been murdered in Tekoa, a settlement in our area. And of course, the Gush was a much smaller community in those days than it is now, and everyone knew everyone in the Gush.

We wanted to know what had happened, so we began making calls to people we knew in Tekoa. We wanted to be there for the parents, to mourn alongside them. We wanted to learn from what happened in order to understand what measures we needed to take in our attempts to protect our own children going forward. It took only two phone calls to learn the identity of the two boys who had been murdered, and the terrible details of the attack. It was, in fact, a child who told me—the child of a friend—what had happened and to whom.

It was Sherri and Seth Mandell’s story. It was Koby’s story, and it was Yosef’s story. And yet, in a sense, it was everyone’s story, in that it affected us all, as residents of the Gush, as Jews. The knowledge of what happened turned me into a hyper-vigilant mother. I told the daycare workers that under no circumstances were they allowed to let my children walk home alone, though it was a very short walk from the daycare center to our caravan. And yet, years later, reading Sherri Mandell’s books, you realize it’s not your story, but her story, and hers alone to tell.

Our responsibility, it seems, is to read every word of her elegant prose.

Koby Mandell (H"YD) with his parents Seth and Sherri, at his bar mitzvah, the last birthday he lived to see.

I spoke with Sherri to learn more about her new book:

Varda Epstein: Your first book, “The Blessings of a Broken Heart,” was the story of what happened to your son and the blessings you recognized in the face of tragedy. Your second book, “The Road to Resilience: From Chaos to Celebration” was about how to find a way forward after tragedy. This third book you’ve “birthed” is more difficult to define. How would you summarize “Reaching for Comfort?”

Sherri Mandell: “Reaching for Comfort” is the story of a year training to be a pastoral counselor, being taught how to be present in the face of suffering.

Varda Epstein: When did you first hear about the pastoral counseling course? What did you imagine you would get out of your training?

Sherri Mandell: A friend told me about the course. I thought that I would learn to be comfortable with prayer and become a more serene, centered person. I thought that I would also confront death and illness and see how people coped. I think my main goal was to find a lamed vavnik [one of the 36 righteous people in every generation who wander among us in secret. V.E.] who would tell me the secret of suffering. Of course, I also wanted to be able to have the therapeutic skills to lead the foundation where we worked with so many bereaved children and families.

Varda Epstein: Your book is about pastoral counseling for those with serious or terminal illness and their families. You’ve lost family in the natural way, to age and illness, and you’ve lost a child to terror. How are these experiences different and how are they the same?

Sherri Mandell: Loss is a common denominator for all people, because everybody dies. But there is a difference when somebody is murdered by terrorists, because the family is left with a need to seek justice. Also trauma leaves scars that the loss of a parent in old age does not.

Koby at his bar mitzvah with his father, Rabbi Seth Mandell

Varda Epstein: What would you like people to understand about what it is like to lose a child to terror?

Sherri Mandell: That the pain never goes away.

Varda Epstein: In “Reaching for Comfort” you offer a vivid description of your grief as a sort of underworld: “Even though you have the ability to exit the underworld, you are not sure you want to. In fact, you no longer no which world you belong in or which world you prefer. The ordinary world is no longer hospitable in some ways: it’s too light, too trivial. The underworld has the gravity, the shock, the darkness, the weight of being you crave.”

Do you think your children feel the same way? Have you tried to keep them out of this “underworld?” Tried to give them normalcy? How do you find the balance between giving them a normal childhood, and letting them grieve?

Sherri Mandell: I think that all children who experience tragedy touch the underworld and are changed by the experience.

Koby, laughing with his younger siblings, long before the brutal murder that robbed them of their big brother.

Varda Epstein: Arnold Roth, father of Malki Roth, murdered in the Sbarro massacre, related that people crossed the street to avoid him and his wife after the tragedy. Did you experience anything like this? Do you sometimes feel like you’re wearing a sign?

Sherri Mandell: No, I did not feel that at all. I think because I live in a Yishuv [settlement, V.E.], everybody was involved and everybody cared. I had a feeling of being cocooned by my neighbors and also supported.

Varda Epstein: The website for Koby Mandell Foundation speaks of healing and rebuilding. Is it really possible to heal and rebuild after losing a family member to a terror attack? How would you define healing and rebuilding in this context?

Sherri Mandell: One must rebuild after a tragedy. I realized that when you undergo a tragedy it’s like your vessel is broken. The way you looked at the world, the way you thought, the things you did. They’re no longer sufficient to keep you afloat. You need to build a new vessel somehow, you need to recreate yourself in the light of what you have suffered.

Like most boys born in the U.S., Koby loved baseball.

Varda Epstein: Pastoral counseling may not have been the right path for you, but what is the right path for us to take in order to comfort the family members of terror victims? Is there anything we can say or do that can help?

Sherri Mandell: Pastoral counseling was the right path for me at the time. I think that anytime anyone remembers Koby, it is a good feeling. I think that others can try to be there at important times like the azkara [annual memorial service, V.E.], for example. Or just leave a message that you’re thinking about the person and you remember and you care. The best is when somebody does something to memorialize Koby.

Varda Epstein: What will you write about next?

Sherri Mandell: Good question. I’m working on a novel!

***

Sherri Mandell won the 2004 National Jewish Book Award for The Blessings of a Broken Heart. Her newest book, Reaching for Comfort, is available at the Ben Yehuda Press and on Amazon.

11 in Pittsburgh and the Baby from Ofra (Judean Rose)

The Arab gunman raised his gun to the car window as the vehicle neared the bus stop and taking aim, shot that pregnant Jewess in the stomach first. “Good,” he thought, spraying the woman’s young husband, a couple of teenage girls, and then anyone else in range.

Targeting the Jewish woman was smart, aiming at her abdomen, even smarter. He’d killed two birds with one stone, or so he hoped. There was a good chance he’d hit a major organ, and hopefully, the baby in his Jew-Mama’s womb. Why let that baby Jew live when you can squash it like the cockroach it is, before it gets born to spurn the word of Allah and get in the way of building the Khalifa, the worldwide Muslim caliphate?

Robert Bowers raised his gun to spray the elderly Jewish woman first, then anyone else in shooting distance. A Jew is a Jew is a kike, and it doesn’t matter if that Jew is old or infirm. That’s all a mirage to make you have mercy on them, when what they are is no less than a “kike infestation.” No mercy, no how. These Jews can’t be allowed to continue flooding our country with immigrants who steal our jobs, steal our resources.

Killing that old woman was smart, a test of his bravery. He was no wuss. He was leading the way for others, no matter what would happen now when he got caught.

Killing that old woman was genius.

***

Two terror attacks. Two men. One Arab. One not.

Do we know the thoughts in their minds?

Can we state unequivocally that both attacks were antisemitic by nature?

Do we know that the Arab terrorist who shot Shira Ish Ran in her pregnant stomach (and killed her child) thought “Jew” and not “Zionist,” “Jew” and not “Occupier,” “Jew” and not “settler?”

Media pundits would claim there is a distinction. That you can be against Zionism without being against Jews. That you can be against occupation and not Jews. That you can hate the settlers, without hating all Jews.

But we know the truth, because of statements made by Arab leaders (government, military, and religious) on official PA TV. These endless antisemitic statements set a precedent which no measure of etymological chicanery can obscure. Listen, for instance, to Palestinian National Council member Najib Al-Qaddumi, who had this to say on the official PA TV program Palestine This Morning, regarding the Balfour Declaration:

“There is no choice but to return to the background behind the publication of this promise by then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour. We will return to the situation of the Jews in Europe and Russia, when they lived in a closed society and knew only to make money, trade, weave plots, corruption, and such. Even the European nations and Russia were sick of them and longed for when they would leave their country."

Or listen to the words of Masoud Rayyaan, lecturer on Islamic Shari'a at Al-Quds Open University, in this Friday sermon broadcast on official PA TV:

(Quran) “’Proceed throughout the earth and observe how was the end of those who denied’ ... The occupation government hasn't learned from history, from the corruption of the Children of Israel the first and second time.

“It hasn't learned. They [The Jews] didn’t learn from what Nebuchadnezzar did to them.

“They didn’t learn from what Titus, the great Roman leader, did to them.

“They didn't learn from what Hitler did to them, and the kings of Europe, and Spain – they didn't learn. They have continued to behave the same way: The mentality of arrogance toward other people. The mentality of superiority over other people. The mentality of seclusion, the mentality of settlement. This mentality, an ideology of planning and systematically working to incite wars and strife in the entire world. Those [Jews] have not learned from the events of history."

Hear the words of Hamas Commander Read Sa'ad:

"We won't abandon the way of Jihad and Shahada [Martyrdom] as long as one inch of our holy land is in the hands of the Jews. A day will come when our flag will fly above all of the regions of our land. Our flag will fly on the minarets of Jerusalem, and the walls of Acre, and the quarters of Haifa."

Or listen to PA Shari’ah Judge Muhannad Abu Rumi:

"[Khan Al-Ahmar is] holy land. We know its value, and not them [Jews], the foreigners, the fabricators of history, who dance and live on the body parts of others, and on the blood of others. Read their history: There is no global corruption that they are not behind. There is no global corruption that their rabbis did not allow... People could be deluded or think... that we have no way out with the Jews... The liberation of this land is a matter of faith, which will happen despite everyone. The Jews leaving this land is a divine decree... The war is not only over this strip of land, as you all know the Jews want everything and not just a part [of it]. They want to subjugate us, and that we be slaves to their command... There have always been two camps in history: the camp of truth and the camp of falsehood. The people of falsehood see themselves as those who rule over everything... Among the Jews we find nothing but corruption and depravity."

Lest you think these men represent the unwashed or uneducated, here are the words of an academic, one Imad Hamato, Professor of Quranic Studies at the University of Palestine in Gaza who hosts a weekly official PA TV program on Islam:‎

“Humanity will never live in comfort ‎as long as the Jews are causing devastating corruption throughout the land. Humanity ‎will never live in peace or fortune or tranquility as long as they are corrupting the land. ‎An old man told me: If a fish in the sea fights with another fish, I am sure the Jews are ‎behind it. As Allah says: ‘Every time they kindled the fire of war [against you], Allah ‎extinguished it. They strive throughout the land [causing] corruption, and Allah does ‎not like corrupters.’” (Sura 5:64)

Then there's the recent Hamas radio chatter picked up by Israel only last month, describing the operation that took the life of Officer “M”:

“Four fighter jets are above me. There was a strike near us. The jets are coming from the north. They attacked one of the (Hamas) cars. Hide. Close in on the Jews. Don’t let them leave Gaza," yelled one Hamas commando into his radio during the firefight.

He said "Close in on the Jews." Not "settlers," "Zionists," or "Occupiers." Not even "Israelis," but "Jews."

What are Arab children taught? On November 29, a young girl recited a poem at the Gaza Conference for the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People that referred to the Jews as wild apes, miserable pigs, and evil creatures destined for humiliation. She said that Jews are like herds of stupid cattle, and that Jerusalem "spits out [their] filth" because it is a pure virgin.

I did not have to scour the internet to find these examples. They are numerous. Antisemitism is not just the domain of a few oddballs or iconoclasts. Jew-hatred pervades the culture of the Arab terrorist who shot Shira Ish Ran in the abdomen, an act that led to the death of an infant she never got to hold.

To the terrorist who shot her, Shira was not a hands-off target, someone vulnerable, carrying life in her womb. She was less than human. A pest to be sprayed dead, along with the baby in her womb.

To think of her as a pregnant woman, like any other pregnant woman, or her baby like any other baby would have betrayed weakness, a fault in his basic foundational beliefs, a softness that must never be given quarter if the ultimate goal were to be achieved.

If he'd dared think of Shira Ish Ran as a pregnant woman, he would have had to try all the harder to prove his mettle by shooting to kill her and her unborn infant. Once he did so, of course, the terrorist was free to tell the world anything he liked, that he did not, for instance, think of Shira Ish Ran or the baby she carried as Jews, but as Zionists, settlers, occupiers, and oppressors.

They would want to believe these things, the world, for the West is short on understanding how things really work and they prefer not to see the bigger picture.

Those who live in Europe or America, prefer you to couch such actions, the elimination of Jews, in the language of colonialism and oppression. That speaks to them, while antisemitism seems so, well, gauche. If you use language that is politically correct, they can excuse the targeted murder of a pregnant woman, the successful attempt at infanticide, or if you like, the long, drawn-out third-trimester abortion of a Jew-Pig.

After all, that baby would have grown up to be a soldier. Had he lived. That made him fair game. Right? Just another occupier, a thief, an oppressor in waiting.

As long as the world has an excuse to think of it in another, politically correct way, an Arab is safe to shoot whatever Jews he likes, whether it be a pregnant woman and the baby in her womb, or a couple of teenage girls. Europe looks the other way. The UN looks the other way. The New York Times looks the other way.

It’s all good.

The question is why Jews look the other way. Even the Arab terrorist, now dead thank God, couldn’t puzzle that one out. To him, in his short evil lifetime, Jews were Jews. No matter who shed their blood. No matter that their condition marked them among the most vulnerable sectors of society.

An old woman in Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, in this respect, is exactly the same as a young pregnant woman standing at a bus stop in Ofra holding life inside her womb--a life soon extinguished.

The dead Arab terrorist knew there was no essential difference between him and Robert Bowers. He actually felt a lot of sympathy for Bowers, when he thought about him. After all, he hated Jews and Bowers hated Jews. Hates them still. The Arab terrorist saw Jews as less than human. So did and does Bowers.

When he thought about it, the Arab terrorist who shot Shira Ish Ran and killed her baby, knew that the only difference between him and Robert Bowers was that there was no possibility that Bowers would ever be set free in a prisoner exchange or receive a large government pension for killing Jews. Had the Arab terrorist not struggled during his capture, he would have ended up on easy street in a comfortable Israeli jail.

Of course, the 72 dark-eyed virgins are a nice compensation.

If only Bowers had been Muslim.

A pity.

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