Reflections on a terrorist attack

December 29, 2002

Dear Folks,

Shavua tov. May G-d have mercy on all Israel and may we all have a good week.

On Shabbat eve, there was a terrorist attack at the yeshiva in Otniel where our two oldest boys are registered, but Avraham was home for Shabbat and Aharon of course is currently in the army. Four youths were murdered, the four who were on kitchen duty. One of them, with great presence of mind, managed to lock the kitchen door before he was shot, which prevented the terrorists from breaking into the dining room and killing many more of his fellows. As a result, there were only relatively minor wounds to the other 6 boys who were injured when the terrorists shot through the window in the kitchen door. (Three more soldiers were subsequently also injured in an exchange of gunfire with the second terrorist before he was killed.) The one who locked the door is being buried now. This fellow was in his fifth year in the hesder program and he had a room in the same caravan as Avraham for a few months last year. Avraham is at the funeral and we imagine he will be at another one or two funerals in the next day. (He is now at the second and will be at the other two as well, if I understand correctly. Aharon and the other soldiers from this yeshiva were also given the day off from the army, so he too is now on his way to a funeral or two.) That fellow was also a close friend of Mordechai Zeller, Rabbi David Zeller's son who is also a fifth year student in Otniel. Another one of the four killed was the best friend from infancy of the son of one of Deena's students, who was friendly with his mother even before they were born.

What can we say? We all cry and pray. We thank Gd for sparing us personal loss and cry for four more families added to the too-long list of Israeli families whose members have been murdered and maimed by our enemies, and nine or ten more families who will now have to nurse their injured back to health. And the whole yeshiva of course will have to continue learning and will go back into that dining hall tomorrow. . . .

Please pray for the injured.

Akiva and Deena Garber
Garber@jerusalemscribe.com