Family and neighbors join ministers, MKs and IDF generals to remember the five members of the Fogel family who were killed in their sleep by terrorists • Shimon Peres: Words fail to provide comfort or meaning in the face of such “barbaric, merciless and inhumane acts.”
Yori Yalon
Tamar Fogel was on hand to hear her younger brother, Roi, sing a song at a memorial service for their slain parents and siblings. | Photo credit: Yoav Ari Dudkevitch |
An emotional memorial service was held Wednesday in the Samarian community of Itamar to mark the one-year anniversary of the horrific slaughter of five members of the Fogel family. All five were killed at the hands of two Palestinian terrorists, who broke into their home while the family was asleep. Hundreds of people gathered for a Torah dedication ceremony at the new study and prayer complex “Mishkan Ehud” (Ehud Hall), named after the late Rabbi Ehud Fogel who was brutally murdered along with his wife Ruth and three of their children: Yoav, 11; Elad, 4 and three-month-old Hadas.
The killers, cousins Amjad and Hakim Awad, are both in prison serving multiple life sentences for the brutal crimes.
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivilin, ministers, members of Knesset, rabbis and senior IDF officers were also in attendance and all had their hearts stirred by the singing of 9-year-old Roi Fogel, who survived the terrorist attack. His sister, Tamar, who also survived, was also there.
“For the residents of this land, everyone understands that cutting it up into pieces will bring only death and spiritual, historical and human injustice upon us,” said Rivilin, hinting at the Migron evacuation issue. “If it is our obligation to build, then it goes without saying that we must do all we can to not destroy even a single house, which is like an entire world. It is our duty to build the entire land of Israel, each and every day.”
Rabbi Yehuda Ben Yishai, Ruth Fogel’s father, opened the memorial service by mentioning the terrorists from the nearby Arab village of Awarta who murdered his family: “There are those in the area who wished to stop life. What we are doing is the opposite. We are doing everything to increase life and strengthen life here.”
Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, Religious Services Minister Ya’akov Margi and Science and Technology Minister Rabbi Daniel Hershkowitz were in attendance alongside GOC Central Command Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon and other IDF generals. Katz said at the ceremony that “the murderers of this family came to murder Jews, but also to sever Jewish settlement in the land of the bible. I vow to you that many more Itamars will rise here in Samaria, in Judea and throughout the entire land of Israel. That is the answer.”
President Shimon Peres, who is currently on an official visit to the U.S., sent a memorial card to the surviving family members, telling them that words fail to provide comfort or provide meaning and sense in the face of such “barbaric, merciless and inhumane acts … I feel your pain and I cry your tears. We won’t forget the parents and children of the Fogel household.”
Inside Mishkan Ehud, stonemason and artist Assaf Kidron built an ark in the building’s main hall, using local stones and mortar made from earth from the Fogels’ garden. Kidron, a resident of Itamar, was the last person to see Ehud Fogel alive. Kidron initiated and led the project of constructing the holy ark from local stones. The ark rises to a height of five meters (16.4 feet).
“I’ve had a strong a sense of mission planning and building this holy ark, because the entire world, which was shocked by the murder, will turn their eyes to Itamar on the anniversary of the murder to observe how the community is recovering,” said Kidron last week. “I feel we will emerge stronger.”
“The holy ark is built from local stones, which have absorbed our Jewish history in the land of Israel,” he said.
“The stones speak for themselves and convey a connection to the land, to being deeply rooted to the Bible and to continuity.”
Residents of Itamar said on Sunday that they needed NIS 2 million ($530 million) to complete the building, and they were appealing to the wider public to contribute. Itamar Yeshiva Director Aryeh Goldberger said, “It was very important for us to show that we continue to live and build here, despite all those who plot to destroy us.”
