This was at the one-year anniversary of the murder of the Fogel family in the Samarian community of Itamar, and a new beis medrash and sefer torah was inaugurated in their memories in March 2012 הכנסת ספר תורה ל'משכן אהוד'

Stirring memorial service held on one-year anniversary of Fogel family murders

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.”

Orphaned Survivor of Fogel Terror Attack Inspires French Jews

Twelve-year-old Tamar Fogel, the oldest survivor of the terrorist attack on the Fogel family this year, recently joined her Bnei Akiva chapter on a visit to French and Belgium to help strengthen the local Jewish communities.

It was Bnei Akiva that saved Tamar from death at her home community of Itamar, in northern Samaria. She was attending a Bnei Akiva meeting on the tragic Friday night in March while two Palestinian Authority terrorists brutally slaughtered her parents and three of five brothers and sisters in a barbaric attack that shocked Israel and Jews around the world.

She discovered the gruesome scene of the family’s dead bodies when she returned from Bnei Akiva, and she undoubtedly would have been murdered by the terrorists had she been at home.

The terrorists, both in their late teens and from a neighboring Arab village, have been arrested. They said that had they known there were two more sleeping chlldren in the house, they would have murdered them as well.

The visit to Europe was the first time Tamar and her friends from the Itamar chapter of the national religious group had been outside of Israel. They were accompanied by Rabbi Yehuda Ben Yishai, Tamar’s maternal grandfather.

“Many members of the Jewish delegation in France thought they would strengthen the youth of Itamar during their visit, but the opposite was true,” said Yigal Klein, director of counselors for Bnei Akiva.

“The Itamar delegation demonstrated faith and spiritual strength that surprised many of the adults and youth whom they met” in France and Belgium,” he added. “It was amazing to see how the community welcomed Rav Ben Yishai with a warm embrace, sorrow and pain. But as soon as Rabbi Ben Yishai began to speak, you could see how he strengthened the community.”

Running on a tight schedule, the youth from Itamar were interviewed on French radio and visited the Jewish communities of Marseilles and Paris, including several Jewish schools.

The French and Israeli groups overcame the language barrier by using body and sign language as well as songs known to many Jews, such as Am Yisrael Chai.

The French youth, who saw news of the terrorist attack in Itamar on local television, were hesitant to speak at first, but the ice was quickly broken as the Itamar group showed “it did not visit as if it were distant from them but rather from a place of love and with a loving embrace” said Pinchas Michaeli, the counselor of the Bnei Akiva group in Itamar.

Each member of the Itamar group told a personal story, and a film, prepared in Israel, showed the French and Belgian Jews what life is like in the community, both before and after the terrorist attack.

Communities in Samaria are working on twinning with Bnei Akiva chapters abroad, according to Shomron (Samaria) Liaison director David Ha'Ivri