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Thousands Attend Jerusalem Burial of Terror Victims

by Joshua Runyan – Chabad.org

Thousands of people packed a Jerusalem cemetery to bid farewell to the victims of Monday’s shooting outside a Jewish school in Toulouse, France.

Both of Israel’s chief rabbis joined a rabbinical delegation from Toulouse, community rabbis and Torah scholars from across Israel, Israeli Interior Minister Yudi Edelstein, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and other officials at the Wednesday morning funeral, which saw sobbing throngs of individuals of all walks of life come to share in the grief of the family members of 30-year-old Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, his two sons, Aryeh, 6, and Gavriel, 3, and seven-year-old Miriam Monsenego, daughter of Ozar Hatorah high school principal Rabbi Yaakov Monsenego.

Also paying his respects was Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, whose grandson Moshe Holtzberg was orphaned when a gunman murdered Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai directors Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg and four of their guests three years ago.

Earlier in the day, the bodies of the Toulouse victims arrived at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport aboard an El Al flight, and were carried into Jerusalem by ZAKA ambulances.

Back in France, investigators concluded that the man responsible for the attack was an Al Qaeda-trained operative also behind the shootings of three French paratroopers in and around Toulouse. As 24-year-old suspected gunman Mohammed Merah’s victims were buried, police forces found themselves in a standoff outside his Toulouse apartment.

At the funeral, speeches focused on the tragedy of yet another Jewish community falling victim to the machinations of Islamist terrorists.

Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar spoke in epic terms, categorizing the hatred shown to Jews as the same as that shown by the biblical Esau to Jacob. The struggle, however, would not last forever, he said, as G-d would “avenge the spilled blood” of those struck down by terrorists.

Monsenego’s older brother, Avishai implored the Almighty to give his parents the strength to “endure the worst trial that can be endured,” reported The Associated Press.

In his remarks, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin bemoaned the fact that the Jewish people “once again find themselves facing wild animals with hatred in their hearts.”

Juppe, meanwhile, said that his nation was doing everything it could to ensure “safety in our schools and synagogues, so that a criminal act such as this will never happen again.

At the end of the ceremony, Sandler’s widow Eva Sandler approached the graves of her husband and children. Wailing in French, she cried out three words: “Come back home.”

Photos by Yitzchok Russek – Yeshiva World News

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5 Comments

  • Meir

    HaMakom yenachem et’chem b’toch shar avay’lay Tzion

    ונזכה תיכף ומיד ל“והקיצו ורננו שוכני עפר” והם בתוכם

  • MJ

    Me’am Lo’ez on Dvarim 4:31 cites the Pesikta Rabbatai on Yeshaya 40:1 (Nachamu):

    In this bitter exile, G-d will lift us up from the earth and bring us with His hand like a father takes a son. He will console us and bring us to Zion in joy. At the time of the redemption, G-d in His glory will raise us up from the earth. This will be a great honor that G-d will do for us.

    Before we are redeemed, G-d will call Abraham and say, “Wake up, rise, the time has come for your children to be redeemed. I want to give them reward for enduring this long exile.” G-d will call the angels and say to them, “Judge between Me and My children. What reward should I give them? To those who suffered martyrdom for My Name and allowed themselves to be killed for my sake, what reward shall I give?” The angels will then give an estimate for such reward. G-d will then say to them, “Those who suffered by having the gentiles humiliate and curse them, and torture them, what reward shall I give them?” The angels will again make a n estimate. G-d will sit with the angels and say, “Whoever did anything which deserves reward should come and collect.”

    G-d will come and say, “I will console you. I must be the one to console you since I have contradicted what is written in My own Torah. I wrote, ‘You shall do no work with the firstborn of your sheep.’ It is forbidden to make profane use of a firstborn. Yet Israel is my firstborn, as it is written, ‘My son, my firstborn, Israel .’ Still, I decreed that their neck be placed in a yoke and that they be sent into exile. I also wrote, ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart’, but at that time, as it were, I hated you. Therefore I have come to console you. I wrote, ‘Do not deliver a slave up to his master.’ I ignored this when I gave over the Jews into the hands of the nations. I also wrote, ‘When fire breaks out and burns weeds… the one who set the fire must make full restitution.’ I set a fire in Jerusalem . Therefore, it is My duty to rebuild it.”

    Immediately, G-d will come to the Jews and say, “My daughter, why are you so angry that you do not wish to accept consolation?” They will reply, “Shall I then not be angry? You exiled me among the nations and cursed me with so many curses. You brought upon me so many plagues that my face became black as the bottom of a pot. Nevertheless, I sanctified Your name in this world.”

    G-d will say, “But opposite your merits are also liabilities. You violated the commandments of the Torah.”

    The Jews will say, ”Is it not enough that I kept the Sabbath during the time I was in exile?”

    G-d will say, “What you did, you did. Now is the time for you to be redeemed.”

    The Jews will say, “I will not be consoled until I see Your revenge against those who did me all these evils and desecrated Your holy name.”

    G-d will say, “By your life, I will take revenge before your very eyes!”

  • TO MJ

    MJ. beautiful words. but you know G-d didn’t have to allow this to happen in the first place.