Years ago, there was a terrible attack a few hours before Purim began. We were invited to a Purim party at friends after hearing the Megillah and putting the kids to sleep. As Purim entered and we walked to the synagogue, they were still counting the bodies in Tel Aviv. 

I called our friend in tears, waiting to hear his confirmation that the party had been canceled. He told me that it was not canceled. I told him I could not come...I could not laugh...I just did not want to celebrate and be happy. I needed to mourn. He listened to everything I said...and then completely ignored it. "Paula," he said, "you will come and you will be happy." 

I figured on a compromise - I would go, but I would NOT be happy. We went to the party - driving through the Arab village to get there. This was years ago when these areas were not closed to Israeli traffic as they are today. Years ago, when the Arabs understood that if they wanted Jews to buy in their stores, they couldn't expect to be allowed to stone the cars, throw firebombs at them, etc.

I'd been in the village many times. On a normal evening, the men would be sitting outside the stores, smoking or drinking coffee. If you drove by, they ignored you; if you stopped to shop, they would get up, welcome you to the stores, even offer you Turkish coffee (which I've never tasted in my life).

But that night, it was different. The village was deserted - all the Arabs were inside their homes. Not because there was any closure, but because they understood, I believe, the incredible and justifiable fury we felt. No one driving through the village attacked anything. No one shouted in anger but it was best for all sides if there was no contact. We knew this as we looked at their homes and thought of our dead laying in the streets of Tel Aviv, and they knew this too.

They gave us time for our anger and for our pain. Of course, back then, they knew it was Arabs who had set the bomb and there was no attempt to pretend or claim others had done it. How different, I thought, that now again they attack us around Purim, but this time pretend. Though initially Fatah claimed responsibility and indeed is likely to be found responsible, they and others stepped back from this claim. Palestinian news source, Maan, even had the audacity to suggest that Thai workers were to blame, despite the fact that there are no Thai workers on Itamar. 

Purim is supposed to be a time of triumph, of celebration. Why do the Arabs attack close to Purim? They want to take this from us, my friend told me, that night. He was right. That was part of why the Fogel family was attacked and murdered, part of why yesterday sixty mortars and rockets were fired at Israel. And as they attack, it is our responsibility to remind them of the essence of Purim, the victory we claim as ours year after year. So, I baked for Purim as I always do. I laughed and enjoyed the holiday with my family, as I always do.

The more we mourn, the greater will be our joy. The more we cry, the more we will laugh. 

We will reach deep inside ourselves. We will never forget Rav Udi and Ruthie. We will always mourn for Yoav, Elad, and for baby Hadas and we will watch over Tamar, Roei and Yishai. But, we will celebrate the miracle that is Purim. We will celebrate our triumph over the evil that was Haman, that was Hitler, and that is Fatah and Hamas.

Purim is an incredible story - from promised destruction to watching as our enemies die the very death they would have given to us. It is what happened then, what has happened again and again in our history. So today, we cooked a special meal and ate out on our balcony surrounded by our neighbors. There was singing and laughter. A neighbor called to my son-in-law and offered him a drink. My son-in-law held up a bottle of wine to show we had our own drinks here.

The neighbor's guest said it was a silly drink and my son-in-law should come over and share with them. Men dressed in costumes, children laughed and played in the yards, the balconies, the streets.

An explosion was heard in the southern region - 10,000 people attended a parade. My two older sons have gone into Jerusalem; my youngest son will leave shortly. We made packages of cakes and food and delivered them to our friends, and got bags and bags delivered to us.

There's a gentle breeze blowing; I can still hear the music. Purim for most of Israel is just beginning to fade away but the sense of blessing and triumph remain. We have outlasted them all. We watched the Ancient Egyptians fade into history, watched as Greece and Rome fell. Haman fell before us, as Amalek had before him. We watched the Cossacks and the Crusaders come and go. We watched as Haman was hanged on the very tree he would have used for Mordechai. 

Nation after nation has fallen, time and time again. Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, the Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein - all that vowed our destruction are no more. This isn't pride or arrogance, but faith. The moon circles the earth; the earth circles the sun and each day, the Jewish nation does what it must to survive.

Last Shabbat was one trial, one horrible, agonizing pain but here we are a week later, remembering that we will survive it. Tamar Fogel, just 12-years-old, and already smarter than most of our government - we will build, we will settle, we will survive and we will triumph. As the day fades away, we remember all that came before, knowing it strengthens us for all that will come in the future.

Happy Purim - may its blessing light the way for the year to come until we are again granted this wonderful, triumphant reminder that we are the children of Israel and we are home.

This is a letter written by a young woman. I don't know her personally - and yet I do. She is 20 years old, she lives in America. She is Jewish. In her letter, she tells you a bit about herself. She shares a first name with my youngest daughter - but so much more, she shares a collective memory, something that binds her to us, and us to her. She lives far from the tragedies of the Fogel family. This message shows that through the distances of miles and time, this horrible terrorist attack should touch us all.

A Letter to President Obama from a Young American Jewish Woman:

Dear President Obama,

I am writing to you about the unspeakable and horrific acts of terror that took place in the settlement of Itamar in Shomron on the West Bank of Jersualem on Friday night, March 11, 2011. Udi, 36, his wife Ruth, 35, and their children Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, 3 months, were all stabbed to death in their homes. I am sure you are well aware of the attacks and the terrifying details of that sadistic massacre. I am writing to ask you what America, our brave and beautiful country, plans to do about it.

I am a Jewish American, born and raised in the United States. I love my country with all my heart and am a very patriotic citizen. However, I love Israel with all my heart as well, as the Jewish people are my brothers and sisters. This innocent family was murdered in their own homes, slit by the throat and in the heart, some while asleep and some while awake, witnessing their own extermination. This is the type of horror that one cannot even bear to imagine. Three children, who G-d chose to carry on their family’s legacy, survive them. The type of horror these young children now live with is also something one cannot even bear to imagine. Although bombs and chemicals are atrocious, the personal nature of this attack makes it indescribable and abominable.

I have been in Israel twice in my life, on a vacation and a ten-month deferment when I studied abroad two years ago. I have seen the landscape of the country and seen the heartbeat of this illustrious and indestructible nation. I have lived in America my entire life. I have seen the greatness and strength of this country, and the unyielding power we hold in the world. It is time for America to step up and take a stand. It is time for the media to condemn these actions. It is time for the world to take note and pay attention to the fear and terror that is occurring in homes and cities far away from theirs. It is time to start publicizing heinous crimes and report the truth. When will enough be enough?

To stand and watch is to align yourself with terror.

To quote Martin Niemöller’s famous poem:

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for me—and by then there was no one left to speak out for me.

I am speaking out now in the hopes that my voice can be heard. I stand behind my people, as I hope my President does for his.

Sincerely,

Aliza Falick, 20

There are things that happen that threaten to break your spirit, your drive, your ability to cope. How, I want to ask God, how can we bear this horrible thing? When parents are killed, leaving behind orphans, that is a horrible crime. But the children. How can you bear to think of an 11-year-old murdered. My youngest is 11 - she is so full of life, smiles, always talking. She calls me to tell me about her day. Endless energy, life.

How can you bear that a three year old has been murdered? Stabbed in the heart. How is it possible? And the baby...God, the baby. How could anything even close to human slit the throat of a three month old baby? What sickness, what depravity, what evil, what hatred those beings must have in them. I cannot call them human. I cannot. Yes, I know all about how the Nazis said the Jews were not human and this attitude helped contribute to the ability of Nazi Germany to destroy as ants and sheep, more than six million of my people. But what did the Jews do to the Germans?

Nothing - the Jews did not throw rocks and firebombs, rockets and missiles. They never murdered Germans as the Arabs continue to try to kill us. No, never - I do not believe a unit of Jews went into a German home and slit the throat of a baby. No.

There are things that happen that threaten to break your spirit - and there are the images that break the heart. Of the clenched fists, of the baby, of the father, of the mother. It is so hard to imagine, so hard to accept and move on.

But I managed, I really did. I cried a little; I released my anger a bit more - here and on Facebook and Twitter helped. So, really, while I almost broke...I didn't, until now completely break. Not when I had to talk to Aliza and listen to her, not when Shmulik told me to lock the door, not even when I saw the pictures. Not when I read the hate messages on CNN and other sites blaming Israel. Not when people post to Facebook asking for proof that the Palestinians handed out sweets in Gaza to celebrate the terrorist attack (why lie about such, when the proof is there in the photos?). No, none of this broke me to the point where I just couldn't talk or listen or think.

Sad as it is, I've seen this before, suffered these tragedies. Each touches the heart, but doesn't break the soul. Each comes close, but even as it comes close, you know you'll go on tomorrow. It is the reality of life here and I know I would never, could never change it.

The words that broke my heart came not from those who hate, but from one who loves. Not from our enemies, but from the purest of souls. I listened to the funerals. I heard Ruthie and Rav Udi's brothers and father and though I cried, I did not break. Perhaps the concept of breaking is strange, and so let me explain it in other terms.

When I went with my daughter to Poland for 8 days, we walked into gas chambers and though I cried, I did not break. For me, breaking was the moment when I turned to my daughter and said, "I can't. I can't stay here any more. I need to go home. Now. Please." It was the moment I stood in a small Polish village and heard about the hatred - not of 1941 when the village people murdered their Jewish neighbors in Jedwebne. That angered me, saddened me, brought me to tears. But what broke me was listening to how, in 2001, they were still denying that they had done it, still insisted it was the Germans, who were not even in the town at the time. And then there was a memorial celebration after Poland (but not the town), admitted that it was the neighbors who had killed the Jews that horrible night, and not the Germans.

I listened to how the townspeople tried, in 2001 to disrupt the ceremony and how even today, generations and decades later, they still deny. I realized in that moment how hopeless it all was and I broke. I told my daughter and the organizers of the trip that I just couldn't, couldn't stay. Please, let me go to the airport and I'll wait for you there. We were leaving that night anyway. Please, I just couldn't take any more.

The organizers would not let me go. "We have one more stop - Treblinka." I broke there; I broke before the crematoria in Auschwitz, and I broke with the words of Tamar Fogel. 

It was, finally, the words of Tamar, only 12-years-old, who came home Friday night and realized something was wrong. Her words that made me feel so broken, so lost. It was Tamar who ran to her neighbor Friday night when she realized something was strange, something was wrong. She returned together with him and entered her house. It was Tamar who found her parents and her two young brothers, who miraculously survived when the terrorists failed to find the two young boys amidst the bloodbath they had created.

Little Tamar, who has experienced more horror in her short life than anyone should ever know. With all the dignity and faith she must have gotten from her parents, it was Tamar who broke my heart with the simple promise, "I will be strong and succeed in overcoming this. I understand the task that stands before me, and I will be a mother to my siblings."

I rarely, if ever, agree with anything said by Ahmed Tibi, a member of the Knesset representing one of the Arab parties. This time, I do. He said, "The murderer shames his nation. What did that criminal think when he looked a three-month-old baby in the eye and stabbed her?"

Well, I think criminal is the wrong word, and no, I do not recognize the Palestinians as a nation - they had that chance 60 years ago and chose to miss that ship and all the others that have sailed since. But he is correct - the murders bring only shame to his people, his society, his culture. There is no martyrdom here, no honor, only shame.

The pride of Israel, the beauty and grace, come from a young girl, suddenly and without mercy or warning, now thrust into the role of "mother." May God grant Tamar the blessings of the childhood she still deserves, the innocence, the love.

May she know only love from this day forward and know no more pain.

And may God avenge the blood of her parents, her brothers and her baby sister.

And please God, heal our hearts and souls so that we can continue to build our land, our homes, our lives, here in this wonderful, amazing land you have given to us.

"Did you hear?" Elie said when I came to the table moments after the Sabbath had ended.

"No, what?" I asked.

"Bad news," he said. And then he told me. "Two parents and three children. Stabbed. Itamar."

"Killed?" I asked, already feeling the horror starting to mount inside me.

"Yes," he answered quietly.

"Oh, God. Oh, God," I kept repeating. "Oh, God."

The anger, the rage that comes is almost more than I can stand. It chokes you. It fills you, infuriates you. What animals, you want to scream to the world. "Animals," I said out loud to my husband and my son, who was and is a soldier. "Animals," I said again. It is a horrible thing to call a person an animal and yet what other word can you use? What sets us apart as humans is our ability not to feed off others, and yet only humans murder for the sake of murder. Perhaps we are even less civilized than the animals if we can butcher a child, an infant, a baby.

I quickly opened my computer. We stopped having a television in our home when we moved more than a year ago and, in truth, I rarely miss it. I love having my children find other ways to amuse themselves. But tonight, I could use a television to see and learn more quickly what is happening now. But there is nothing happening now, not really.

As always, there is confusion in the early reports. It seems, in the early morning hours or perhaps very late last night, Arab terrorists sneaked into a house in Itamar and stabbed a husband and his wife, an 11-year old, a 3-year old, and a 2-month old baby. Perhaps the baby was only 1 month old. It isn't clear, the reports differ. Does it matter? I cannot comprehend what it takes to stab an infant, a child, two children. A woman asleep, a man unarmed.

What bastard religion calls this a thing of honor? What society hands out candies and celebrates such devastation and horror? They are celebrating in Gaza today - handing out sweets. They are so proud of their brave and honored brother, who showed his manhood...by stabbing a helpless infant.

It is hard to be an Israeli tonight. To sit here and know that life was stolen before it was every fully attained. Harder still to imagine what a young 12-year-old girl is experiencing now. She was the one who returned from visiting with friends to find her parents and two of her siblings murdered. She found two other siblings and took them to neighbors to get help. Yesterday, a family with six children; today, three orphans.

The US government announces its condemnation and outrage. Small comfort there when all too often, they demand we remove the very checkpoints that help protect against these attacks. France has condemned the attack and urges restraint. Why? Why should we restrain ourselves? Are they restraining themselves in Gaza as they dance in the streets and hand out candies? Did they restrain their hands as they stabbed this small Jewish baby?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned any violent act towards civilians, "regardless of the circumstances," and yet it is his own organization that claims responsibility for this attack. He cannot even bring himself to name the place and the people - his standard general comment only infuriates more.>

There are no words that can adequately describe the anger and the rage I am feeling and so there is no comfort. The world will forget, as it always does - each orphan, each infant. It sickens me beyond words. Already, comments are being made on CNN news chats saying that Israel is responsible for the killings because of the stalled peace talks. How, I wonder, can someone blame Israel for two terrorists who jump a fence, enter a house through a window, and murder, in cold blood, a couple and their children? How can you blame Israel for the deranged action of a terrorist capable of stabbing an infant to death and the society that supports and encourages such actions?

No, it is wrong. It is an abomination. It is beneath everything we know as humanity. And there can be no peace, none, with a society that celebrates this horror. For now, as I check the news stations, I try to find something that can console, something that can comfort. Tomorrow, there will be funerals.

And through the blinding agony comes one thought. This is not 1940; this is not Europe. We are not helpless. There is no more that we can do - but even now, there are those who are acting. There are those who are finding the clues to the identities of the murderers.

Quietly, in the days to come, they will be hunted. That is, after all, what you do with animals - you hunt them. It is not a popular thing to say; it is not politically correct. We will hunt those who butchered an infant, two children and their parents. They will be caught. Perhaps they will be arrested. Perhaps they will resist. They will be caught.

That is the only comfort I can find as I sit here and think of these murders. We cannot bring this family back; we cannot remove the horrifying pictures that will forever be engraved in the eyes of a 12-year-old girl. But we can find these martyrs of Islam and make sure they never do this again.

Soon, very soon, their families will know that Israel is not helpless; that despite Obama and Clinton, despite France's concern for restraint and Abbas' meaningless words, the Jewish State protects its own. Perhaps the UN will condemn us - no matter. Others will criticize us on CNN - we do not care.

My response is the hunt is on and it will continue until these people are brought to justice. Somewhere, deep in my heart, I hope they resist. Then, it will be God who declares their punishment.

May God avenge the blood of these innocents.

Shmulik needs to earn more money than the small amount the army pays him as a soldier. He gets food, clothing (well, uniforms anyway), and free buses, which he largely doesn't need because most of the time he goes to and from base as S.'s driver. But he's getting married and so there are many more things he will need.

He started last night working part time as a security guard at the local mall. That means he stands there and checks people's bags as they enter the mall, checks car trunks, etc. He came home last night after a 6 hour shift earning minimum wage looking so incredibly handsome - even more, perhaps, than he does in the army uniform.

Doing security at the mall will be easy and fun for him. On his breaks, he gets to walk around and see what's new in the mall. He's always been a shopper - he loves clothes and fashion, as does his future wife. They are beautiful together and each has more clothes than most of my other children combined. But it is his right to buy things for himself and truthfully, I hope he always will treat himself (and his wife and God willing, his children) to the good things life has to offer.

It's fun at the mall because he is working in a city where he has lived for 10 years, where he grew up, where he went to school. Already on the first day, he met people he knows. It is a formality, to some extent, but he has to check their bags and cars too.

That is the light side of being a security guard - talking to people you know, looking at new things or drinking some hot chocolate on a break. There is a terrifying side to being a guard and that is the side I push away. It seems silly, after being a soldier's mother, to worry about something as common as a security guard.

They are everywhere, all the time. Every mall I go to involves opening my car trunk, sometimes my glove compartment. It means opening my purse when I walk into the actual mall and sometimes answering the silly questions, "No, I don't carry a gun" even as I realize it really isn't a silly question at all. But more than the answer, is that the security guard is listening in those few seconds, deciding if I pose a threat or could have been used to pose a threat.

They hear the American accent, they see a woman in her middle years. Let her go, their brain says as their eyes shift to the next person. Now their eyes are Shmulik's eyes - those amazing dark brown eyes that are the deepest, darkest of colors. Eyes that dance with humor and warmth. My Shmulik now stands between the people in the mall and any danger that comes to threaten them.

Years ago, I wrote about The Israeli Guard. Here's that article. It was written 7 years ago but is still so true today.

The Israeli Guard 

(written in 2004)

The guard at my third grader's school can be fearsome. He stops you at the gate and questions you. What is your name? Why have you come to the school? Who is your child? Who have you come to meet? He's been known to ask for identification and other than students and teachers, no one walks through his gate unless he knows who you are and that you should be where you want to go.

He’s bearded and dark and won’t unlock the gate until you answer his questions. He is bundled in a warm coat, as he sits outside for hours at a time, in a small security booth beside the locked gates of the school. He doesn’t allow children to leave the protected area without a note during school hours and I’ve seen him call to a child running towards him in a costume and mask, demanding that the child stop and reveal his face before approaching.

Recently, I caught him off guard. The man is a fraud. Under the dark and serious image he projects to protect his children, is a smiling man who knows most of our young ones by name. After driving my son to school, I was about to put the car in reverse when I watched his dour face transformed. Gone was the serious man standing by the locked metal bars. I’d never seen him smile before, never laugh.

As a child approached with a soccer ball, the guard faked to the right, moved to the left, and quickly intercepted the ball, kicking it swiftly back to the boy before it could enter the school gate. A goal prevented, a child enthralled. This is clearly not the first time they have played this game. The ball bounced and the child aimed again, and for the briefest of moments, the game continued as the guard let the ball fly past him and the child roared “GOAL”!

The guard laughed and did a “high 5” with the child as he sailed on his way to school, having conquered mountains a full 10 minutes before the school bell. He greeted my son by name, and gently slapped several other boys on the back as they passed. He motioned to the last stragglers to hurry before the bell. He pretended to run in place as the bell rang, signaling to the children that they should hurry. And, after the last child passed through, he locked the gate and returned to his booth.

Yesterday, I had a meeting at the school. I approached the guard booth with a smile, but none was returned. Somber expression on his face, he questioned me as I approached. Who are you? Why have you come? I wanted to tell him I knew his secret. I’d seen him smile and play with the children and he clearly wasn’t as tough as he pretended. But somehow, I was as intimidated as he expected me to be. I answered his questions and entered. I thought about him again later in the evening when I passed the checkpoint to enter our local mall and waited while the security guard opened my glove compartment, asked if I had a weapon, and then searched the trunk of my car.

In Israel, security is an ingrained part of our lives. What would be considered an invasion of our rights in any other place is accepted as normal here. We open our bags, allow guards to run security wands close to our bodies, open our car trunks without a second thought. We slow down at checkpoints, stop and answer questions…all with the hope that our little inconveniences help guarantee the safety of all around us. It’s become so normal for us that we seldom point this out to strangers and so the inconveniences we accept to make our lives more secure are ignored by most of the world.

We’ve gotten so good at this, we look past the guards. They are a brief obstacle on our way to buy milk, a short delay when we enter the mall, the reason we stand in the cold for an extra few seconds before entering a restaurant. They guard our children, protect our schools and yet sometimes, all we hear are the gruff questions. It’s only on rare glimpses that we see that behind the uniform, behind the job, there is a person full of life, full of concerns, full of dreams.

Few of us could describe what a guard looks like moments after we pass by, and yet they stand between us and murder on a daily basis and sadly, sometimes they sacrifice their dreams to save our realities. Haim Smadar was a school guard in Jerusalem. He was 55 years old when an 18-year-old Palestinian woman came to attack the school where he worked. Haim stopped her, protecting the children he had promised to protect, but losing his life in the process. He once promised his wife, "Shoshana, if a suicide bomber ever comes close to my school, he will not get past me. With my own body, I would stop him." And he did.

Alexander Kostyuk was a 23-year-old security guard from Bat Yam. He was killed and another 13 were wounded in a suicide bombing outside the train station in Kfar Sava. There is no question that many more would have died that day, if Alexander hadn’t put himself between innocent civilians waiting for a train during rush hour, and a suicide bomber determined to kill as many as he could.

In March of 2002, a Palestinian terrorist detonated his bomb as he walked into a cafe, crowded with some 50 patrons. Miraculously, the bomb did not go off. The terrorist tried again to detonate himself, but by then the security guard had realized what was happening and stopped the terrorist.

Just two months later, another suicide terrorist targeted a popular Kfar Saba shopping mall. The security guard stopped the terrorist from entering. This prevented more extensive casualties, and yet the guard and one civilian were killed, with another 70 were wounded.

In yet another example of extreme bravery, Staff-Sgt. Noam Apter found himself in the kitchen of a school under attack. The 23-year-old paratrooper was on leave from the army at the time. He was right by the door and could have fled the scene unharmed. Instead, he locked himself into the kitchen with the terrorists, giving dozens of students who were in the midst of their Sabbath meal, the opportunity to flee. Noam was shot in the back, but precious time was saved.

Their sacrifices highlight the dangers so many choose to face each day. What makes them special, beyond the job they do, is the humanity that they continue to show, despite the strain. The security guard at my son’s school is charged with protecting hundreds of children every day. The minute they pass through his gate, he is the only thing that stands between a potential suicide bomber and our children.

He takes this job very seriously, as can be seen by the questions he asks, the way he watches when we approach his position. But he takes the children very seriously as well, and so he learns their names, hurries them along so they won’t be late, takes the time to show them the person behind the uniform, the man behind the job. It is yet another sign that more than four years into this Intifada, with rockets falling daily and the threat of terror still on the horizon, we have not lost our humanity, our ability to care, to smile, to be concerned for each other.

January, 2004