Recently I came across some old pictures...

Not long ago, I traveled to a wedding with Yossi and Perchiya Apter, parents of Noam, HaYa"D. We reminisced about a series of demonstrations, vigils, they organized (and I participated in) many years ago. I promised to look for a couple of pictures I had scan and send them.

The Apters recalled that the impetus for the demonstrations, which they said lasted only six weeks, was the murder of our neighbor Rachella Druk, HaYa"D.

Arab terrorists had opened fire on a bus load of Shiloh residents, mostly women and children, who were on their way to a demonstration in Tel Aviv, to encourage then Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir to be strong in defending Israel's needs at the Madrid Conference, October, 1991.

The driver, Yitzchak Rofeh, and Rachella were murdered. A few children were seriously injured, including Harel Bin-Nun, HaYa"D, who after recovering from that injury was later brutally murdered by Arab terrorists when doing guard duty in Yitzhar, north of Shiloh, near Shechem.

That attack was one of the first, if not the first, shooting attack by Arab terrorists on innocent Israeli Jewish civilians. The location was a winding mountain road, just south of Tapuach, and it was obvious that the Arabs had been hoping that the bus would tumble down the mountain murdering many more Jews. As the shooting began, young Harel, not even Bar Mitzvah (13) age, quickly ran to the front of the bus to turn the steering wheel away from the cliff.

Rachella's murder seriously affected all of us. May her memory be a blessing.