Shulamit Peretz, the widow of Eliraz, who was killed in action in Gaza 12 days ago, received Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin at her home Thursday and made a heartfelt request – not for herself or her family, but for Jewish hero Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence in the US after being convicted of spying for Israel, its ally.
"One of the values that was very strong with Eliraz is that the wounded are not to be abandoned in the field," she told Rivlin. "I want to point out to you something about this value of not abandoning the wounded," she went on. "The State of Israel has someone who has been left wounded in the field for 25 years [Jonathan Pollard] and our hearts are torn. If he could be brought home, that would be a sort of consolation for us. I would see in that a continuation of Eliraz's path, that despite the fact that Eliraz is no longer with us physically – the things that he wanted to happen and in which he believed will be fulfilled."
Rivlin used the visit to clarify his stand regarding the High Court's insistence that the Peretz home and 11 others, including that of Second Lebanon War hero Major Roi Klein, be demolished.
"When we say 'All the people of Israel are responsible for one another' it's not just between individuals," he explained, in a reference to a Talmudic proverb. "The individual – in your case, your husband – decided that he is a guarantor for the wholeness and existence of the State of Israel, and the existence of the Jewish nation in the land of Israel; and now we have to take care of him."