Parents of slain journalist Daniel Pearl ligh
Parents of slain journalist Daniel Pearl lighSasson Tiram

Judea and Ruth Pearl, parents of Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Pakistan, lit a flame at the Yom Hazikaron ceremony held in front of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.

They attended the annual commemoration of the Jewish Agency to pay tribe to Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror, as well as to mark the memory of Jews murdered in acts of terrorism and anti-Semitic incidents around the world.

The ceremony was also attended by Daniel’s two sisters, his wife, Mariane, and his son, Adam, who was born a few month after the murder and never had the privilege of meeting his father.

"I represent three generations of the victims of hatred. My grandparents perished in Auschwitz, I survived genocide in 1948 and the murder of our son Daniel marks the hatred of today,” said Judea Peal in remarks at the ceremony.

“My grandson Adam is here today and I want him to know that his father facilitated the struggle against terrorism and barbarism,” he said.

Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Pakistani terrorists while in Pakistan on assignment. His captors released a videotape of the murder, in which Pearl famously said, “My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I’m Jewish. My family follows Judaism. We’ve made numerous family visits to Israel.”

Pakistan recently arrested a former senior terrorist accused of taking part in Pearl’s murder. The terrorist, Qari Abdul Hayee, a leader of the Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was arrested by the paramilitary Rangers force on Sunday in Karachi, the city where Pearl was held hostage and killed.

Following their son’s murder, Judea and Ruth pearl established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to “further the ideals that inspired Daniel’s life and work.” Judea Pearl has spoken on numerous occasions about the dangers posed by anti-Zionism and the media’s role in demonizing Israel. He has warned that, “the Holocaust didn’t end in 1945.”