One man's initiative brought close to 3,000 boys and girls in Samaria to recite the afternoon and evening prayers all summer and study Torah at night.
This week, the students received their certificates of recognition from Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan and from Rabbi Aharon Cohen, the Rabbi of the Yakir community.
Thanks to Rabbi Cohen, the boys and girls prayed the afternoon and evening prayers at the synagogues of 32 different towns in Samaria.
"It all started when I saw two children lying on the sidewalk with nothing to do during the summer." Rabbi Cohen explains. The project gained momentum and drew more and more participants. In the first year, eighty children participated. In the second year the number of participants grew sixfold. And this year the number of participating children was between 2,000-3,000.
Among the children who completed the program of learning and praying were Omer and Natah Siegel of Maale Shomron, whose mother said "We're not a family that says the afternoon and evening prayers regularly. It was the children who asked to participate in this program, and we were moved by how seriously they took it."
"Even when we were on vacation and playing a game they would stop at sunset to pray. This created a framework within the larger framework of summer and allowed us to experience our vacation in a whole new way."
Yossi Dagan was very proud of the children. At the program's closing ceremony he said "It brings me great joy to see that thousands of children came out here, not for some performance, but to pray and to study Torah, and on their own initiative. We see from this that our children are much more connected to our values and our heritage than we think."