Eva Sandler comforted by Netanyahu
Eva Sandler comforted by NetanyahuIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Eva Sandler, who lost her husband and two sons in the shooting attack in Toulouse last week, came on Wednesday to comfort Avivit Shaer, who lost her husband and five children in a fatal fire in Rehovot earlier this week.

Channel 2 News reported that the meeting between the two was emotional and that no eye was left dry.

“I really believe that the Almighty really loves us,” Shaer told Sandler. “Everything he does is ultimately good. We cannot understand what this good is because we are limited in our intellect and knowledge. G-d gave and G-d took away.”

Shaer also reportedly told Sandler, who is considering making aliyah immediately after the holidays but has not yet made a final decision, “There is no place like the Holy Land, come to Israel.”

After the meeting with Shaer, Sandler went on to the airport and flew to France where she will celebrate Passover with her parents.

On Monday, Avivit’s husband 38-year-old Guy Shaer and their five children - Eliav, 11, Evyatar, 8, Amitai, 7, Shira, 3, and one-year-old Itamar – were killed in the fire that broke out in their home.

Avivit, the wife and mother, just last week lost her brother to cancer. Since the tragedy, the city of Rehovot and particularly the Najara neighborhood where the Shaers live, has expressed its shock and devastation over the deaths.

Rabbi Eitan Eizman, Head of Noam and Tzvia Educational Institutions, told Arutz Sheva, "We are now in hard times. A whole family died in a fire. Only the mother survived. We must have great faith to be comforted in these difficult times."

"We pray to the Holy One Blessed Be He that he comfort all of the students and the parents who have bad times. We talk about the verse '...and Your faithfulness in the night.' And even in these difficult times, the Holy One Blessed Be He he will help us ad give us great strength and seal us for good," he said.

“It’s hard to digest,” Moshe Tam, head of the Najara neighborhood council, told Arutz Sheva. “The Najara neighborhood isn’t digesting the tragedy. All the residents of the neighborhood are in shock. All of Rehovot, the entire country I think, have been hit by this. I still don’t understand what happened here. Let’s hope we can overcome this.”

Tam promised that the neighborhood’s residents will help the widow and bereaved mother, Avivit.

“She lost everything. She’s been left with nothing. No children, no husband. We’ll help her,” he said. “The people in this neighborhood have lived together for 60 years. In cases like this people know how to help.”