Sha'ul Nir, father-in-law of Netanel [Nati] Ozeri, also spoke with Arutz-7 this morning. In a voice frequently breaking with emotion, and despite the tragic circumstances, he was still able to deliver an optimistic message of light:
"I have three children, but Netanel - who was married to my oldest - was my fourth. Nati was the symbol of 'goodness,' the hallmark of what a Jew truly is, a symbol of purity, Judaism, and Jewish heroism…
"Nati [and his family] lived on the hilltop for two years, and Nati's murder is really another step in his life-course. We don't look at death as the end, Heaven forbid. The Nation of Israel, for the past 100 years, has been under conquest, under the yoke of a foreign culture. They are all like 'babies who were captured,' they don't even realize how this foreign culture is choking them. Nati was the spearhead of the struggle against this... Beforehand, they lived on another hilltop - but while the Nation of Israel is retreating and closing itself up behind walls and fences, Nati wanted to always be advancing. He wanted to be free of this choking, and so he moved further away from the fences."
Nir praised the youths who studied with his son-in-law on the hilltop:
"This is where the pinnacle of the 'righteous of Israel' live, the very pure in spirit, who have been with him for these years, and who killed the scum that tried to liquidate an entire family… My granddaughter Herut, 5, who was wounded and is still in the hospital - her name ["freedom"] symbolizes the ideology of Nati. The destiny of Israel was purposely uprooted via a cancerous group in our midst, and Nati was unable to free himself from the shock of the silence - the silence of an entire nation that's practically being led to slaughter - without there being even a yell of protest!"
He then explained his view of what happened at the funeral:
"The funeral yesterday started a first step, which we hope will lead to additional steps, of the return to Jewish destiny - and it seems it must start with a scream. I said before that death is not the end, but it is still very shocking. King Solomon wrote that it's 'better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of partying' - death must be another step forward along the path for Jews... There are Halakhic aspects of what happened yesterday which I don't want to get into now. But the idea was to take Nati, in front of all those who wanted to see him just dropped into a grave the way they bury cats, and to scream out: People, if you don't wake up, this is what will happen to many of us! I'm not talking theoretically. Hundreds of deaths, hundreds of deaths! Even G-d weeps, as it were, over the blood of evil ones - but here the blood of an entire nation, of purely righteous people, is spilled day after day, and a nation is silent! We have no right to be silent!"
Asked if he thought that the funeral had aroused the nation they way he hoped, Nir said,
"I fear that we have not caused the shock. We don't yet have the powers, Rabbinic or Halakhic, to take stronger action. The Bible tells the story of the Pilegesh B'givah who had been [cruelly] murdered, and the leading Torah giants of the day cut her limbs and sent them throughout the country - in order to wake up the nation… We are still small and we can't do things that will really wake up people, but we did the little that we could do to wake up the nation… The central point I would like to make is that the Nation of Israel, for thousands of years, has brought the world a message of moral principles and values. No matter what, Israel will bring to mankind this pure message, whether they want it or not, of purity and ethics, of victory over all evil, of goodness and true happiness - not only to Jews, but to all of mankind."
"I have three children, but Netanel - who was married to my oldest - was my fourth. Nati was the symbol of 'goodness,' the hallmark of what a Jew truly is, a symbol of purity, Judaism, and Jewish heroism…
"Nati [and his family] lived on the hilltop for two years, and Nati's murder is really another step in his life-course. We don't look at death as the end, Heaven forbid. The Nation of Israel, for the past 100 years, has been under conquest, under the yoke of a foreign culture. They are all like 'babies who were captured,' they don't even realize how this foreign culture is choking them. Nati was the spearhead of the struggle against this... Beforehand, they lived on another hilltop - but while the Nation of Israel is retreating and closing itself up behind walls and fences, Nati wanted to always be advancing. He wanted to be free of this choking, and so he moved further away from the fences."
Nir praised the youths who studied with his son-in-law on the hilltop:
"This is where the pinnacle of the 'righteous of Israel' live, the very pure in spirit, who have been with him for these years, and who killed the scum that tried to liquidate an entire family… My granddaughter Herut, 5, who was wounded and is still in the hospital - her name ["freedom"] symbolizes the ideology of Nati. The destiny of Israel was purposely uprooted via a cancerous group in our midst, and Nati was unable to free himself from the shock of the silence - the silence of an entire nation that's practically being led to slaughter - without there being even a yell of protest!"
He then explained his view of what happened at the funeral:
"The funeral yesterday started a first step, which we hope will lead to additional steps, of the return to Jewish destiny - and it seems it must start with a scream. I said before that death is not the end, but it is still very shocking. King Solomon wrote that it's 'better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of partying' - death must be another step forward along the path for Jews... There are Halakhic aspects of what happened yesterday which I don't want to get into now. But the idea was to take Nati, in front of all those who wanted to see him just dropped into a grave the way they bury cats, and to scream out: People, if you don't wake up, this is what will happen to many of us! I'm not talking theoretically. Hundreds of deaths, hundreds of deaths! Even G-d weeps, as it were, over the blood of evil ones - but here the blood of an entire nation, of purely righteous people, is spilled day after day, and a nation is silent! We have no right to be silent!"
Asked if he thought that the funeral had aroused the nation they way he hoped, Nir said,
"I fear that we have not caused the shock. We don't yet have the powers, Rabbinic or Halakhic, to take stronger action. The Bible tells the story of the Pilegesh B'givah who had been [cruelly] murdered, and the leading Torah giants of the day cut her limbs and sent them throughout the country - in order to wake up the nation… We are still small and we can't do things that will really wake up people, but we did the little that we could do to wake up the nation… The central point I would like to make is that the Nation of Israel, for thousands of years, has brought the world a message of moral principles and values. No matter what, Israel will bring to mankind this pure message, whether they want it or not, of purity and ethics, of victory over all evil, of goodness and true happiness - not only to Jews, but to all of mankind."