An unusual event has been taking place in synagogues and meeting places around the United States the past few weeks. American Jews have been coming out in droves to meet, hug and offer blessings, funds and kind words to a group of Israeli terror victims brought to the US by the One Family Fund .
The social hall of Congregation B’nei Yeshurin in Teaneck, New Jersey was filled to capacity this past Tuesday night; latecomer standees lined the walls. They hadn’t come to see a member of Knesset or Congress, but their own ‘family members’ – Israeli relatives of terror victims and survivors of terror attacks.
The evening was the last stop on the tour organized by the One Family Fund, an organization that provides assistance to victims of terrorism and their families. The tour included many speaking engagements, meetings with Jewish and US leaders, as well as recreational activities for the victims and their relatives.
Uri Baruch, who immigrated to Israel from France 26 years ago and lives in Kiryat Arba, was the first to speak Tuesday night, his words translated by the Fund’s Director Marc Belzberg. He spoke about burying his daughter who was murdered by a terrorist while driving with her husband and two children back to their home in Nokdim, southeast of Jerusalem. “At her open grave,” he recounted, “I told God ‘thank You for the 26 years you gave us this beautiful gift – and now althoughYou have taken her back, which is Your right, I have no claims against You – but it hurts so, so much.”
Mr. Baruch told of his son-in-law who had just barely survived the attack, with four bullets in his throat and two in his shoulder. One Family had brought him to see an expert in Boston who will perform several reconstructive surgeries to restore his ability to speak. “We do hope he will re-marry,” said Mr. Baruch. “It will certainly be difficult for us, but we want our grandchildren to have a mother again.”
Another speaker was Russian born Aharon Nazarov, who was severely scarred but wore a smile and a New York Mets t-shirt as he recounted all he had been through. He had witnessed four separate terrorist attacks while riding the bus to and from his army service as a combat electrician on a base in northern Israel. After each traumatic experience he made the decision to continue to serve in his unit and make the same commute day after day. The fifth time, Aharon had fallen asleep in his seat toward the back of his bus, which was passing through the Arab villages in the Wadi Ara region. He felt the back of the bus rise into the air as a car bomb was detonated alongside it and woke up three weeks later, badly mutilated, in a hospital bed.
“He kept outlining horror after mind-numbing horror that he had witnessed, yet through it all he served his country and defended the Jewish people,” said one teary-eyed audience member, “I feel incredibly foolish and perhaps a little selfish for keeping my eighteen-year-old daughter from visiting Israel this past summer.”
The final speaker was Sarri Singer, the daughter of a state senator majority leader from new jersey, who had been a volunteer for One Family ever since she moved to Israel 19 months ago. Sarri had so strongly identifyid with the importance of their work that she had even approached Mr. Belzburg in his office to demand that, although the logistics were incredibly difficuly, they not cancel the tour to the US. This happened three weeks before she herself boarded the 14a bus after work and was injured by shrapnel when a “genocide bomber” blew himself up in front of the Klal building near Davidka Square in downtown Jerusalem.
“My first thoughts on the way to the hospital were, ‘my parents are going to kill me when they find out that I was in a bus bombing, and they aren’t going to let me live in Israel and they’ll make me come back to New Jersey.” Sari spoke and the audience was captivated, as she immediately addressed the topics that are so pressing and yet so rarely mentioned in American synagogues. “We need to start remembering that we are Jewish Americans,” Singer admonished, “its nice to visit Israel and all, but the time has come to take a much, much greater role. Everyone needs to really figure out what is the most they are able to do and do it – whether it is one hour a week, one hour a day, or moving to Israel and uniting with your people.”
Mark Belzberg read a passage from the Torah where Moses says rhetorically to the tribes who chose to settle on the Eastern Bank of the Jordan Rover, “Your brothers go out to war and you sit at home?!” While bringing victims of terror to communities in the United States could hardly be considered the most effective way to promote Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel), Mr. Belzberg remarked that over the weekend the group had spent in Riverdale, New York at Rabbi Avi Weiss’s synagogue, three separate families came up to him and declared that they had decided to make Aliyah.
“There’s something about the Jewish people that when some of us are on the front lines the rest of us feel a compulsion to join them and offer them all the support we can,” explained Belzberg, “that is why we brought these people to meet their brothers and sisters in America – to strengthen that connection that is the Godly source of our people’s eternal life.”
The social hall of Congregation B’nei Yeshurin in Teaneck, New Jersey was filled to capacity this past Tuesday night; latecomer standees lined the walls. They hadn’t come to see a member of Knesset or Congress, but their own ‘family members’ – Israeli relatives of terror victims and survivors of terror attacks.
The evening was the last stop on the tour organized by the One Family Fund, an organization that provides assistance to victims of terrorism and their families. The tour included many speaking engagements, meetings with Jewish and US leaders, as well as recreational activities for the victims and their relatives.
Uri Baruch, who immigrated to Israel from France 26 years ago and lives in Kiryat Arba, was the first to speak Tuesday night, his words translated by the Fund’s Director Marc Belzberg. He spoke about burying his daughter who was murdered by a terrorist while driving with her husband and two children back to their home in Nokdim, southeast of Jerusalem. “At her open grave,” he recounted, “I told God ‘thank You for the 26 years you gave us this beautiful gift – and now althoughYou have taken her back, which is Your right, I have no claims against You – but it hurts so, so much.”
Mr. Baruch told of his son-in-law who had just barely survived the attack, with four bullets in his throat and two in his shoulder. One Family had brought him to see an expert in Boston who will perform several reconstructive surgeries to restore his ability to speak. “We do hope he will re-marry,” said Mr. Baruch. “It will certainly be difficult for us, but we want our grandchildren to have a mother again.”
Another speaker was Russian born Aharon Nazarov, who was severely scarred but wore a smile and a New York Mets t-shirt as he recounted all he had been through. He had witnessed four separate terrorist attacks while riding the bus to and from his army service as a combat electrician on a base in northern Israel. After each traumatic experience he made the decision to continue to serve in his unit and make the same commute day after day. The fifth time, Aharon had fallen asleep in his seat toward the back of his bus, which was passing through the Arab villages in the Wadi Ara region. He felt the back of the bus rise into the air as a car bomb was detonated alongside it and woke up three weeks later, badly mutilated, in a hospital bed.
“He kept outlining horror after mind-numbing horror that he had witnessed, yet through it all he served his country and defended the Jewish people,” said one teary-eyed audience member, “I feel incredibly foolish and perhaps a little selfish for keeping my eighteen-year-old daughter from visiting Israel this past summer.”
The final speaker was Sarri Singer, the daughter of a state senator majority leader from new jersey, who had been a volunteer for One Family ever since she moved to Israel 19 months ago. Sarri had so strongly identifyid with the importance of their work that she had even approached Mr. Belzburg in his office to demand that, although the logistics were incredibly difficuly, they not cancel the tour to the US. This happened three weeks before she herself boarded the 14a bus after work and was injured by shrapnel when a “genocide bomber” blew himself up in front of the Klal building near Davidka Square in downtown Jerusalem.
“My first thoughts on the way to the hospital were, ‘my parents are going to kill me when they find out that I was in a bus bombing, and they aren’t going to let me live in Israel and they’ll make me come back to New Jersey.” Sari spoke and the audience was captivated, as she immediately addressed the topics that are so pressing and yet so rarely mentioned in American synagogues. “We need to start remembering that we are Jewish Americans,” Singer admonished, “its nice to visit Israel and all, but the time has come to take a much, much greater role. Everyone needs to really figure out what is the most they are able to do and do it – whether it is one hour a week, one hour a day, or moving to Israel and uniting with your people.”
Mark Belzberg read a passage from the Torah where Moses says rhetorically to the tribes who chose to settle on the Eastern Bank of the Jordan Rover, “Your brothers go out to war and you sit at home?!” While bringing victims of terror to communities in the United States could hardly be considered the most effective way to promote Aliyah (Jewish immigration to Israel), Mr. Belzberg remarked that over the weekend the group had spent in Riverdale, New York at Rabbi Avi Weiss’s synagogue, three separate families came up to him and declared that they had decided to make Aliyah.
“There’s something about the Jewish people that when some of us are on the front lines the rest of us feel a compulsion to join them and offer them all the support we can,” explained Belzberg, “that is why we brought these people to meet their brothers and sisters in America – to strengthen that connection that is the Godly source of our people’s eternal life.”