Winnipeggers remember three Israeli terror victims

From left, Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16

WINNIPEG — More than 200 members of the Jewish community here gathered on short notice July 6 at Congregation Shaarey Zedek for a special memorial service for Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar and Naftali Frenkel, the three Israeli yeshiva students who were kidnapped and murdered last month by Palestinian terrorists.

“All the organizations worked co-operatively to make this memorial service happen,” says Faye Rosenberg Cohen, the Jewish Federation of Winnipeg’s planning director, who was MC for the evening.

In his address to the congregation, Rabbi Alan Green, Shaarey Zedek’s spiritual leader, described the murder of the three teens as “shocking” and a crime “unparalleled in its cruelty.”

“They were murdered not as p[art of any war, nor because of the occupation or because some Palestinians feel humiliated by having to pass through checkpoints,” he pointed out. “They were murdered because they were Jews.”

He quoted Rabbi Shmuley Boteach as saying that if Muslim leaders do not condemn this cold-blooded killing, they render their great religion morally irrelevant.

Rabbi Green also expressed sympathy for the Palestinian teen who was murdered shortly after the bodies of the three Israeli teens were found.

Rabbi Ari Ellis, spiritual leader of the Orthodox Herzlia-Adas Yeshurun congregation, echoed Rabbi Green’s words that the teens were murdered simply because they were Jewish and living in the Land of Israel. He contrasted the Jewish love and celebration of life with Palestinians who celebrate death.

“To us Jews, life is sacred,” he said. “Eyal, Gilad and Naftali were boys who were dedicating their lives to study and becoming closer to God.”

He quoted U.S. commentator Dennis Prager in contrasting the strength of good versus evil. Prager, he said, argues that that the results of evil are easy to see in the tens of thousands of people murdered by the forces of evil. The results of one act of goodness may not be readily obvious, but that act of goodness will create consequences that will outlast evil.

The memorial service included individual tributes to each of the three victims with a candle lit in each of their names.

Also participating in the service were Rabbi Larry Lander, spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chayim, who read the 121st Psalm; Rush Ashrafi, Gray Academy of Jewish Education’s Judaic studies co-ordinator, who read the prayer for the State of Israel; Al Benarroch, the new executive director of Jewish Child and Family Service; and a couple of visitors from out of town – musician/singer David Kerner, from New York, who led the singing of Esa Enai, and Rabbi Charles Grysman, spiritual leader of Zichron Yisroel Congregation of Associated Hebrew Schools in Toronto and a member of the faculty of Yeshivat Or Chaim, who led the recitation of Kaddish.

Donations were accepted for the Jewish Agency’s fund for the victims of terror.