Even the birds stopped chirping so as not to disturb the silence as the morbid events were about to begin. The bodies of the Fogels from Itamar — Udi (36) and Ruth (35), and their children Yoav (11), Elad (4), and three-month-old Hadas were to about to find their final resting place in Jerusalem. For me, and the 10,000 plus mourners, the pained cries of anguish said more than eulogies — or political promises — ever could.
The silence at Har Hamenuchos is broken only by the occasional bird but the chirping stops quickly. It is almost as if they understand that today is not a day for song. The same cannot be said for the news helicopter flying overhead violating the silence waiting for the morbid events to begin. It is an hour before the bodies of Ehud Ruth Yoav Elad and Hadas Fogel are due to be laid to rest.
Waiting for the distressful funeral of five terror victims killed in cold blood while they slept in their home on Leil Shabbos in Itamar a small yishuv in the Shomron near Schechem where Yaakov Avinu and his family settled when they returned from the house of Lavan I am reminded of the day my own mother died on a sunny day in 1988. I felt repulsed at the sunshine on such a day. Today there is no such revulsion. The sun pokes in and out of the sky but for the most part it is cloudy and grey. A funeral is definitely in the air.
Of course one can never say that eulogies are secondary at a funeral but today the pained cries of anguish say more than verbal remarks ever could. Teenage girls who babysat the Fogel children sit on the floor hugging each other and crying. The Yeshivas Machon Meir colleagues of Rabbi Yehuda Ben-Yishai the father of the murdered mother alternate between ashen-faced disbelief and unabashed sobbing.
It would be an omission to say there is no anger in the air. Several youths hold signs reading: “The government uproots settlements The Arabs kill children.”
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