You see, my sons were kidnapped on their way home from school and murdered by their kidnappers. My sons are your sons. Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaar, Naftali Fraenkel. For eighteen days we prayed for their safe return. For eighteen days we did mitzvot in their honour. And on the eighteenth day, a full chai, we learned that our boys were gone. Murdered by the same animals who took them.
My sons are your sons, our sons were raised by different mothers, but they are our sons, their mothers are our sisters, their fathers are our brothers. While they mourn the loss of their biological children, we mourn the loss of "our boys".
We are Klal Yisrael. We are a worldwide community. Our loss is great and it is felt across this great planet. Every Jewish community in the world is mourning the loss of our boys.
From the day we heard the boys were missing, we prayed for their safe return. We sent messages across the globe. We attended prayer vigils in our communities, in our shuls, on the internet. We performed mitzvot, we spoke in hushed tones and we vilified the kidnappers. We praised the leaders who spoke out against the kidnappers. We wondered how other leaders could say nothing or, could vilify ISRAEL for this crime. We discussed retaliation, we expressed disgust at the obvious celebration of the "Palestinian" people and their photos holding up three fingers and claiming "three Gilad Shalits". I have started a movement to take that three finger salute back and use it in memoriam of our boys.
The pain of losing these boys so senselessly has rocked every Jewish community the whole world over. Women were speaking in salons and supermarkets, asking if the news was true and sobbing in each other's arms.
As Klal Yisrael, we mourn our sons.
Baruch Dayan haEmet.
