Goodbye

Sta ff p hotos by Ang le Baan

Community gathers to remember slain yeshivah students.

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Rabbi Aaron Bergman of the Frankel Jewish Academy speaks of the slain yeshivah students sanctifying God's name to the

last moments of their lives.

pensively with other students waiting to
participate in the memorial.

Elizabeth Applebaum
Special to the Jewish News

T

heir faces appeared on a large
screen, making an emotional
visual impact.
•Avraham David Moses, 16, blonde and
bright, the son of American immigrants
• Rol Roth, 18, a spiritual boy devoted
to his studies
• Neria Cohen, 15, a child of "boundless
Joy"
•Yonatan Yitzhak Eldar, 16, a modest
young man
•Yochai Lifshitz, 18, remembered for his
disarming innocence
• Segev Peniel Avihail, 15, whose had
been "a gift" for all of his short life
•Yehonadav Haim Hirschfeld, 19, who
leaves behind 12 siblings
• Doron Meherete, 26, an immigrant
from Ethiopia, studying to become a rabbi.
All were murdered on March 6 in a
Palestinian terrorist attack at Yeshivat
Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem. They were
remembered in a service organized by the
Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan

Avi Buckman, an FJA freshman, sits

FJA students Dena Berlin and Han Ben-Ami read Psalm 27 during the memorial.

Detroit and held at the JCC in West
Bloomfield on March 14.
More than 400 Frankel Jewish Academy
students and others attended. JCC Executive
Director Mark Lit told those gathered that
while Israel may seem distant, at moments
of such severe anguish, "we feel we are there
with there He recounted the story of a bus

driver who passed by the yeshivah after
the tragedy. Death notices and flowers were
everywhere. He stopped for a moment and
said his nephew had been one of the boys
killed; an elderly woman on the bus then
spoke of another murdered child, the son of
her neighbor.
Each of the boys might have made "a

profound impact on the world:' Lit said.
"Now that responsibility is left to us:'
Jewish Federation CEO Robert Aronson
added that American Jews "will always
stand with Israel."
From "Haman to Hitler to Hamas,"
enemies have tried to destroy the Jewish
people. "Amalek is still with us:' he said,
and Jews must continue to "advocate for
the security of Israel."
FJA students Ilan Ben-Ami and Dena
Berlin read Psalm 27, and Rabbi Aaron
Bergman, FJA dean of Judaic studies,
recalled the founder of the yeshivah, Rav
Abraham Isaac Kook, who called for both
scholarship and compassion.
"To the last moments of their lives:'
Bergman said, the students were "engaged
in sanctifying God's name'
At the program's close, Rabbi Elliot
Pachter of Congregation B'nai Moshe in
West Bloomfield led a prayer for the recov-
ery of wounded students, and students lit
candles in memory of those killed. 0

Elizabeth Applebaum is a marketing specialist
with the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit.

March 20 • 2008

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