10 | APRIL 20 • 2023 

guest column

Senseless
S

enseless.
The cold-blooded murder of 
three peaceful women, Lucy Dee, 
48, and two of her four daughters, Maya, 
age 20, and Rina, age 16, was a senseless 
act of … lunacy.
These women were my 
neighbors; we lived in the 
apartment upstairs from 
them. Their sister Tali 
babysits for my young 
children, and their father 
and I are friends, and we 
spent much time in shul 
together.
The attack occurred while the family 
was on an outing (tiyul) on the way up 
north in two compact cars for a few days 
during the Passover holiday. The attack 
began with gunmen possibly ramming and 
firing their AK-47s at the car driven by 
Lucy with Maya and Rina as passengers. It 
appears that Lucy was shot and eventually 
crashed. Her daughters were killed while 
removing their injured mother from the 
wreck, when the gunmen followed up to 
finish their terror. Emergency services 
arrived about 20 minutes after the crash, 
and Leo, who had been driving in front of 
Lucy, only heard about it on the radio and 
turned around immediately. 
“Lucy was evacuated by helicopter to 
Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center 
while she was in critical condition, where 
the teams have been fighting for her life 
over the past few days, in the trauma 
unit, in the operating room, and in the 
intensive care unit where she was treated,
” 
according to news released by Hadassah 
Hospital. “Unfortunately, despite supreme 
and relentless efforts due to [her] injuries,
” 
staff declared her death three days after the 
terror attack.
As of this writing, the gunmen remain 
at large.
As Rose Kennedy, among others said, 
“It’s wrong for parents to bury their 
children. It should be the other way 
around.
”
Yet, my wife, Shaina, and I joined 
thousands of friends from near and far at 

Kfar Etzion cemetery Sunday afternoon, 
April 9, to watch their father, Leo Dee, do 
just that. Lucy’s funeral was noon, April 11. 
Leo and children Tali, Keren, and 
Yehuda began their daughters’ and sisters’ 
funeral procession on Sunday to the cem-
etery, or levaya, which means “accompa-
nying,
” accompanied by thousands more 
along the route from their home.
On Saturday night before Maya and 
Rina’s joint funeral, some 300 of the young 
women’s friends and classmates, as well 
as other youth from Efrat, gathered in the 
Efrat Center mall plaza in the Dee’s Zayit 
neighborhood to sing, cry, and console and 
strengthen one another. Social services and 
grief counselors circulated and talked with 
them as they began processing the unbear-
able pain and loss.
Simultaneously, more than 500 people 
joined together for an evening of prayer 
and Psalms to strengthen the Dee family, 
for Lucy’s recovery, and for community at 
the Zayit Ra’anan Synagogue, where the 
Dees attend. Hundreds more streamed the 
evening into their homes.
These were meaningful expressions of 
love for the Dee family and horror at the 
senseless destruction of wonderful people 
who had their lives in front of them. We 
were not unique in hugging our children 
tightly on Friday when we heard the news, 
first of the attack on someone’s children 
and then the bombshell that it was our 
friends.

Leo said at the funeral that he had been 
asked how he has such emunah (faith) in 
the face of his unspeakable loss. He shared 
lessons from Rabbi Efrem Goldberg’s class-
es: “There is one main formula for emu-
nah. Always focus on what you do have 
and not on what you don’t have. I still have 
three wonderful children — Keren, Tali 
and Yehuda and my wife, Lucy.
” (The next 
day Lucy died.)
The Dee women’s murders occurred 
near Hamra, just off the highly traveled 
Highway 90 in the Jordan Valley, “… hours 
after Israeli air raids targeted Lebanon and 
Gaza,” according to Al Jazeera.
Mind you, the air raids occurred after 
nearly three dozen missiles were fired at 
Israeli civilians, schools and medical facil-
ities by Hamas and other groups unwilling 
to negotiate or fight the Israeli Defense 
Forces. More than 24,000 such missiles 
have been launched against Israelis since 
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
So, how does killing Lucy, Maya and 
Rina Dee advance the Palestinian cause? 
How does it give them what they want, be 
it negotiations, more control, more money, 
a state or what?
How is this act one of “resistance” to the 
most chill “occupation” in history?
“Peace will come when the Arabs love 
their children more than they hate us,
” said 
Golda Meir to the National Press Club in 
Washington, D.C., in 1957. Two bi-nation-
al peace treaties and the Abraham Accords 
with four Arab countries and counting 
have demonstrated that Arab states seem 
to get it. 
But not some of our more immediate 
and intimate neighbors.
Instead, they still hate us for existing. For 
living. For being.
Senseless. 

Nathaniel and Shaina Warshay made Aliyah with 

four children in 2019, and moved to Efrat in 2020, 

when they first met and befriended the Dee family. 

Nathaniel Warshay, formerly of Oak Park and Detroit, 

is a philanthropy professional and writer living in 

Israel and working raising funds for the Netzach 

Educational Network.

PURELY COMMENTARY

Nathaniel 
Warshay

Lucy, Maya 
and Rina Dee

$10 per person. Children 5 and under free. Register today: jewishdetroit.org/75

Thursday, April 27, 5:00 pm | Congregation Shaarey Zedek

5 PM

Activities and booths for all 
ages and kosher Israeli food
6 PM

Official Israel@75 Celebration
6:30 PM

A special show by world-renowned 
Israeli dance troupe Mayumana

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