Holy Land: Rabbis for Human Rights report from site of arson attack

Zakaria Sadah, Rabbis Navah Hefetz & Sivan Malkin-Maas, a family member & Rabbi Ascherman in Dawabshe home

The following post by Rabbi Ascherman was published this morning by 'Rabbis for Human Rights'.

RHR has been assisting in handling the situation in Duma - the site of the horrific arson attack on Friday which killed a toddler and critically injured his family - since our Palestinian field worker, Zakaria Sadah, was one of the first on the scene, and helped coordinate the helicopter evacuation of the family to Israeli hospitals. Yesterday, Rabbi Ascherman and other RHR rabbis visited the site and later Soroka hospital, where the injured father is being treated. Please find his writings on the day below:

! Sorrow Punctuated By Sorrow: On The Murder In Duma !

I had already been shocked to the depths of my soul seeing the pictures on Friday. But, when you arrive at the burnt houses in Duma, the smell hits you. You feel and hear a family's world turned to coal crunching beneath your feet.

Everything seems calm in Duma.

The family tells us the story matter of factly without tears or raising their voices in anger.

Yet, we know that unfathomable pain and anger are seething just beneath the surface. And I know that I cannot wear my kippa, and we cannot travel around without escort. Is this what we returned to Zion for? In addition to Zakaria, I am accompanied by Rabbis Nava Hefetz and Sivan Malkin-Maas.

From Duma, we continue to Mreyer, where on Saturday Israelis tried to invade. They were forced to flee by the villagers, and an army hummer picked them up. Shorly after, a fire broke out on the villages agricultural lands. I have always travelled cautiously but freely in Mreyer. Today I was told that it would not be safe to travel unaccompanied. The anger was too great. Neither have the supporters of the settlers calmed down after having extracted a price of blood and destruction. In this region unquenchable anger is pitted against unquenchable anger, for all know that THEY are the victims. This does not mean that all is symmetrical or balanced. There is a people with all the power in their hands, including the power to determine the fate of another people. But all remind me of Yehuda Amichai's poem, "_From the place where we are right flowers will never grow in the spring..."_

On the way to Soroka hospital we hear the bitter tidings that Shira Banki will see no more flowers in this world.

In the Soroka intensive care waiting room we meet with the family. I am glad to see my friend Sahde Ibn Bari there, whom I know from the struggles of the Negev Bedouin community, and who will be my lawyer when I go on trial on November 10th for my arrest in El-Araqib. I know the family will be taken care of. There wasn't much we could say to each other I offered Mi Sh'Berakh prayers for Saed, Riham and Ahmed. Instead of "amen" after each Mi Sh'Berakh, the family answered "Allah Kareem." Let's all pray for them.

With me were Rabbis Yehiel Grenimann, Anita Steiner, Mordechai Goldberg, Yonatan Saidoff and Donna Kirschenbaum.

Finally, we joined a Bedouin community vigil outside the hospital. We hadn't known that it would be taking place, and the police didn't quite know what to do with the Jews that had suddenly arrived. I wasn't entirely comfortable with some of the words spoken and chanted, such as that all our government ministers are war criminals. When I spoke, I noted that all of our leaders had condemned this act, but that they had created a "_golem sh'kam al yotzro_" (A Frankenstein monster that had turned on its creator." I prayed for a world in which no people rules over another, and in which we all honor God's Image in every human being. Again, I recalled Yehuda Amichai....

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