It’s Passover here in Israel, a time for long-awaited family trips, camping, and fun. But instead of celebrating, we are mourning. On Friday, the second day of Passover, Arab terrorists brutally murdered two young girls, Rina (20) and Maya (16) Dee, in a drive-by shooting in the Jordan Valley. Their mother, Leah Dee, died from her wounds three days later. The Dees, olim from England, live around the corner from us here in the town of Efrat, right next door to Bethlehem. Our community is devastated, heartbroken, and depressed. What can we say to our children, to Maya and Rina’s friends, who were sobbing uncontrollably at Rina and Maya’s funeral?  

heartbreaking:
The funeral of the two young sisters Maya and Rina Dee who were murdered by an Arab terrorist in the Jordan Valley.

Israel is facing a barbaric enemy. https://t.co/ilGmpUMQWm

— תורת לחימה (@Torat_IDF) April 9, 2023

But this attack is only the latest horror. It was only a few weeks ago that Hallel and Yagel Yaniv were murdered in cold blood in Huwara, just outside of their home in Har Bracha, followed by the murder of Or Eshkar in Tel Aviv and Elan Ganeles in the Jordan Valley. Only a few weeks before that, another terrorist took the lives of Alter Shlomo Laderman and Yaakov and Asher Paley by running them over at a Jerusalem bus stop. And only a few weeks before that was the horrific shooting of seven Jews after Friday night services at a synagogue in Neve Yaakov. 

Our indescribable pain has reached yet greater depths today with news of the passing of Rebbetzen Lucy Dee. I vividly recall being welcomed so graciously by Lucy into her home in Radlett, where she & Rabbi Dee were passionately & lovingly engaged in enriching people’s lives.. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/cVoNMrwDY5

— Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) April 10, 2023

The enemy we are fighting is evil. Regardless of what the New York Times reports, this isn’t a complicated issue. Arabs are murdering Jews – in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria. They murder Jews of every kind – children and the elderly, men and women, religious and secular.

Lucy Dee, the mother of Maia and Rina, has succumbed to the injuries she sustained in the terror attack in the Jordan Valley.

May she Rest in Peace 💔 pic.twitter.com/Ff2lnpCzJo

— Hananya Naftali (@HananyaNaftali) April 10, 2023

But it’s not merely a “handful” of terrorists, a few “bad apples” living in an otherwise peaceful society. Arabs in Judea and Samaria overwhelmingly support acts of terror. A recent poll by The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research reports that 71% of Arabs in Judea and Samaria support the brutal murder of Hallel and Yagel Yaniv. 71%!

Arabs don’t simply support the murder of our children; they celebrate it. After the slaughter of seven Jews in Neve Yaakov, tens of thousands of Arabs throughout Judea and Samaria celebrated in the streets, set off fireworks and handed out candies to their children. Nor is any of this new. During the Gulf War, as Sadam Hussein’s Iraq launched scud missiles at Tel Aviv, our Arab neighbors danced on their roofs with joy and chanted: “Ya Saddam, ya habib, udrub udrub Tel Abib!” (Yah, Saddam, bomb, bomb, Tel Aviv!). And as Americans, we must never forget the mass Arab celebrations on 9/11.

This is a battle of good versus evil. The Jewish people are an imperfect but fundamentally good and holy nation, while the Arabs have built a sick, violent, and evil society that raises its children to hate and murder. Obviously, there are many individual Arabs who are fine people, and some even support Israel as a Jewish state. I am speaking here about the sickness of the Arabs in Judea and Samaria as a collective people. What do they stand for, other than murdering Jews? What have they contributed to the world, other than death and terrible suffering?

Jewish Efrat and Arab Bethlehem are “sister cities,” geographically contiguous. Every day, Arabs come to Efrat to work as carpenters and construction workers, and they make good money doing so. They do not fear entering our homes. But when was the last time a civilian Jew walked the streets of Bethlehem? We’ve lived in Efrat for almost two years, but I’ve never once driven into Bethlehem – and for good reason. I’d be taking my life in my hands. Just ask the German tourists who recently drove to Shechem with Israeli license plates and were nearly lynched.

Many Jews in Israel must live with these people every day. They are all around us. The Arab behind the counter at the local supermarket seems like a nice guy, but can we really know? The man who rammed his car into a crowd of Italian tourists in Tel Aviv was a janitor at an Israeli middle school in Kiryat Ono, where he was very friendly with the Jewish students. And yes – he was also an Israeli citizen.

The heroes living in settlements in Judea and Samaria deal with all this – and much, much more. Shmuel Sackett, a Har Bracha (Mount of Blessing) resident, says that every day, at least 20 Jewish cars are stoned while driving through Huwara, the Arab village Jews must drive through to reach Har Bracha. Stoning cars, he explained, means “throwing bricks and dropping cinder blocks from rooftops. Imagine a young mother with 3 children in her car, driving home from the supermarket. As she is driving, a brick comes crashing through her windshield. The shock of what happened is enough to give her a heart attack! The children start screaming, and there is broken glass everywhere, but she cannot stop for help because she’s in the middle of Huwara with a mob just waiting to finish the job.” (Daniel Greenfield, Hollow Sanctimony Over Huwara, Jewish Press, March 15, 2023). 

We are under attack – and we need your help. Here are some practical things you can do:

Show that you Care

The silence from the broader world is deafening. Are Arabs murdering Jews again in Israel? Yawn. 

It hurts. We are suffering, and nobody cares.

Imagine if busloads of Jews and Christians from America came to Har Bracha for a day to stand in solidarity with the community. Imagine thousands of Christian Zionists coming to Efrat to show the world that the Dee family matters! It would send an incredibly powerful message of unity and love.

Last night, Leo Dee, the father and husband of the murdered victims, noted that this week is the first time in 30 years that the holidays of Passover, Easter, and Ramadan coincide.  He said that in recent years, humanity has fallen into moral relativism and lost the ability to differentiate between good and evil, and passionately called on all of us to make the world a better place.

“If you feel that it was wrong to shoot dead, at close range, three beautiful, innocent young ladies in the prime of their lives, then please post a picture of you, or your spouse, or your children with an Israeli flag,” he said. “Or just post a picture of an Israeli flag and share it on Facebook, Instagram or whatever social-media app you use.”

Please take a moment to go on social media and share a picture of an Israeli flag!

None of this will stop the terrorists from trying to kill us. But it will give us the strength we need to keep fighting.

Ensure Terror Victims are Not Forgotten

Israelis are constantly dealing with the next attack and the latest tragedy. Above all, it’s critical not to give in to terror, and to continue living life. When you’re living on the front lines, you don’t always have the head space and emotional capacity to deal with the horrific trauma of the victims and their families.

But we can’t allow terror victims to be forgotten, to become yesterday’s news. The families of the victims will suffer for the rest of their lives. They will never move on.

You can play an important role in making sure terror victims and their families are not forgotten by supporting Israel365’s campaign on behalf of terror victims. 

Thank you for standing with Israel!