The three victims of a gruesome terror attack in the Israeli religious city of Elad on May 5 were Yonatan Havakuk, 44, Boaz Gol, 49, and Oren Ben Yiftah, 35. The three are all fathers who left behind a combined 16 orphans. Israeli security forces subsequently caught the terrorists behind the attack.

Gol, an Elad resident who worked as a mechanic, was coming home from a Bible class in a local temple when he was brutally killed. His wife and five children survive him.

Before the attack, Ben Yiftach, a resident of Lod, drove a leading local rabbi, Rabbi Yaakov Landau, to lead a Bible class in Beit Shemesh. During the voyage, he talked with the rabbi about faith and spirituality. Following his journey, he reached Elad, where he was killed. He left behind a wife and six children.

Habakkuk, also a resident of Lod, was killed after he scrambled to search for one of his children in the park after hearing of the attack. He left behind a wife and five children.

Hopefully, Israel will bring the terrorists to justice. But the orphans left behind deserve justice as well. That is the role of the Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund (SICF).

SICF has a magnificent campus providing a wide array of therapy for Israeli children who have been traumatized to varying degrees by terrorism. Treatments include animal-assisted therapy, music therapy, sports therapy, and art therapy, among others. 

The organization’s founder David Rubin is himself a victim of terror, as is his son. David, along with his young child, who was three years old at the time, was wounded in a shooting attack while driving home to Shiloh in the Samaria region of Israel. The trauma that both he and his son experienced from the attack inspired Rubin to launch this vital organization to combat the deep psychological scars that remain from deadly terror attacks.

As the recent wave of terrorism throughout Israel continues, SICF is there to ensure that the latest orphans from the ongoing terror attacks are taken care of, just like their fathers would have wanted.