The official reason for my most recent visit to Israel was to run in the first ever Jerusalem Marathon. Admittedly, being a somewhat late starter both at running in general and training for this specific event in particular, I decided that the half-marathon option was probably a more sensible start. The real reason was that I just needed to go Home for a while, and had to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why I was going to abandon my wife and children for a week. They bought the story, I bought a ticket, registered for the race, and then panicked when I suddenly realised that twenty-one kilometres was a very long way to run.
At practically the last minute, I decided to turn it into a fund-raising activity. Not because I had to, but because events in Israel meant that suddenly, appallingly, three children were left with no parents.
The Fogel family lived in Itamar. They were a normal family, hoping for the same things we all do. They wanted their children to grow up, to learn, to become a part of their community, to live in peace. One Friday night, only a few weeks ago, their dreams were torn away. A terrorist, maybe more than one, broke into their home and murdered both parents, Ruth and Udi, as well as three of their six children - eleven year old Yoav, four year old Elad, and infant Hadas, just three months old.
This murder, this shocking disregard for human life, the blatant disregard for the innocence of children, barely caused a ripple on the surface of the world's news outlets. Excuses such as events around the world, in Japan, in Libya and elsewhere would have been more palatable had these same media outlets not pounced immediately on the Israeli government's response to the callous murder. The murder of babies in their beds wasn't deemed newsworthy. Apparently the response to it was.
The response itself was not violent. No arms were raised, no shots were fired, not one single person was killed or even injured. The response was a promise - a promise to build more homes for Jewish families. To rebuild what the murderers want to see torn down, both physically and metaphorically.
This terrorist atrocity left me, along with many others in Israel and around the world, torn from the inside out. Pictures of the murder scene were published. Graphic photographs, meant to shock the world out of its slumber, made it no further than Facebook pages and Israeli news websites. I won't share them here, but they are easily accessible elsewhere on the internet. The apathy continued unabated.
Israel came together. The Left and Right wings of the political spectrum meant nothing, at least for a short while. The generosity of people country-wide, even worldwide, was astounding, and my tears over the senseless, cowardly slaughter of parents and their young children were turned into determination.
Determination, despite a lack of training, to complete the half-marathon, but more than that, determination to help the surviving children, however insignificant that help may be. I set up a fund-raising page, and completed the course in the knowledge that my efforts weren't, in fact, for my own self-satisfaction. Running through the streets of Jerusalem, seeing her in all her splendour, now had a purpose, a target, a mission. Any money raised will go towards counselling and rehabilitation for Tamar (12), Ro'i (8) and Yishai (2).
I ran some of it, walked some of it, stopped at points to recover as I admired the beauty of my favourite place in the world. And for its entirety, I thought of these children and the obstacles that await them as they rebuild their shattered lives.
Tamar, much wiser than her twelve short years, has in one moment turned from being the older sister into a mother, and shows us all what determination really is. My efforts pale into insignificance. I can only wish that I was capable of such strength and courage, and wish her and her siblings that they and their family know no more sorrow.
