Why We Do What We Do

​I  got on the Jersualem Light Rail today.​​

It was there that I saw Dana Weissman, a young man whom I knew when I was a community social worker in Tzfat more than 30 years ago.

We had more or less lost touch. Except that I few days ago I found out that Dana is the father of  Yannai Weissman, age 21, who was recently stabbed to death by an Arab boy who invaded a local supermarket, with two of his friends, looking for Jews to kill.

The killers had just come out of their class where they are whipped into a frenzy by their teachers to murder Jews.

Yannai  was walking in the next aisle pushing a shopping cart with his wife and three month old baby.

Yannai heard some screaming, and tried to wrestle the knife out of the hand of one of the boys, who proceeded to slash his throat and kill him instantly.

Yannai, who was serving in the IDF, did not have his gun with him, had  taken on these young killers with his bare hands.

His young widow fought to have the IDF mark on his fresh tombstone that he was killed in battle, not that he was a “victim of terror”.

All this connects to my work, which tries to make sure that the countries that fund PA education in the UNRWA schools introduce strict conditions that military training must cease in these schools, and that school books and teachers who teach Jihad education must be removed.

This is an uphill battle. Every mainstream Jewish organization in the world speaks about a future  Palestinian Arab state in the making, that would coexist in peace with Israel.

People cannot believe that there is a new education system that openly indoctrinates children to murder Jews.

Even Nazi education encouraged the murder of Jews only by hint. Nazis never held ceremonies in honor of those who murdered Jews. Nazis never named streets and public squares in honor of those who murder Jews.  Nazis never honored the families  of those who murdered Jews.
It would be healthy if Jewish organizations were to learn the adage of Edmund Burke. He would not support the French revolution because “the end is the means in process”. To paraphrase Burke, a revolution the revels in murder will establish a regime of murder.
We owe it to Dana and to the memory of Yannai to let my people know what the PA and UNRWA teach their children, with humanitarian funds they get from abroad.