Beit Shemesh is a city known in recent years for divisiveness and contentious political demonstrations.
But this past Wednesday morning, close to 300 women and girls came out to stand for togetherness. They gathered on the Hebrew date marking one year since the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers hitchhiking home for the weekend, Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gilad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, both 16.
Almost all of those attending the Beit Shemesh rally were affiliated with national religious girls’ elementary schools and ulpanot (religious girls’ high schools). Last minute publicity brought out a few dozen local women as well.
The rally began with a human chain of girls and women holding hands and singing. The chain was to be unbroken as it encircled the mile long Nachal Dolave Street, which loops its way across a central part of the Ramat Beit Shemesh neighborhood.
Due to lack of numbers, there were many breaks in the chain. Those attending didn’t seem to mind, as they smiled and swayed as they sang and held signs declaring “Achdut!” (Togetherness) and “Acheinu KOL beit Yisrael” (ALL of the House of Israel are family). Teachers donned in bright orange or yellow vests led singing along the route.
The group marched to nearby Ayalon Park, where Rav Nir Vargon, the rabbi of Ramat Shalom Synagogue, opened the program. He reminded the crowd of where the city was just a little over a year ago. Beit Shemesh municipal elections had been invalidated by the courts, due to widespread voter fraud. The hotly debated re-election had just concluded. The different factions in the city were even more polarized, and calls to divide the city were in the air.
On the heels of the re-election, our boys were kidnapped. We waited eighteen long days until their bodies were found in a shallow grave near Hevron. During that time Beit Shemesh, and indeed all of Israel, united in concern for the boys and their families.
Rav Vargon recalled, “It was at the Ne’imi Mall – the site of heated political rallies – that the citizens of Beit Shemesh of all stripes came out for prayer gatherings, to recite psalms together, and to pray for the safe return of Eyal, Naftali, and Gilad.”
The boys came from nationalist religious families, but synagogues across the spectrum recited special prayers for them. The question was asked of a local ultra-Orthodox rabbi if it was permissible to say psalms on Shabbat for the boys. He responded, “It’s not only permissible. It’s required of all of us!”
Naftali Frenkel’s sister Ayala spoke about her brother, who was a regular kid, who loved sports and music. Next another girl read a letter written to Gilad Shaer by a member of the youth group where he was a counsellor. “You told us not to hate people not like us,” she read. “You told us we should love them. But you’re not here. And we need you need you. We need your smile. You didn’t come because you had to be in yeshiva, right? It can’t be that you are not coming back to us. We need you. We miss you.”
The principal of Ulpanat Gila, a nationalist religious high school took the microphone to conclude the morning, calling for solidarity, and mentioning that the principal of one of the charedi (ultra orthodox) schools represented her school at the rally as well.
After singing Hatikva and Ani Ma’amin (“I Believe” – a song Jews sang on their way to the gas chambers, now sung as a statement of belief in a better future, with hope for the arrival of the Messiah) the crowd dispersed, with popsicles and bumper stickers with a drawing of children holding hands and a photograph of the three boys, with the caption “In Beit Shemesh we give a hand to unity for the Children of Israel.”
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