Dear Friends:
Like all Jews throughout the world, I was mortified by the unfathomable murder of Naftali Fraenkel, Eyal Yifrach and Gil'ad Shaar, whose bodies were discovered on Monday. Yesterday, their families gathered in Modi'in, Israel for their funeral. Today, the State of Israel and the People of Israel have begun the process of observing a worldwide period of mourning for these three teenage boys.
We are a people of collective memory and it is therefore our collective loss - this is personal - and while we should never know the anguish of these boys' parents, we may feel the need to gather as a community in search of a sacred place to find peace and comfort.
In this time of communal grief then I invite you and your friends to join me along with many of my colleagues to a Service of Memory for Naftali, Eyal and Gil'ad this Thursday, July 3rd at 7:00 PM in the Goldsmith Sanctuary at Congregation Beth Israel. This Service is being conducted under the auspices of The Greater Phoenix Board of Rabbis and Valley Beit Midrash.
Together as a united community of Jews we will pray, reflect and above all else, commit ourselves to the foundational belief that we are inseparably linked to our sisters and brothers in the State of Israel in their time of grief.
May the souls of Naftali, Eyal and Gil'ad be bound up in the bonds o f Eternal Life and may their families be comforted among all who are grieving in Zion and Jerusalem.
L'Shalom,
Rabbi Stephen Kahn
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