Mother of Mercaz Harav victim backs 'political use' of son's murder

Grief-stricken and soft-spoken, the U.S.-born bereaved mother of Avraham David Moses told mourners at her Efrat home on Tuesday she supported making political use of the murder of her 16-year-old son. "The murder was for a political purpose," Rivkah Moriah told Anglo File in a calm voice that betrayed no anger. "So why shouldn't it be used for political purposes?"

Her son was one of the eight victims gunned down last week by a terrorist in Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva. Following the attack, some criticized right-wing circles for blaming the government for what had happened at the library of Mercaz Harav Yeshiva. Education Minister Yuli Tamir was heckled in the institution when she visited Sunday. "If people whose realm of expertise is politics believe this should be used for political reasons, then I believe it's legitimate," commented Moriah. "I feel we're now a nation of confused sheep without the level of shepherding that we need," Moriah - who immigrated to Israel from New Hampshire - bemoaned. "Some of our spiritual leaders are great people. Our political leaders, I feel such pain when I see the distance between what we need and what we have."

Moriah added she nonetheless supports the Foreign Ministry's initiative of using the shocking images of blood-stained prayer shawls from the murder scene in an aggressive media campaign against Palestinian terror. "I remember learning in first grade that the red stripes in the American flag are for the blood lost in the American Revolution," Moriah said. "Also in the South African flag and even in the Palestinian flag the red represents loss. And if that [the blood-stained prayer shawl] becomes an additional flag, then it's very understandable to me."

Avraham David Moses was survived by his parents and five brothers between the ages of 2 and 11. His mother, Rivkah, and his father, Naftali Moses - who immigrated to Israel from Long Island, New York - are divorced and since remarried. They live near each other in the West Bank settlement of Efrat.

The family, she says, has seen very little of what was being said about the attack in the Israeli media. That's because each morning the guests start arriving at the Shiva, the traditional seven-day period of mourning, and do not leave before 10 or 11 P.M. But from what little she has seen, Moriah says she's been astonished by the media's level of compassion. "There have been attacks where there had been a hint of blaming those killed for being at fault for the fact that they got killed," she recalls.

"From what I've seen and from what people have told me about what's going on in the media, I haven't heard or seen any of that. In fact, I've heard that it has been much more broadly publicized and in a deeper way than any other terrorist attack up until now." She says this has been a real comfort for her.

The profound sense of shock Moriah observes in Israeli society in the wake of the attack also gives her hope for internal unity. "This was an attack on Torah, and yet because of how the nation is relating to the attack and how most of the media is presenting it, it's showing what the Torah really means to religious people and what it could possibly mean to someone who is not religious," she says. "I believe it's legitimate for someone who drives on Shabbat to read some psalms when they've had a rough day. And because of how this terrorist attack is being handled, we're one step closer to that being a reality," she says, looking the people around her in the eyes. "And there's something very contrary to what the attacker's motives were in the results. I find solace in that, too."

The attack, according to Moriah, proves "the Arabs are aware that the Jews' claim for living in Israel is the Torah." She argues this is something Jews are not sufficiently aware of. "I believe this attack was aimed specifically at a place of learning, and it probably targeted a place that believes both in legitimacy of the State of Israel and also in Torah learning and the synthesis between the two."

Speaking about her Palestinian neighbors, the bereaved mother said: "My people want the Arab people to be able to eat and make a living and to be able to send their children to school." She added that "when exercising self defense, the defenders shouldn't think of themselves as the aggressor - even if that's how they're perceived in other people's eyes."

The family received a visit from a representative of the Prime Minister's Office and from Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski. "I feel less identification with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert than with the mayor of Jerusalem," Moriah said. She described Lupolianski as "a God-fearing man who is trying to help lead the Jewish people, adding: "But I believe the prime minister's condolences were genuine."

In describing her sense of loss, Moriah told the crowd of 20 people at her home Tuesday that she was part of a group of women that had successfully married off some seven young couples in the previous year. "I would think about the wedding of my first born son, the wedding that Avraham David would have had. And I would think about his beautiful bride and the beautiful family they would build," she recalled.

"This dream was ripped from me. And I also thought that because of his age, he would be the one to bring my grandmother great grandchildren. And he won't. He won't. That's a loss words can't begin to describe." Moriah says that as a mother, she feels that she knew her son, yet only now is she "getting to know how other people perceive him." She says that now that her son is dead, there's a degree to which she feels "like an orphan rather than a bereaved mother."