Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref was the first terror victim. He was murdered in 1851 by a sword-wielding Arab, in the days of resurrecting the land as one of the leaders of the Jewish Yishuv. His grandson Yoel Moshe Salomon continued his legacy of expanding the Jewish settlement.
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Captain (Res.) Avraham Volonsky, a great-grandson and descendant of the family, continued these acts of settlement and resurrection with his wife Avital. Together they redeemed a desolate hill (Eli Tet) in Samaria, settling on it with other young pioneers. On their way home, they were murdered by Arab murderers, a descendant of the murderers of Avraham Shlomo Zalman Zoref. A direct line is drawn between the murders despite the difference in years.
Avraham Volonsky and his wife Avital and his forefather are casualties of the revival of our people in Israel. They have a special place in the Hall of Souls in the heavens as those who fell for the sanctification of God, the people and the homeland.
Anyone killed by enemy shelling or traveling around the country is a fallen person in Israel's wars. The man could have lived abroad. The choice of the Jew to immigrate to Israel or to live in this good country despite its risks is a conscious choice, including the cost. Sometimes that price is a life, or injury. Therefore, the Memorial Day for Israel's fallen should include those who were killed and murdered for its resurrection, even if they were civilians.
This is another opportunity to raise the demand of the grieving families of terror victims to transfer the handling of the issue to the Defense Ministry, thus ending their sense of discrimination as if their sacrifice was less significant. After all, the more meaning there is for the victim, the greater the comfort.
In recent years, attempts have been made to draw a new equation, as if there is no attacker and no attacked as if there are no victims of Arab murderous terrorism in the face of Israeli defense. We must end the laundering of words that try to produce a postmodern equation as if this were a banal conflict in which there is no right side and wrong side. Attempting to make this comparison leads to the following step: self-blame. From there one easily finds oneself at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which set up to deal with Nazi criminals but now in a moral and historical distortion, blames the victims of terrorism defending themselves against terrorism.
No two sides are equal. There is a right side and a wrong side. And this is why the line that connects between Holocaust Remembrance Day and Independence Day runs through the Jewish people murdered throughout the generations.
As the son of Holocaust survivors whose families ascended to the heavens from the crematoria of the Nazi enemy and were not privileged to see the resurrection (apart from my parents, who were privileged to be buried on the Mount of Olives and observe from there their descendants fighting and redeeming our beloved land), we have a mission. Not to rest on our laurels. Fight for the righteousness of the path. The righteousness of the path of the Jewish people is Tikkun Olam. "And all the peoples of the land saw that the name of God was called upon it."
And for the families of the victims of this resurrection – there is consolation and comfort. They find it in the building of the land, in the return to Zion, exactly according to the Jewish verse that says to the mourners of Zion, "In the building of the land you will be comforted."
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