Gush Etzion residents hold rally for kidnapped boys
"We ask that Jews in Israel and the Diaspora continue to show their care and concern for the boys and their families, and keep hope alive.”
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFWOMEN AT the Gush Etzion junction show their support for the three kidnapped youths(photo credit: Courtesy)
Hundreds of people from Gush Etzion assembled near the community of Alon Shvut on Thursday night, for a second week, to sing and pray for the release of Gil-Ad Schaer, Eyal Yifrah and Naftali Fraenkel, the three Israeli teens abducted two weeks.“We gathered again to demonstrate our support for Gil-Ad, Eyal and Naftali, and to let their families know how much love the residents of Gush Etzion have for them,” organizers Yishai Hughes, Dani Eisenstock and Hillel Porath, all residents of Efrat, said in a joint statement. “We have been profoundly inspired by the parents of the boys, who by their example have strengthened all of us to continue hoping, praying and uniting around a common purpose. We ask that Jews in Israel and the Diaspora continue to show their care and concern for the boys and their families, and keep hope alive.”They said they planned to continue to hold gatherings at the Gush Etzion junction until the youths are freed.“As time distances us from the initial trauma of the boys’ kidnapping, we have to make an extra effort to counter the natural inclination toward complacency and apathy,” they said.Among those attending was David Taragin, a classmate and close friend of Schaer and Fraenkel, who spoke movingly about the warm embrace that he and his classmates had received from across the spectrum, “religious and secular, Left and Right,” since the kidnapping, and came to the rally to thank people for supporting the families, friends and loved ones of the missing boys.
