OneFamily Fund gives Remembrance Day ‘hug’ to families of terror victims

As coronavirus drives everyone indoors for Remembrance Day, the OneFamily Fund, which works with more than 3,000 families of victims of terrorism, held a memorial ceremony on Monday.

Most years, OneFamily’s moving memorial ceremony, held in the courtyard of its central Jerusalem headquarters, is overflowing with hundreds of participants. This year, the program was broadcast on Israel’s Channel 7, the Hebrew Srugim website, jpost.com and the organization’s Facebook and YouTube pages. It will also appear Tuesday at noon on Israel’s Channel 20. The ceremony will be in Hebrew and English and will be adapted for the hearing impaired.

Among the speakers who tell their stories are:

Rabbi Eitan Schnerb,

the father of Rina Schnerb, who was murdered in a terrorist attack near Dolev in August 2019. Last Wednesday, he and his wife, Shira, celebrated the birth of their daughter;

the mother of Ori Ansbacher, who was murdered in a terrorist attack in Ein Yael on the outskirts of Jerusalem in February 2019;

the son of Talia and Yitzhak Imes, who were murdered together in 2010;

Nea Ansbacher, Ariel Imas-Yurfan, Orit Mark Ettinger,

the daughter of the Rabbi Mickey Mark, who was murdered in 2016;

Ricky Marsheh,

the sister of Maj. Gad Marsheh, who was killed in 2000; the sister of Sgt. Gal

Linoy Basson,

Basson, who was killed in Operation Protective Edge in 2014;

the son of Joseph (Yossi) Ajami, who was murdered in 2002;

Omar Kit, the father of Sgt. Ofir Kit, who was killed by a suicide bomber in the Gaza Strip in 2001.

“Families can’t touch and cry on the piece of ground where their loved one lies still,” OneFamily CEO Chantal Belzberg said. “But maybe even more importantly, the one and a half million strangers, friends and relatives of the bereaved families who would otherwise come to the cemeteries and their homes to embrace them with love and compassion will not be with them on this most difficult of days. Those warm hugs give them the strength to live on one more year. That’s what the bereaved families need the most today.”

“OneFamily wants to do everything we can to fill that need,” she said. “A virtual embrace. Every click, every view of the OneFamily online ceremony tells each family of the soldiers and the victims of terrorism: We are there for you now; just not in person. We care about you. We have not forgotten your loved ones. We have not forgotten you, nor the pain you carry inside you every day. This year, that’s how we can comfort the bereaved families.”

OneFamily also is asking that people register on its website to make a short phone call for the bereaved families, “helping us hug them from afar,” Belzberg said.

The ceremony jpost.com.

Zach Ajami,

will be available on