Australians Visit Grieving Families

Chabad.org

In the aftermath of recent murderous attacks on Israeli civilians, soldiers and border guards, a group of Australian Jews visited Israel last week, paying visits to grieving families, the hospitalized and others while they were there.

Led by Rabbi Yacov Barber, a Chabad emissary and the religious leader of South Caulfield synagogue in Melbourne, they brought along gifts organized by volunteers back home to hospitalized soldiers. The packages included Chitas (a Hebrew acronym for Chumash, Psalms and Tanya) books, which contain prayers and basic Jewish texts; headsets; and other goods.

In addition to the staff of the Chabad Terror Victims Project (CTVP), the mission was also joined by a group of Israel Defense Forces veterans who had been wounded in Operation Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War. These soldiers had been on a CTVP trip to Australia five years ago and were now able to return the favor to the community that had hosted them with open arms.

Barber—still mourning the death of his wife, Rivki, who passed away last spring at the age of 49—led his congregants as they visited with the families of 3-month-old Chaya Zisel Braun; 17-year-old Shalom Badani; 20-year-old Sgt. Almog Shiloni; and 26-year-old Dalia Lamkus, all of whom had been killed by Palestinian terrorists in recent weeks.

They also spent time with the family of Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who was critically injured in an October shooting attack in Jerusalem.

“You could see that people were so grateful for these visits,” said Rabbi Yossi Swerdlov, associate director of CTVP. “The soldiers told me how it gave them renewed strength of spirit to continue in their long and often painful rehabilitation processes. To know that so many people around the world cared about them was an enormous gift.”