'Honor Fogel family by building Judea and Samaria'

Knesset Speaker Rivlin dedicates house of study in Itamar on year anniversary of murder of family of 5 by Palestinian terrorists.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Fogel family 311 (photo credit: Courtesy: Itamar community)
Fogel family 311
(photo credit: Courtesy: Itamar community)
Building and strengthening Judea and Samaria is the best way to honor the five members of the Fogel family killed by two Palestinian terrorists in Itamar last year, said Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin (Likud).
He spoke at a special memorial service for family members, in which the Itamar community inaugurated a new house of study (beit midrash) called Mishkan Ehud, named after Ehud Fogel, 36.
Fogel, along with his wife Ruth, 35, and three of their children Yoav, 11, Elad. 4, and Hadas, three months old, were stabbed to death in their homes by two Palestinians who infiltrated the West Bank settlement on March 11, 2011.
Three other children survived.
“We are here in Itamar, not far from the Fogel’s family home, with conflicted feelings in our hearts. There is sacrifice and planting, building and destruction, death and life,” said Rivlin.
“It is out of this storm of feelings, with tears and joy, that we dedicate this temple.”
Rivlin recalled how when Ehud (known as Udi) and Ruth were forced to leave their home in the Gaza settlement of Netzarim, they came to Itamar because they knew how important it was to turn destruction into construction.
They believed very strongly in the power of the Israeli nation to build, he said.
Rivlin called on the government to accelerate building in Judea and Samaria. “We should not wait any longer,” he said.
“One doesn’t need excuses that we need to build in the land of Israel,” Rivlin said.
Building in Judea and Samaria, he added, should be a clear act of government policy and not a reaction to a terror attack.
He was not the only parliamentarian to mix politics with the memorial service.
MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) called on the government to annex Judea and Samaria, while MK Uri Ariel (National Union) said the new house of study was the true “price tag” response of Zionism and Judaism to the forces of destruction.
Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser, other parliamentarians, ministers Yisrael Katz (Likud) and Eli Yishai (Shas) and relatives and friends of the Fogel family were also present at the event.
Separately, President Shimon Peres sent a letter to the Fogel family on Wednesday, marking a year since the brutal murder.
“Ruth, Ehud, Yoav, Elad and Hadas, blessed be their memory.
An entire family. Parents and their young children that were cruelly slaughtered in cold blood at their home in Itamar on the eve of the Sabbath,” Peres wrote. “The year that has passed since that shocking day cannot even slightly serve to dull the terrible pain, the longing and the sorrow.”