Leon Klinghoffer's daughters to take part in memorial service

Wheelchair-bound 69-year-old was murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the 1985 hijacking of Italian cruise ship.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
The two daughters of Leon Klinghoffer will participate in a special memorial service for their late father on Wednesday in Jerusalem, as Israel marks Remembrance Day for its fallen soldiers, officials said Sunday. The 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound Klinghoffer was murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro; his body and wheelchair were dumped overboard. The Wednesday morning ceremony, which is being organized by the Jewish Agency for Israel, will commemorate both Jews and non-Jews killed in terrorist attacks directed against Israeli or Jewish targets outside of Israel. More than 200 people have been killed in such attacks since the establishment of the state, more than half of them in Argentina, which suffered two terrorist attacks in the 1990s. The memorial event will take place in the courtyard of the Jewish Agency headquarters in Jerusalem. "The attack on the Achille Lauro was symbolic because it was something that hit home what Israel is facing," said Jewish Agency spokesman Michael Jankelowitz. During their visit, Klinghoffer's two daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, who live in Manhattan, will meet with US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones, as well as Jewish Agency chairman Ze'ev Bielski, who initiated the trip. Klinghoffer, a retired appliance worker from New York, was celebrating his 36th wedding anniversary with his wife Marilyn when he was killed. Just months after her husband's murder, Marilyn Klinghoffer died of colon cancer. After their father's death, his daughters established the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation with the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, which aims to combat terrorism through educational, political and legal means.