Tag Meir anti-racism group prays for surviving members of Dawabshe family in hospital

“Repentance and atonement is required for the desecration of God’s name that was done in Kfar Duma,” chairman of organization says.

By JEREMY SHARON
Updated: AUGUST 18, 2015 14:36
The burnt remains of the Dawabsha family home in Duma where a fire engulfed the house after a molotov cocktail was thrown at it (photo credit: ZAKARIA, RABBIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS)
The burnt remains of the Dawabsha family home in Duma where a fire engulfed the house after a molotov cocktail was thrown at it
(photo credit: ZAKARIA, RABBIS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS)
Members of the Tag Meir anti-racism organization, along with representatives of the Beit Tefilla Israeli egalitarian community in Tel Aviv, visited Monday the two survivors of the Dawabsha family’s arson attack last month, in which father Sa’ad Dawabsha, 32, and his 18-month-old son Ali, were both killed.
Riham Dawabsha, Sa’ad’s wife, and their four-year-old son Ahmed are still being treated for burns at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer.
Representatives from the two organizations visited the hospital and conducted the traditional slihot prayers of repentance, said during the current Jewish month of Elul, and prayed for the recovery of Riham and Ahmed.
The organization said the prayer service was being conducted “for the sin of hatred, and the desecration of God’s name that was caused as a result of the murder [of Sa’ad and Ali],” and that the prayers were said for “the recovery of those injured by hate crimes and racism from both nations.”
Tag Meir also appealed to the government to find the perpetrators of the attack, who, they said, “threaten the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.”
Riham’s father, Hussein Dawabsha, was also present at the prayer ceremony and thanked those who had come for participating and giving encouragement and support to the family and his daughter and grandson.
He added that Riham had undergone surgery on Monday and is now stable, while Ahmed’s condition had also improved and he is now talking.
It is suspected that the attack in the village of Duma, close to the West Bank city of Nablus, was carried out by Jewish terrorists.
Tag Meir chairman Gadi Gavrihu recounted a list of incidents of incitement and violence against Palestinians and criticized the government for failing to deal with them adequately, in the form of a High Holy Day prayer.
“Repentance and atonement is required for the desecration of God’s name that was done in Kfar Duma,” said Gavrihu. “For the sin we have sinned for the desecration of God’s name in the murder in Kfar Duma and on the desecration and arson of 43 churches, mosques and monasteries, for which only one suspect in a single incident was brought to justice.”
Gavrihu also recalled the controversial book The King’s Torah, written by two rabbis from a yeshiva in the settlement of Yitzhar in 2009, which states that non-Jewish non-combatants, including children, may be preemptively killed in a time of war.
Gavrihu criticized the Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein for deciding not to indict the authors for incitement.
Rani Jaeger, the chairman of the Beit Tefila Israeli organization, said, “We are standing here to rectify this and to raise up on a banner the sanctity of life of all people as human beings in this land.”