'What will happen to us?'

by Tovah Lazaroff 
Jerusalem Post
July 29, 2002 

"What will happen to us?" asked Tzvi Yehuda Dickstein, 20, 
in the name of his eight siblings orphaned by a terrorist 
ambush outside Hebron Friday in which both his parents and 
his nine-year-old brother Shuv-el were killed. 

"Father, mother, my sweet Shuv-el, how can I talk in the 
past tense of the people I most loved. Suddenly everything 
has stopped in the middle," he told the more than 1,000 mourners 
who gathered yesterday outside Mercaz Harav in Jerusalem. 

As he spoke he stood near the bodies of his brother, his father 
Yosef Ya'acov, 45, and his mother Hannah, 42, which lay on 
benches wrapped in cloth, in the middle of a crowded outdoor 
courtyard. Mourners filled the balconies of nearby apartment 
buildings and lined the street outside, which was closed to 
traffic. 

"Who will be a mother to Adiel," he said of his two-year old 
brother, wounded in the attack. He praised his younger brother 
Shlomo, 12. He was also wounded in the attack but took his 
father's cellphone and called the army for help, even though 
he saw both his parents hit when terrorists sprayed bullets 
at their car. 

His parents, Tzvi Yehuda said, left Jerusalem and moved to 
Psagot eight months ago to strengthen Israel's presence in 
the territories. "You taught us to love the land," he said. 

His father was a teacher who had taught in the Netiv Meir 
Yeshiva and had been affiliated with Mercaz Harav for many 
years. His father's soul, strength, and convictions were 
born in this school, Tzvi Yehuda said. "It was clear the 
funeral had to start here from the place that became the 
cornerstone of our home," he added. 

Only last week his father had told him that he had entered 
a period of peace and contentment. "You knew you had found 
your place in Psagot. Everything you built in the house was 
with an eye to the future. How much you wanted to see us 
become independent and to walk us down the aisle at our 
weddings," he said. 

"We recognize the price you paid for your dreams. We believe 
we are not suffering from a private grief. My mother and 
father didn't die in a car accident or for any sin they 
committed. They were killed in the light of day in front of 
their children, because they were Jews living freely in 
their land that they loved so much and without fear." 

He blamed the government for not doing enough to prevent 
their deaths. 

"My sweet Shuv-el, You were born on a Friday, yours was the 
fastest birth," Tzvi Yehuda said. He recalled that his brother 
was a good friend to his siblings. "You were smart, you loved 
to read. You were killed while you were reading and your 
head fell into the book." 

He recalled how on his father's last night, the two of them 
worked on the succa until 2:30 a.m. "It still wasn't finished," 
Tzvi-Yehuda said. They also studied for two hours together 
on Friday. Tzvi-Yehuda said he was proud that in his studies 
he was following in his father's footsteps. He promised that 
the children would stay together in Psagot. 

"No one asked us if we wanted to be heroes; circumstances 
required us to become strong and with your help we will try 
to be courageous and to continue on," Tzvi Yehuda said. 

"Father, mother, and Shuv-El, they let me see you today, you 
were so calm," Tzvi Yehuda said. "Watch over us," he said 
and named all his siblings. By accident, he included Shuv-El 
in the list of those still among the living. The other 
children are Zofia (19), Ayelet Hashahar (17), Moshe Yedidya 
(16), Renana (14), Shlomo (12), Benaya (4), Shir-el (4), 
and Adiel (2). 

Speaking at the funeral, Yosef Ya'acov's brother Moshe 
recalled a conversation the two had on the eve of Tisha 
Be'av, the day of mourning for the destruction of the 
Temples. "He told me, 'Moshele, I'm focusing these days on 
the issue of sacrifices. We have to be thinking of sacrifices 
for the Temple'... Here," Moshe said, pointing to the bodies, 
"are the sacrifices." 

"You always wanted to know your grandfather," Moshe said of 
his brother, "and now you are with him." 

Yosef Ya'acov's father, he said, was a Holocaust survivor. 
His father's enemies did not succeed in killing him, nor 
will the modern day enemies succeed in destroying the family, 
he said. 

Rabbi Danny Stiskin, in whose Maon home the family had meant 
to spend Shabbat, spoke in a singsong wail of how the table 
was set and his family was waiting for the Dicksteins to 
come to sing the Shabbat songs with them. "Yossi was always 
so happy, so full of stories of his children," he recalled. 

Instead, Stiskin said, he went to the Hadassah-University 
Hospital to be with the nine children, five of whom had 
survived the attack and four others who had not been in the 
attack, but who were brought to the hospital so the family 
could be together for Shabbat. 

"A Shabbat like this, I have never spent," Stiskin said. 

At the hospital, according to Yediot Aharonot, four-year-old 
Shir-el asked "What happens when the dead come back to life, 
will mommy be well and whole?" The children also asked who 
would take care of them. 

After Shabbat they returned home to Psagot. They came to 
the funeral yesterday crying, with their arms around each 
other. Shlomo was in a wheelchair and his arm was bandaged. 

Hundreds came by bus from Psagot to hear the eulogies, 
then returned with the family to bury Yosef Ya'acov, Hannah, 
and Shuv-el in Psagot. 

"Father and mother, you decided this was your place, and we 
have made that true for eternity," Tzvi Yehuda said.