Itongadol.- Crying, Rena Ariel caressed the blue shroud covered body of her daughter Hallel Yaffa, 13, before uttering her final parting words, to the girl who had been a brilliant student and who loved to dance.
“I am giving you one last hug,” Rena said on Thursday evening as she eulogized Hallel in front of the hundreds of mourners who filled the small public grass lawn, just a short walk away from their home in the West Bank Kiryat Arba settlement.
Just the night before, Hallel had performed in Jerusalem with Harikod dance troop. In the morning she slept late. She was alone in the house when a Palestinian teen, Mohammad Tarairah, 17, snuck in her bedroom through an open window and stabbed her to death.
At the funeral, Rena called out to Tarairah’s mother.
“I am standing here with a heart filled with pain and I am turning to you, the Arab mother, the Muslim who sent your son out to stab,” Rena said as she raised her arm and pointed her finger in the air.
“I raised my daughter with love, but you and the Arab Muslim educators, you taught him to hate. Go, put your house in order,” she as she shook with anger.
It was one of the few moments in the brief eulogy in which she was not crying as she spoke.
With her eyes to the sky, she called out to God and asked, “How do you eulogize a 13-and-a-half year old girl. Tell me what words to use to eulogize a flower, a pure soul, who is courageous and beautiful. Your only sin was that you were almost perfect,” Rena said.
She recalled how she had struggled and finally succeeded in giving birth to Hallel.
“You were a ray of light in my life. You were the one who turned me into a mother.” To God, she said, “you gave me a present and now I am returning it to you.”
She was certain, Rena said, hat her daughter would go straight to heaven and would be close to God’s seat of honor.
“Take her. She is the flesh of our flesh. Hug her, because I will never gain be able to touch her. Make room for her, so she can dance,” Rena said.
But she noted that there had been so many terror victims, particularly from Kiryat Arba, that had similarly risen to be close to God, that was getting crowded.
“There isn’t any more room there,” Rena said.