Noting the proximity of Purim to the yeshiva attack, some rabbis have compared the perpetrators to modern-day Hamans or Amaleks
March 10, 2008 National Religious (Religious Zionists), Israeli Religious Right No Comments
Brian Hendler
Mercaz Harav students at funerals on March 7, 2008 grieve for their slain classmates.
Attack cut religious Zionists deeply - JTA, March 9, 2008
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The one with glasses and a wide smile was the brother of a friend, the one with blue eyes and side curls the son of another.
In the close-knit world of religious Zionism, no one feels far removed from the grief for eight young people gunned down while studying Talmud in their Jerusalem yeshiva.
The images of blood-soaked prayer shawls and glass doors riddled with bullet holes, then the eight coffins lined up in a row, have horrified an entire country. But the pain cuts especially deep in the national religious Zionist community, which feels it was specifically targeted.
Its members now are searching for a way their faith can guide them through the mourning.
“Since the attack there is a sense that a darkness has fallen over Jerusalem when usually there is joy in our neighborhoods,” said Tal Weider, 17, a high school student and leader in the local Bnai Akiva youth group.
It was not by chance that the attacker targeted Mercaz Harav, the main yeshiva of national religious Zionism and a birthplace of the settler movement, many here believe.