Madness

The world has gone mad. Completely mad. Hidden evil lurks in many corners of our world these days. We go about our lives as if all is normal because we have no choice.

We have children whom we love and we try our best to protect them. But what happens when a 13-year-old girl is stabbed to death in her own bed? And what if the murderer, who brutally stabbed this innocent child multiple times, is 17 years old?

Netanyahu wrote the following on his Facebook page today:

“You don’t murder a sleeping child for peace. You don’t slit a little girl’s throat to protest a policy you don’t like. You do this because you’ve been brainwashed. You’ve been brainwashed by a warped ideology that teaches you that this child isn’t human. We will not let barbarism defeat humanity."

Barbarism. What has the world come to? 

We have been telling our children to be careful walking on the street, to be aware of people around them, to not speak on cell phones while walking around lest they look vulnerable, inattentive and become a victim.  We ask our children to call us when they arrive at their destination and while they are gone, their safety is always in the back of a mother’s mind.

But what if a sweet child is murdered in her home in her own bed? When summer vacation has only just begun and when the days are long and hot and when a child can finally sleep in just a wee bit later. Or never get up again. Because a child murderer wielding a butcher’s knife breaks into a home with the intent on killing another child while she sleeps.

I cannot get this vision out of my head as the pain is too acute. The horror is too intense to bear. And if I thought I could sleep better knowing my children are all home in their beds, I am wrong.

Yet tonight, my children are all out. All night. One daughter is in Jerusalem. She will be walking back to a friend’s alone at night. Three children are at Leila Lavan, the ‘white night,’ all-night party held once a year on the streets of Tel Aviv. They intend to stay up all night, listen to music, dance and hang out with their friends.

As I said in my last posting, life here will not stop. Two people were just stabbed in Netanya tonight.  And life will not stop. Mothers will feel unease as all mothers do, yet we know our children must live their lives in freedom and not fear.

Our kids yearn to enjoy their summer vacation, to sleep in a bit, to live their young lives fully. And no one in this mad world will take this freedom away from them.