More Lies

It was widely reported that Rachelle Fraenkel, mother of one of the three murdered teenagers last year, told a group of teenaged girls at the Kosel, after the kidnappings that “God is not our servant,” and “Prayer is worthy, no matter what the outcome.”

It turns out that she was preparing them for what she already knew to be true, that her son was dead.  It has been reported that "the parents knew with near certainty from the start of their ordeal last year, that their sons had been murdered, and yet they held themselves together and presented faces of hope, as if to strengthen the rest of us, until their sons were found," writes Jonathan Rosenblum.

Last year, I wrote here about being lied to, but now there is the additional point that the parents themselves knew the truth.  I feel even more used than before, when I thought the IDF was hiding the information, even from the parents.

All the prayers and mitzvah commitments were misdirected toward finding the boys alive, and the parents were part of the deception.  Mrs. Fraenkel's statement to the girls was based on knowledge that she had, and the girls did not.  The Washington Post quoted her as saying, "“We believe the children are alive, that they will be brought back to us.  We believe they’re hiding them someplace. I don’t like to think about that, where they’re hiding them. I like to think about them coming home.”  But according to Rosenblum this was not true.