My words at the gravesides of Malki and Michal

What follows below is an English translation of what I said in Hebrew at the modest annual remembrance at Jerusalem's Har Tamir cemetry, standing beside the adjoining graves of my murdered daughter Malki and her closest friend Michal Raziel on August 1, 2018. This was the anniversary, according to the Hebrew (lunar) calendar of the massacre in which their lives ended.

Despite the passage of years and the fading of memories, our pain over the murders of Malki and Michal retains its intensity.

As I have done each year, I mustered up the courage this week to listen again to my daughter Malki's voice. Through her incredibly detailed diary from the last year of her short life, she continues to speak.

I happened upon the entry below. She wrote it two days after a pair of young Jewish women were  murdered en route to the funeral of another terror victim.

From Malki's diary

"In our home-room lesson, I couldn't concentrate. Everything that's happening with this "situation" (המצב - referring to the Second Intifada) really threw me into a deep depression and I was terribly sad. Avigail didn't come because she went to the two funerals and couldn't get out of it. In English lesson, I left in the middle with Shira F. and Miri and we spoke. Shira told us about yesterday's funeral. She spoke in a dreadful manner. She planned her own funeral with us. She says she told her mother that she doesn't want any reporters at the funeral and that she should organize buses with bullet-proof windows so that we can attend. We tried to silence her. It was very frightening."

Of course, it was chilling to read these words.

An additional layer was added to our torment in 2011 when our leaders released Malki's and Michal's murderer and it too has not abated.

Currently, both the US and Israeli governments ignore the fact that the King of Jordan protects that mass-murderer and refuses to extradite her in accordance with the US Justice Department's demands [announced in March 2017 and pursuant to a long-standing treaty between Jordan and the US.]

The two countries maintain friendly, even warm, relations with him despite his granting refuge to an evil villain who has repeatedly confessed and boasted of slaughtering fifteen Jews. Arnold and I have been  tirelessly pressuring the relevant authorities to transfer her to an American court for trial and ultimately back to prison.                       
Our struggle elucidates the Torah's exhortation in Devarim (Deuteronomy), 16:20:

"Justice, justice thou shalt pursue". 

It seems that the word "justice" is repeated because its attainment may often be an uphill battle, demanding perseverance and repetition of efforts over time.

We pray that we will eventually merit the attainment of justice for our precious Malki and Michal.