David and Achikam

Achikam Amichai and David Rubin were murdered last Friday while hiking in the land they love. Friends and even those that never met them will remember them for their brave actions in fighting off their attackers. Both boys died in the attack, but they managed to kill two of their attackers.

A friend from their community wrote these words...sometimes when words fail me, I find others that express so clearly what needs to be said. Thus it is with David Wilder's words:

Achikam Amichai and David Rubin were warriors. Both served in elite units, one naval and the other air force. They were trained to protect their country, to defend their people, to do whatever necessary to defeat the enemy. They faced a surprise attack, but did not despair. At least two of the terrorists attacking them were killed; perhaps also a third one also. During the battle they fell, but they saved the life of a young woman who was with them. Had they not fought back, had they died without a fight, she too, almost certainly, would have been killed. They knew the odds were against them, but they knew that you do not give up without a fight.

Their love for their land, for their people, for their beliefs, their courage, their very lives, is the quintessential Jew in Israel: this is true leadership; this is the way a Jew should live today.

We may have lost two of the best, but we have, staring us in the eyes, the Jewish Israeli of the future. Not Olmert, Peres, Livni, not Mazuz, Beinish, or Barak, rather people like Achikam and David, they are our future. Achikam means, my brother has risen; David, the eternal King of Israel. Achikam is a brother to all of us, he rose above the everyday drudgery of life, to give his life for his people, for his land, for his G-d. David exemplified the bravery of his namesake.

May their lives and their memories be a blessing upon us all; may we learn from their lives and continue on the path that they laid out before us.

--David Wilder is spokesman for the Jewish Community of Hebron.