‘Pray for all of them’

Don’t get me wrong. I think it would be very nice if Gilad Shalit were freed and sent back in good health to his home and family (Opinon, July 23). And I think it’s also very nice that so many people support the same thing. But is Gilad Shalit the only Israeli soldier who has been captured or is missing? What about Zecharia Baumel, Tzvi Feldman, Yekutiel Katz, Ron Arad, and Guy Chever? Aren’t they among those who are missing and being held in who knows what terrible conditions? What makes Gilad Shalit so important that we ignore the others?

My rabbi, Shammai Engelmayer of Temple Israel Community Center in Cliffside Park, thinks that this is patently unfair and I agree with him. He argues against singling out one man to the exclusion of all the other captured Israeli soldiers. They should all be given the same level of support because they all deserve to be released. In our shul, we pray for all of them every week, not just one of them only, and not just once a year.

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