Terror Victims Share Grief and Strategies for Healing

The Fellowship  |  May 10, 2016

As Israel and her people prepare to observe Yom HaZikaron – Israel Memorial Day – tonight at sundown, it is important to remember the people – the husbands and wives, the brothers and sisters, the sons and daughters – who have been lost in terror attacks, as well as the profound pain and grief faced by the loved ones they leave behind. The Times of Israel’s Renee Ghert-Zand reports on an event hosted yesterday by The Fellowship that sought to bring healing to families affected by terror:

Manya Lakin’s office is right next to the main Magen David Adom building in Jerusalem. Ambulances are constantly being dispatched from the area, and every time she hears a siren she jumps. She automatically checks her phone for news of a possible terror attack, just as she did the morning of last October 13, when the emergency vehicles were responding to an attack by Palestinian terrorists on a bus in the capital’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood.

Lakin’s 76-year-old father Richard, was on that bus. He was shot and stabbed by the terrorists and died two weeks later from his wounds.

“The trauma of what happened is with me all the time, but I’m carrying on with my regular routine. I may jump at every siren, but I’m functioning,” Lakin told The Times of Israel as she prepared to visit her father’s gravesite on Wednesday, Israel’s Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror.

Getting on with life despite the devastating physical and emotional effects of terror was the predominant theme at a Memorial Day event hosted Monday evening in Jerusalem by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. It was attended by Lakin and many other recipients of grants for terror victims given by the organization since the beginning of the current terror wave last fall…