Rina Ariel

In memory of Hallel Yaffa Ariel

The long road to Kiryat Arba, Nr Hebron, home of the Ariel family, felt more of a pilgrimage than a photo shoot. It was a journey that had begun some 28 months before sitting at my computer desk, when my had been life interrupted by a horrific image. I had been scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when it appeared; the bloodied bedroom of a 13-year-old girl, murdered as she slept for a single reason. She was Jewish. 

The date was June 30th, 2016, and I learned that the child, Hallel Yaffa Ariel was a dancer. She had been performing in Jerusalem the night before, and as she arrived home late, her parents had allowed her to sleep in. She was alone in the house when the 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist climbed in through her window and stabbed her multiple times as she slept. My heart went out to her parents, and I could not shake her image, day or night. She was close in age to my own dancer, my youngest daughter Faith, and so I found connection.

Now, as we bumped our way down the track leading to the Ariel’s home, moments separated my meeting with her mother Rina, in the home where her daughter had died. I felt trepidation. How would I greet her? What could I say?

Since arriving in Israel in October 2018, I had met with three other parents, each of whom had lost a child in a terror attack. Now, finally, it was time to meet the family whose tragedy had set me on this path; an encounter laden with poignancy.

The Ariel’s house was situated below the town of Kiryat Arba, slightly isolated and surrounded by fields. I realised as we navigated, that this had made it easier to for a terrorist to target an innocent 13-year-old girl.

Rina and Amichai met us outside their home greeting us warmly, their youngest daughter with them. Amichai seated us in a small amphitheatre he had built overlooking the vineyards, while Rina brought us grapes from their vineyards. Amichai began to speak, relating the ancient history of the Jewish people in this area. ‘This is the valley of Beit Anot’, translated, the ‘House of Echo or Answering’ found in Joshua 15:59.

He explained how in biblical times the people would sing during the harvest, calling out to one another as they stomped on the grapes. It was a wide valley, filled with harvesters and you could hear every word. Amichai had first visited this place 51 years before as a 10-year-old boy, 5 days after the 6-day war. A resident of Nahariya in the North of Israel, he could not believe the wide terraces filled with grapes. He had been used to seeing bananas and avocados, not vineyards are far as the eye could see. This was the heart of biblical Israel, something special he had not encountered before.

Amichai spoke of nearby Kfar Etzion, founded four times, the first in 1927. People bought land and settled there but were driven out by the Arabs two years later. In 1933 they returned but had to escape the Arabs again in 1936. Survivors of the Holocaust came again in 1943. Five years later the Jews living there were massacred when the town fell in the Independence war, a day before the Declaration of the State of Israel.  20 years later, on the last day of the year, the surviving children of those killed in 1947 founded it again.

Amichai explained;” Why do I tell you this story? Because my daughter was murdered here in this house. I planted this vineyard after she was murdered and named it the “Vineyard of Hallel.”

The night before she was murdered, she came home at midnight after a performance dancing in Jerusalem. Her friends asked her if she was worried to go in the darkness and she said “No, I am not. It is my house; it is my home.”

She taught us that we came back… He continued, stating, “I am standing here because of my mother, a Holocaust survivor. She was 14 years old when she jumped off a train to Treblinka. She was the only survivor from her family and 6000 people from her town were burned. She survived 2 ½ years and because of that I am here. She taught us that we came back.

Only because of that we believe that God brought us back home. My mother and Hallel taught us that we came back. And because of the 4th time that the children founded Kfar Etzion, we believe that this is a very very strong foundationThe meaning of this vineyard is that we are not going to give up.

You can murder us, but we are not going to give up. We came back, after 2000 years, we came back.”

The emotion after Amichai finished speaking was tangible. A heaviness hung in the air between all of us; indescribable sadness at what had occurred right here, in this peaceful place Hallel had loved. I could not imagine how it felt to this man to pour out his heart and open his home to strangers, to explain how he had planted a vineyard in his daughter’s name, how her blood had been spilled on this land. I understood his determination. His family, and his people had suffered so much. They had returned to the land they had been promised thousands of years before, against all odds. The definition of resilience.

Rina picked up the conversation, emphasising that the attack was not a chance, but a ‘purposed sense of evil’. She explained that continuing to live there (in Kiryat Arba) meant a lot to them.

“If you want to know how people deal with terror” she stated, “we understood in the beginning that we have two ways; either collapsing or trying to find a meaning for life through it.”

The Ariel’s have been working hard to find that meaning. Rina showed us a book created for 12-year-old Jewish girls to provide a way for them to connect to who Hallel was. They also designed a beautiful necklace created in memory of their daughter featuring a symbol of the Jewish temple inscribed with a prayer from the Psalms; ‘We also praise you God,’ because Hallel means praise. “It is a symbol of the future”

“We feel it’s a war, it’s a battle between light and darkness, somebody has to win, somebody has to lose. At Hannukah we light candles to fight the darkness and on a personal level we must decide how to fight evil”.

Stressing that these terrorist murders are not mistakes such as, for example,  a car accident,  Rina drew attention to the fact that a 17 year old youth chose to go out and murder a child instead of enjoying his life and planning for his future. She mentioned the murder, just six weeks earlier of Ari Fuld, stabbed to death by a 16-year-old.  “What next?”  She asked, “how young will the next murderer be... 14?”. We can reduce terror, but it needs to be recognised for what it is. “

Hallel Ariel was the first native Israeli in her family- both Amichai and Rina’s families had come from other places. She had wanted to become a vet but after learning she would have to study abroad, she said “No, I want to be like Isaac, because he was the only one born in Israel, who died and never left”. She had loved the land of promise.

The Ariel’s response to the evil that robbed them of their daughter is clear. They will stay and cultivate their vineyards, and not be driven out by terror. They are building on the experiences and hopes of generations of Jewish people before them, including members of their own family. However, they remain realistic. “There is so much to do to stay here” Rina stated, before sharing an analogy which has remained with me since.

According to Jewish law, the fruit from Hallel’s vineyard is only to be used after 4 years as until then it is considered to be Holy to God. So, although they nurture the vines, and can see the fruit, they are unable to use it yet. The grapes remain before them as a promise. One day they know they will be able to eat them.

Before leaving Rina told me that if I wished to stay for a few days she could introduce me to many more victims of terror living nearby;

‘An American lady who lost her son and grandson…terrorists shot a father with his baby… a man murdered while praying in the synagogue …. praying!... a lady lost her husband and son... Today there was a murder. So many families, it is a big problem’. In her daughters’ Shira’s class, a friend’s father was murdered. ‘She is an only child; her mother is Russian. It’s hard, too many stories’.

Her voice trailed off and I watched as my 14-year-old son humoured Rina’s small daughter by playing with her. She had taken him to her bedroom to play, the same bedroom that had arrested me as I scrolled through Facebook one day in June 2016. The bedroom where her 13-year-old sister had been murdered in cold blood. Life continued after terror.

As I said goodbye I felt overwhelmed by the courage and dignity this family showed, their resilience in the face of abject horror and incalculable loss. They embody the incredible spirit of the Jewish people, their love for the God of Israel, the history and the promise the land holds. And I reflected on the life of the beautiful young dancer, Hallel Yaffa, whose tragic death had led me here. May her memory be blessed.