AJC President Visits Victims of Yeshiva Terror Attack

JERUSALEM, March 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- American Jewish Committee President Richard J. Sideman visited this morning seminary students wounded in last Thursday's terror attack at Mercaz Harav, a yeshiva at the entrance to Jerusalem.

"We come to express personally our deepest sympathies for those murdered and our support for those who survived," said Sideman.

Sideman, accompanied by several members of AJC's Board of Governors, visited with the parents of Naftali Shitreet, 14, who suffered multiple gunshot wounds and lies in the hospital's intensive care unit.

Shitreet's father is the headmaster of an elementary school in Sderot, the city in southern Israel that has been under daily rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Mrs. Shitreet expressed profound thanks for the AJC delegation visiting them at the hospital.

Sideman, who is in Israel as part of the AJC Board of Governors mission to mark Israel's 60th anniversary, interrupted his schedule of meetings to go to the hospital.

In another hospital room, the AJC delegation visited Eliyahu, 29, a student/teacher at the yeshiva who was wounded but is able to sit upright in a chair and engage in conversation with visitors.

"I was wounded but the entire people of Israel was wounded," said Eliyahu. "I hope this kind of event will reinforce the unity of the people of Israel."

Shula Bahat, AJC associate executive director, said, "When there is a terrorist attack in Israel the entire Jewish people is wounded."

The Palestinian terrorist killed eight in the religious school's library.

For Eliyahu's father, Motti, who also spoke with the AJC delegation, his son's survival means "I have a new son."