October 23, 2008 / 24 Tishrei 5769

Dear Friends,

I would like to share with you a very moving letter which I recently received from Sarit Gomez, whose husband, Daniel Gomez Z"L, was a pilot who was killed two days before the end of the Second Lebanon War.

Sarit Gomez is a young woman who, together with her late husband Daniel, hoped and dreamed of a bright future raising a family in the State of Israel.  The Second Lebanon War cut these dreams short and left her a widow, pregnant with her son who was born three months later.

Sarit is one of the hundreds of families whose loved ones - IDF soldiers and residents of the North - were killed or injured in the war and to whose aid the Jewish Agency's Fund for Victims of Terror came.

This is an opportunity to thank all our partners in the Jewish communities in North America and the Keren Hayesod donors around the world for supporting the Fund of Victims of Terror, whose activity we renewed with the outbreak of war in the North more than two years ago. In addition, I would like to thank Judge Ezra Kama, Chairman of the Fund of Victims of Terror, and the members of the fund for their dedicated work.

Thanks to this generosity and the sense of commitment to the residents of the State of Israel, we were able to help hundreds of families of IDF soldiers and citizens who lost their lives in the war, as well as hundreds of additional families in Sderot and in Gaza strip communities who suffered losses both in life and in property from rocket attacks over the years.

From my many visits to the communities in the North, to Sderot and to the Gaza strip, and from my meetings with families of terror victims, I can vouch for the enormous importance of the activity of the Fund for the sake of those who paid such a high price in the struggle for the security of the State of Israel as well as for the appreciation they feel for the assistance that we extended them in their hour of need.

Sarit Gomez' letter is only one of dozens of letters of appreciation that the Fund is constantly receiving.  Even so, it is particularly moving.

May Sarit's heart be healed and may she and her son enjoy better times.

Sincerely,