Rest in Peace, Leon Klinghoffer

When Leon Klinghoffer's name was read as part of the yahrzeit list at yesterday's minyan, I was reminded of this blog post that I wrote several years ago at this season.

Today, one day before the opening of the Metropolitan Opera's "The Death of Klinghoffer," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released this statement by Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, the daughters of Leon Klinghoffer, which will be featured in the playbill.　

May Lisa and Ilsa continue their sacred work to "educat[e] the world about terrorism, and put a personal face on the victims and their families." Most of all, may Leon and his beloved Marilyn rest in peace.

How Little Things Have Changed…

Perusing the weekly Shabbat handout before the start of yesterday’s minyan at my congregation, I noticed the list of people whose memorial lamps had been lit in the sanctuary the night before.  As a still fairly new member in a synagogue of almost 1600 families, I was not familiar with most of the names.  I was, however, familiar with this one:  Leon Klinghoffer.

You remember him, too, I’m sure.  Wheelchair-bound following a series of strokes, he and his wife Marilyn cruised on the ill-fated Achille Lauro in 1985 to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary.  While in the Mediterranean, the ship was hijacked by four members of the Palestine Liberation Front, and Klinghoffer was shot and his body thrown overboard.  Last year, Youssef Magied Al-Molqui, the terrorist convicted in the hijacking and shooting of Klinghoffer was released early from a Sicilian prison, having served 23 years of a 30-year sentence.

Ironically, this news item appears in today’s online edition of the New York Times. How little, it seems, things have changed in 25 years…