No one wants him, and who can blame them? The family of mass murderer Eden Tzuberi/Natan Zada is having trouble finding a place to bury him. Rishon LeZion, where he lived, won't permit it. Neither will Tapuach, where it turns out he didn't.
A statement issued by the Tapuah settlement, where Zada had spent much of his time recently, said "there is no reason to bury someone who is not a resident" in the settlement, thereby preempting any attempts to bury Zada there.
After consultations with Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh, the settler leadership decided not to allow Zada to be buried in Tapuah.
Unconfirmed reports stated that Zada would be buried in the Kirya Arba cemetery.
I've long maintained that the Jewish community tends to go overboard to distance itself from the rotten elements in its midst. It's an interesting phenomenon, especially when compared to the responses of other ethnic, religious and national groups under similar circumstances. Some habitually claim it was a set-up, others shrug and say "so what," still others justify and rationalize. And of course each community, including ours, contains all of these elements.
The loudest collective and official Jewish voice you'll hear in the coming days, however, will be the one crying "terrorist! yes, a terrorist!," the one trying to attach the perpetrator to the farthest edges of the extremist fringes, insisting "he's not one of us!," the one beating its breast over our collective guilt at having spawned someone who could do such a thing, the one claiming there is no difference between Natan Zada and a suicide bomber.
Some of these responses are of course legitimate. But there is a difference. A huge difference. This man was a sick, tormented individual. The community he was trying to embrace condemns and rejects him. No group or organization dispatched him on this horrific mission, though it appears a few teenagers (!) knew about it. This was mass murder and a senseless hate crime, to be sure. We should be angry, we should be outraged, and we should insist that everything possible be done to ensure that nothing like it ever happens again.
But it wasn't terrorism.
Calling it that just dilutes the meaning of the term. It shouldn't make us feel better and, sorry, it won't win us any points with those who are eagerly seizing on this as evidence that we are "just like them." Read and compare.
