Zachor

July 31st is the yortzeit of Pardes students, Ben Blutstein z’l and Marla Bennett z’l, who were murdered in the 2002 Mt. Scopus terror bombing in Jerusalem.

Ben and Marla were students in the Pardes Educators Program, which at the time included study at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The Pardes community continues to mourn this tragic loss.

While the video below was created in 2009, it continues to capture the impact that this event had on the Pardes community and the ongoing insistence of the community to create a better world in Ben and Marla’s memory.

Pardes honors their memory annually with two events at Pardes:

1. Yom Iyun Shel Chessed – a day of social action as show in the video above.
2. Programs held at Pardes on Tisha B’Av are dedicated to the memory of members of the Pardes community and their loved ones who were killed in war and acts of terror: Ben and Marla, Pardes alumni Sara Duker z”l and Matt Eisenfeld z”l, who were murdered in a Jerusalem bus bombing in 1996; Pardes faculty member Aryeh Toeg z”l, who was killed in the Yom Kippur War; Yakir Hexter z”l, nephew of Pardes teachers Michael Hattin and Yaffa Epstein, who was killed in combat in Gaza; and Hersh Goldberg-Polin z”l, son of former Pardes board member and staff member Rachel Goldberg-Polin, who was taken hostage on October 7 and murdered in Gaza.

For those interested in supporting Pardes in their memory, gifts can be made here.