TIMES OF ISRAEL
by Renee Ghert-Zand
May 31, 2015

Ofir Shaer gives in to the pain, letting it wash over him. He is like a reed that bends to the wind, rather than a mighty tree that refuses to yield. “People who try to comfort us tell us to be strong. But you can’t be strong in the face of something like this,” Shaer told The Times of Israel over coffee in Modiin late last week, almost a year after the kidnapping and murder of his 16-year-old son Gil-ad by Palestinian terrorists. “We are in the pain. The pain is in us. We are feeling it and we are not pushing it away,” the father said about how he and his family are coping with their loss….“We’ve got to translate the pain into something positive for the future. That’s the way that our coping will have meaning,” he said. To that end, the Shaers, Fraenkels and Yifrachs have established the Memorial Foundation for the Three Boys to promote unity within the Jewish world, both in Israel and in the Diaspora. READ MORE