We honor the memory of Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a crusader and scholar dedicated to the advancement of the Jewish people and Israel, who died on April 17 at the age of 84.

Rabbi Hertzberg lived the cause of love for his fellow man, always fighting to assist the needy and downtrodden, always advancing the liberal credo that we are each our brothers' keeper, that we can and should fight for justice and to relieve suffering. Rabbi Hertzberg came to the United States from Poland as a child in a family of learned Hassidic rabbis. He was ordained in the Conservative movement by The Jewish Theological Seminary. Starting from a post as director of a Hillel chapter at Amherst, he advanced to pulpits in Philadelphia and Nashville and did service in the Air Force chaplaincy. Hetzberg became the rabbi of the respected Temple Emanu-El in Englewood, New Jersey.

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s reaction to the Islamic Jihad terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was odd, to say the least. He said that Hamas needs to understand that such acts “do absolutely nothing to further the process of peace in the Middle East or the two-state solution that we all want to see."

He’s joking, right? Hamas favors neither the “process of peace” nor the “two-state solution.” The “all” as in the “two-state solution we all want to see” does not include the people now running the Palestinian Authority.

As evidenced by Blair’s remark, sometimes this whole issue of terrorism gets way too abstract. Take the phrase “war on terrorism.” Instead of producing an image of actual civilians slaughtered by killers, we think about policy and battle fronts.

Look who was murdered in Tel Aviv the other day:

• Binyamin Hafuta, 47, from Lod, who tried to check the bag that the terrorist then detonated.
  
• Victor Erez, 60, of Givatayim. A grandfather of five.
  
• David Shaulov, 29, Holon. His wife Varda is in her ninth month of pregnancy with their third child.
  
• Phillip Balahsan, 45, Ashdod. When the blast occurred, he embraced and covered his two children to protect them; he died en route to the hospital from shrapnel that penetrated his body.
  
• Lily Yonas, 43, from Oranit.
  
• Ariel Darhi, 31, from Bat Yam.
  
• Boda Firushka, 50, and Roselia Basanya, 48, foreign workers from Romania.

Of course, we cannot continue to pretend that the only innocent people killed in this conflict are Israelis and Jews. In the last few weeks, six Palestinian children died as a result of Israeli shelling in Gaza and the West Bank.

• Mohammed Farid Hassan Zayed, 12
• Bilal Eyad Mohammed Abu al-'Einein, 5
• Hadeel Mohammed Rebee’ Ghaben, 8
• Akaber 'Abdul Rahman 'Ezzat Zayed, 8
• Ra'ed Ahmed al-Batash, 11
• Aya Mohammad Suliman Al-Astal, 9.

Among the speakers will be:

• Elie Wiesel (1986 winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace and Holocaust survivor)
• Ruth Messinger (Executive Director, American Jewish World Service, former Manhattan Borough president)
• Rabbi David Saperstein (Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism)
• Rabbi Steve Gutow (Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs and a member of JSPAN).