New York – For the second year in a row, the Friends of the Young Israel of the West Side has sponsored a billboard in Times Square to commemorate the deaths of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali, the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped and murdered en route home from school in June 2014.
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Located at 47th Street and Broadway, the 15 second ads will run beginning June 3 at approximately the 3, 19, 38, and 51 minute marks on a Clear Channel Spectacolor space. Last year, the shul sponsored the billboard as part of the “Bring Back Our Boys” campaign calling for the safe return of the teens.
Dovid M. Cohen, Esq., rabbi of the Young Israel of the West Side, said he felt it was important to rent the space again “to promote and draw attention to a tragedy that shocked but also unified the entirety of the Jewish people.”
“This has been an incredibly trying year for the Jewish people throughout the world,” Rabbi Cohen said in a statement. “The murder of Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali last summer seemingly opened the flood gates for similar type attacks spanning the globe. Whether the murder of four holy rabbis praying in a Har Nof synagogue in November, or the murder of four Jews on a Friday afternoon in January at the Hyper Cache supermarket in Paris, or the murder of a Jewish security guard outside a synagogue in Copenhagen in February, our people have suffered and been terrorized solely due to our faith.”
According to Rabbi Cohen, the funding of this billboard is a fulfillment of the Jewish “dictum to remember and never forget.” The ads will run through Sunday, June 7.