GILAD SHALIT'S BROTHER YOEL THANKS CAMP MASSAD FOR SONG

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Camp Massad campers and staff sing song for Gilad Shalit, August 2010.

Camp Massad Executive Director Danial Sprintz

Yoel Shalit
israelnetwork.ca

GILAD SHALIT'S BROTHER YOEL THANKS CAMP MASSAD FOR SONG

Says was very moved by You Tube video of song written at Massad for return of Gilad from captivity

By Sophie Yoot, February 9, 2011

Last August, during Camp Massad’s end of session Maccabia program, several counselors got together and wrote a song in Hebrew about captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. Last week, Gilad Shalit’s brother, Yoel, had the opportunity to view the song on YouTube and then took the time to write the campers and staff of Camp Massad a thank you message.

The YouTube video came to Yoel Shalit’s attention via Meital Nir-Tal, an Israeli woman who spent a summer working as a counselor at Massad in 2002 as part of an Israeli leadership training program. When Massad Executive Director Danial Sprintz, who had worked with Meital the summer she was at camp, posted a facebook link to the Gilad Shalit video recently, he messaged Meital to watch it. Meital did, and then excitedly told Danial that she was close friends with Yoel and would forward the video link to him.

After watching the video of the song, Yoel Shalit wrote to Massad that he was very moved and very grateful to the camp for thinking of his brother.

“The fact that people around the world still care for him means a lot to me and my family,” he said. It gives us strength to go on and fight for his release.

"Please keep on thinking and doing things for him, you never know where help may come..."

The Camp Massad song about Gilad expresses the hope that he is alive and soon will be returned home safely. It has been viewed by more than 5,000 people and been taught in Jewish day school classes. It can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6a0B9SwP5M

For further information about Camp Massad – a Hebrew immersion summer camp that celebrates Jewish life and a connection to Israel in every moment of every day -– visit www.campmassad.ca

[Editor's note: Gilad Shalit has spent 1691 days in captivity as of Febraury 9, 2010. According to Arutz Sheva Israel National News , on Friday Jan. 21, French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie was attacked by a mob in Gaza who were enraged over statements she had allegedly made the day before supporting human rights for kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Alliot-Marie was mobbed as she entered Gaza, with a crowd surrounding her car, pounding on its windows, and throwing shoes at the vehicle. .

Hamas police eventually stopped the protest. Hamas leaders expressed sympathy with the rioters, saying Alliot-Marie's comments regarding Shalit reflected a “total bias toward Israel.”

A day earlier, Alliot-Marie, who was not hurt in the attack had met with the parents of Gilad Shalit. Gilad Shalit holds French citizenship. Alliot-Marie assured his parents that “France has not forgotten Shalit,” and said she would insist that the European Union ask Hamas to allow Red Cross representatives to visit Shalit, as required by international law.

According to AFP, trying to 'justify' the incident, the Gaza mob may have mistakenly believed that Alliot-Marie termed Shalit's captivity a “war crime.”

Shalit's father Noam had called on France to push the EU to condemn the kidnapping as a war crime, and his statement was wrongly attributed to Alliot-Marie on Israel Radio's Arabic-language website, an AFP reporter said. This has not been corroborated.]

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Rhonda Spivak, Editor

Publisher: Spivak's Jewish Review Ltd.