Ephraim Ayubi

2/23/5754

Ephraim Ayubi (also spelled Ayoubi) was a founder of Kfar Darom in the Gush Katif region where he lived with his wife Lemima and four childre. He had a tomato greenhouse and sicne 1984 worked as the personal driver for the revered Rabbi Haim Druckman since 1984. Ephraim was the son of Kaor and Aharon and was raised in Moshav Zerahiah. 
 
He was murdered on Sunday morning November 7, 1993 by terrorists while traveling near Hebron to Kiryat Arba. He was 30 years old when he died. Rabbi Druckman suffered bullet wounds in the arm and shoulder in the attack.
 
Ephraim was laid to rest in Jerusalem. His wife, pregnant at the time, gave birth five months after his murder. His fifth son was born and named after him - Avihai Ephraim.
 
A demonstration followed the funeral of Ayubi, which was attended by several thousand mourners, among them rabbis and political leaders from several parties, JTA news reported. 
 
Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing in a phone call to a news agency, the Washington Post reported. In Syria, a spokesman for the Damascus-based wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine also claimed responsibility.
 
The Los Angeles Times reported on the funeral: 
 
"The rabbis wept as they prayed, their voices high and hoarse. The keening of the women began softly, like the cooing of doves, then swelled into full-voiced sobbing. In the crowd, a dotted sea of yarmulkes, men’s tears slid down to mingle with their beards. 'May this evil murder of today raise a terrible, bitter cry,' intoned Rabbi Haim Druckman. 'How long?'
The hundreds of settlers and Orthodox Jews who marched through Jerusalem on Sunday in the funeral procession of Ephraim Ayubi, 30, were participating in a ritual that was supposed to have become obsolete. When Israel signed a virtual peace pact with the Palestine Liberation Organization almost two months ago, that was supposed to have meant the end of terror against Israeli Jews. Instead, Ayubi on Sunday became the 11th Israeli to be killed by Palestinian opponents of the pact in recent weeks."
 
PALESTINIANS SHOOT RABBI, KILL DRIVER - Washington Post