Rose

The story goes as follows.Benjamin meets Marie in Paris. They have a baby, Rose, both have not yet turned 20. Benjamin, Marie and Rose, the baby, travel to Israel to meet Bejamin's estranged father, Ronny Ron. Marie falls in love with Ronny Ron, she boots bennie so Bejamin and Rose, the baby, return to Paris. Benjamin has trouble raising the child on his own and turns her over to the welfare system. A year later, learning that Rose has been hospitalized, apparently due to neglect and abuse, Marie and Ronny Ron bring the child back to Israel.

Rose's mother and step-father Ronny (also her grandfather) soon discover the child is difficult to deal with. She has severe speech and behavioral problems. So they leave the child with Ron's mother, Vivien for most of the day (the child's grandmother and great-grandmother). Not even Vivien wanted the child and repeatedly demanded that the parent's stop bringing her over. Finally on May 12th, Ron and his mother Vivien, had a "bitter" fight over the child. Ron grabbed the child's clothing in a suitcase and stormed out of his mother's house. No one has seen the suitcase or the child since.

It took three months for the welfare authorities to figure out that the girl was missing. Ron, the child's father/grandfather, told the authorities that the child was at an "institute in France". The same story he apparently told his wife, and she "believed him". It seems Ron murdered his daughter/granddaughter because she was a hassle, possibly with urging by the child's mother.

On questioning, various stories of what happened to Rose have surfaced. Ron first claimed he had dumped the suitcase in the Yarkon river, then that he had handed her over to the Bratslav Yeshiva, then he sold her to the Palestinians, put her in a convent in France, dumped her in the dunes near Rishon Letzion.

What is so remarkable about this story is how its gripped the whole nation. Everyone knows what is going on. Everyone has theories. I came into work a bit later this morning after WeightWatchers (combined loss of 3.2Kg for the week), and the radio is running open-mike following the police dredging the Yarkon, just as they do after a terrorist attack. Its almost farcical. People glued to their TVs and radios as the police pull old tires, barrels of toxic waste and old refrigerators from the cesspool that is the Yarkon. Apparently the 9pm TV news started a quarter hour early last night to cover the story.

Its one of the quaint things about Israel. There's a sort of national naivety when it comes to murder and the depth of human deprivation. People are honestly outraged and shocked that this kind of thing, things we read about happening in the US and Europe, can happen here. Israelis cannot accept that other Israelis could lock their children up in cellars for years, commit long term child abuse or take the murder of children for granted. I, who certainly has no trouble criticizing what I dislike here, find this cultural quirk very healthy.