Baptist leader's daughter, murdered in Haifa bombing, is laid to...

Baptist leader's daughter, murdered in Haifa bombing, is laid to rest
March 10, 2003

Abigail Litle, 14, was one of 16 youth killed by a Palestinian bomber who blew himself up on a Haifa bus on Wednesday. The daughter of a Baptist minister who brought his family to Israel in 1989 when she was seven months old, she was laid to rest in the presence of hundreds of people who gathered in the Christian section of a small cemetery near the Mediterranean shores in Haifa.

U.S. Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, speaking at the funeral, said that Americans and Israelis, as victims of terror attacks, share a common sorrow. "She's a true bridge between our two countries, having been born in the United States and now, eternal rest in Israel," Kurtzer said. "She's a true bridge between our faiths."

"Any culture that deals with its problems by turning to violence and destruction of innocent people on a bus is in need of correction."
Rev. Philip Litle, Abigail's father


The mourners, Christians and Jews, sang "Amazing Grace" in Hebrew and English.

Speaking for her classmates, Sarit Ben-Kiki said Litle had become their "guardian angel."

"We will remember you always," Ben-Kiki said. "We won't forget our angel."

The high school's principal, Zvika Reiter, described Abigail as having been mature for her age and cheerful. Her brother Joshua said, "My sister was a creative girl who loved everyone. Her first love was for humanity, and after that, nature." He added, "She always believed that God loves her and wouldn't let anything happen to her. But in the end the pain and sadness has reached us as well."

Abigail and Yuval Mendelevitch, also killed in the bombing, had been part of the "Children Teaching Children" program at the Jewish-Arab Center for Peace at kibbutz Givat Haviva since last September. The program teaches pluralism, tolerance and coexistence. They and their classmates were preparing for the upcoming encounter with Arab youth from a neighboring town in just a few days.

Leitel's father, Philip, held a Bible and told the mourners in a choked voice of how he chose Abigail's name for its meaning in Hebrew, "father's joy."

After he was appointed to represent the Baptist Church in Israel, they decided to stay and raise their five children in Haifa, ministering to foreigners and local believers. He sent his four children to Israeli Hebrew-language schools.

"For Abigail, it was always that someone be valued as a person, not as an object defined by nationality," the father had said earlier, sharing his agony over having to identify his daughter's body.

Abigail was on the Haifa bus to go to a private lesson in Hebrew after school. She got on the bus at the same stop where the terrorist got onto the bus. The family rushed to Rambam hospital to look for a "wounded" daughter.

Instead, they found Abigail's legs and identified the leg which still had an anklet bracelet attached to her leg. It had been a Christmas gift from the Baptist church in America to Abigail.

His family "lived with the knowledge something like this could happen," he said. "I find grievous problems on both sides," added Litle, a Missouri native. "But trying to correct the problems by blowing up schoolchildren is no solution. What's the point of destroying the lives of civilian people if it really isn't going to change anything?"

Speaking in the family house, full of mourners, he lamented the "lack of love on both sides" but criticized the "cultural problem" among Palestinians that encouraged people to plant suicide bombs.

"Israel does have a problem with Arabs, but the Palestinian response of trying to solve these problems with suicide bombs is no solution at all," he said. "It shows a bankruptcy of the culture and the leadership. Every culture has its own values and beliefs and a way of dealing with problems. Any culture that deals with its problems by turning to violence and destruction of innocent people on a bus is in need of correction."

After the plain wooden coffin was lowered into the ground and covered with soil, each member of the family laid a red rose on the grave.


A Christian girl who professed PLURALISM , TOLERANCE , PEACE .
She was BLOWN into PIECES . She could be identified by one of her bottom legs !
And the mother of the suicide bomber was PROUD of her SON !

What a culture ! duff