Charlie Kirk was a true friend of the State of Israel and a strong believer in the Bible, who was a voice of truth, justice and dialogue on American college campuses. His brutal assassination was a grave loss.
By Rachel Avraham
With great sorrow and deep pain, I learned of the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk, a true friend of the State of Israel and a strong voice for justice on US college campuses. During his brief life, he managed to make a great difference on the American campus scene, defending Israeli students who faced antisemitism at school and fighting against anti-Israel activists during his numerous speaking tours across America.
Although he was only 31 years old, during his brief life, he built up a name for himself as a defender of truth, justice and most importantly, dialogue. At one of his speaking engagements, a leftist opponent challenged him to a duel and he declined, arguing that taking it out with fists is the means of the weak. He claimed that those who take it out with fists are those who cannot defend their arguments with words and thus do not respect the great American value of debate and dialogue. He claimed that it was only through debate that America avoided another civil war, yet his opponents are against debate.
Charlie Kirk was a strong believer in the Bible and was a religious Christian. He did not just defend Israel on campuses, but also had speaking engagements that spoke about a variety of American domestic political issues. On whatever subject he spoke about, he spoke with great passion and conviction. However, he did not speak exclusively about politics. In some of the videos that emerged, he offered marriage advise to young couples and spoke of the Christian concept of love and justice. He encouraged young people not to drink alcohol, to join Bible believing churches and to believe in the sanctity of marriage.
His wife Erika stressed that her husband was a highly ethical man, and a wonderful husband and father. She claimed that every day he used to ask her how he could be a better husband and a better father, and always strived to make her happy. Many women could only dream of having a husband and father so considerate and loving. It is such a tragedy that his two children, age 1 and age 3, will not have memories most likely of their father, and that Erika will not be able to grow old beside her husband, just because a brutal assassin took his life when he was still so young. He did not even live long enough to see his children enter the first grade and walk them to school on their first day.
As a widow with three children who lost their father at age 4, age 5 and age 7, I truly understand how Erika is feeling right now. It is important that everyone pray for the soul of Charlie Kirk and do everything in their power to help Erika and her two children to get through this terrible ordeal. Witnessing the brutal assassination of one’s father, husband is a horrific trauma, which no one should have to go through.
Former MK Yehuda Glick is organizing a joint prayer session of Jews and Christians at the Temple Mount in order to pray over the soul of Charlie Kirk. In Israel, a traffic circle in Netanya was renamed in memory of Charlie Kirk, and an Israeli artist painted a mural in memory of the American political activist. On the beaches of Tel Aviv, one sand artist made a shield with a cross and a shield with a Star of David, and declared that the sand art was in memory of Charlie Kirk. Israeli officials and activists, from the Prime Minister downwards, have all condemned the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk and offered condolences to his family. For the entire Jewish people, the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk was a grave loss.
Yehuda Glick, who himself survived an assassination attempt, told Arutz Sheva: ““Who are the people that are targeted for assassination? It’s people who believe in freedom of speech, but at the same time, people who have a truth, who have a set of values, who have a set of faiths that they believe in, and they feel free to speak up about it. These are the people who are unfortunately victims of cowards who take a gun into their hands because they don’t have any other way of competing or challenging the truth. The only way they can do it is from weakness.”
He described Kirk as a symbol of what he called a “miraculous phenomenon”—the growing alliance between Christian supporters of Israel and the Jewish state. “Charlie Kirk is a reminder of how many friends Israel has in the world, and specifically in the Christian world,” Glick said. “He was a man who lived out the values of the Bible – values of family, values of the importance of love between husband and wife, values of the importance of a family and raising children.”
Photo from Gage Skidmore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#/media/File:Charlie_Kirk_&_Foster_Friess_(51208891245).jpg
