Bon Jovi drew close to 55,000 enthusiastic fans to Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park the night of Oct. 3. The preaching by Pink Floyd co-founder and boycott, divestment and sanctions activist Roger Waters, sent Bon Jovi another message the day before his performance declaring that by going to Tel Aviv he was “standing shoulder to shoulder” with “the settler who burned the baby,” but it failed to stop the show. Bon Jovi ignored these entreaties in an elegant way. For over two hours he gave himself to the Tel Aviv crowd and declared that he would come again “whenever you say,” ended the evening by exhorting the fans to “stay safe,” and he knew why.
On the eve of the popular American rocker’s arrival, on Oct. 1, Palestinian terrorists murdered Eitam and Naama Henkin, residents of the West Bank settlement of Nerya, in front of their four children. The children were with them in the car and were miraculously saved. Their oldest son, Matan Hillel, 9, said the Kadish prayer for the dead over his parents’ grave. He is one of four orphans, with the youngest just a few months old.