Rabbis print Jewish scripture on ruins of Sderot police station; terrorist’s body found after 40 days

Cnaan Lidor is The Times of Israel's Jewish World reporter

Rabbi Moshe Zeev Pizam near the demolished Sderot police station, November 23, 2023. (Canaan Lidor/Times of Israel)
Rabbi Moshe Zeev Pizam near the demolished Sderot police station, November 23, 2023. (Canaan Lidor/Times of Israel)

On the rubble-strewn lot of what used to be the police station of Sderot, several rabbis guide a wheel-mounted printer hooked up to a sputtering generator.

Behind them, police sappers work to extract the remains of a terrorist whose decomposing body was only discovered today, 40 days after a team of Hamas terrorists murdered dozens of people in Sderot as part of the group’s October 7 onslaught in southern Israel, in which some 1,200 victims died.

Rabbi Moshe Zeev Pizam, an envoy for the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, presses the print button and the machine produces an A3-sized copy of the Tanya, or Likutei Amarim — a volume of scripture that is the magnum opus of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, who died in 1812.

“This was a place of great darkness,” Pizam says of the former police station, which Israeli troops torched after terrorists took control of it. “So we are bringing light to where it’s needed.”

It’s a relatively quiet day in Sderot, a favorite target of rocket launchers in Gaza, but which has hardly seen any inbound projectiles today. Locals who had stayed away because of the rockets return here to inspect their houses, thinking that a ceasefire is in effect. (It is not: Its going into effect was postponed by one day from today to tomorrow.)

But that’s not the reason for the printing ceremony’s timing. It is happening because this week is believed to be the same Hebrew Calendar week as the passing of Dovber Schneuri, the successor and son of Liadi, Pizam says.

“Look, this place just became better lit,” he says as he downs a shot of whiskey, pointing to the sappers, who are removing the terrorist’s remains after confirming they are not boobytrapped.

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