Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, in his Jerusalem office, hosted six 13-year-old boys, representatives of 107 bar mitzvah youths, orphans from all parts of Israel, who prayed together this morning at the Western Wall and who will celebrate their bar mitzvah banquet at Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem. The bar mitzvah project is sponsored by Chabad in Israel.
Prime Minister Netanyahu told the youths: "This is a very moving moment in the life of any Jewish boy. The values that you absorb now will accompany you throughout your lives." The Prime Minister invited the boys into the Cabinet room in order to see the place where the most important decisions in the country are made.
The fathers of two of the six boys were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Yonatan Shok's father, Yosef, was shot and killed on 16.12.05. Neriah Cohen's father David, was shot and killed on 14.7.01.