Yet again, on Thursday night, a knife was thrust deep into the heart of the Jewish people, robbing eight young men of their lives, and hundreds of their loved ones of their joy.

I was putting my children safely to bed when Jerusalem began to sound with siren screams as tens of ambulances converged from around the city.

It has been more than a year since the last major terrorist attack in the capital. I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and we knew.

Late into the night we stayed up, jumping from Israeli to international television stations to follow the story that was shaking the land.

The lifeblood on the seminary library floor had not even congealed before the media had sliced and diced the murderous event, filing it away as an unsurprising and even justifiable response to Israel’s self-defense actions against the “Palestinian” terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip.

Particularly galling were the comments of Israeli leftwing journalist Danny Rubinstein who, in an interview on Sky News, blamed the massacre, not on the Arabs who incited, inflicted and applauded it, but on the Jews who were “occupying” Arab [sic] lands and “indiscriminately” and “criminally” killing “innocent” Arabs.

Self-hatred is a disease that infects the minds of especially left-wing/liberal Jews, making them some of the worst antisemites around.

Misinformation and rumors flew thick and fast around the city. First there were no fatalities, and then there were many. First the attack occurred in a dining room where students were eating, and then it occurred in a library where students were studying. There were two terrorists, but then there was one. A second Arab wearing a “suicide” bombing belt was on the loose - but that turned out to be false.

Other people stayed awake late into the night. People? Human beings? It was hard to see them in that light as they prostrated themselves in Gaza’s mosques, then leaped to their feet in joyous praises, thanking Allah for the “heroic” deed carried out by the killer of Bible-studying kids.

This morning, waves of grief and anger washed over Jerusalem as the eight, shrouded bodies - seven teenagers and one 26-year-old - were laid out on benches in the sun. Thousands gathered outside the seminary, children peering in disbelief at the bullet-peppered windows, as rabbis and officials eulogized the dead.

Their words were heart-rending and, I pray, heaven-rending too.

Rabbi Yaakov Shapira, the head of the yeshiva, fought tears as he spoke:

“This massacre is the continuation of the 1929 massacre [in Hebron] and the blood of the prophet is still boiling. … The murderers are the Amalek of our day, coming to remind us that Amalek has not disappeared, just changed its appearance.

“We are all in need of mercy, the entire country. The time has come for all of us to understand that an external struggle is raging, and an internal struggle, and everyone believes the hour has come for us to have a good leadership, a stronger leadership, a more believing leadership,” he said.

“Pray for all of us and give good counsel to the families, to the anguished friends.”

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar was weeping too:

“We have paid with our best boys, who were sitting by their talmuds … torah was their entire world, they are the roses that have been picked … and God will have mercy on us for their merit.

“You should know, dear families,” he said, addressing those who were so freshly bereaved, “that this is a mourning of the entire house of Israel, as one person and one heart crying as one for the dreadful calamity that has befallen us.”

Addressing the crowd and the Almighty, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski cried:

“Lord, nations have invaded your land, desecrated your holy hall, eight of our sweet loved ones, may God avenge their blood, who only yesterday were living amongst us, are no longer with us. Their lives were severed by lowly murderers … but the murderer did not wish to target them alone, but rather each and every one of us, each and every resident of the holy city of Jerusalem.

“For many years our enemies have been trying to ruin our lives, to harm us as much as they can. Jerusalem has paid heavily in blood, and the long long list was joined last night by our eight sons.”

Another rabbi and school headmaster, Yerachmiel Weiss, spoke in a voice described as breaking with emotion and tears:

“God is just, and His ways are just… We have questions; but the questions are so difficult, so difficult…  How is it possible to eulogize one Torah scholar on Rosh Chodesh Adar?  But two and three, and four, and five…??  Your ways are so hidden, Master of the Universe!  … In Adar, we increase joy - look how much joy You gathered to Heaven!  They were in the midst of studying Torah, such joy, such purity… We have been left with such a hole… I just want to tell You, Master of the Universe, what great people You took: Yehonadav - he gave [nadav, in Hebrew] so much; what purity and simplicity… You took Yochai from us - he lives [chai] in God, what Torah study he did; even while they were setting up for the Purim party, he came to learn Torah… You took Segev Pniel of the Avichayil family - what a family, and what valour [chayil] in Torah! … You took Yehonatan [meaning “G-d gave”] - what prayer, what Torah, what beauty…  You took our dear Avraham David - just two days ago I had a long talk with him in his room - what knowledge he had, what integrity, what music he gave us with his Torah reading… and the youngest, Neriah - the candle of G-d, his light will be missing from us…”

As the bodies were taken away to be buried in their hometowns across Israel, analysts were warning that Israel could be on the verge of another “intifada” or violent Arab uprising, like the one that began in 2000, and took the lives of over a thousand Israelis.

As I write this, the Hamas organization that controls Gaza took credit for the massacre. The question on everyone’s mind now is how will Israel respond?

May it do so in a manner respectful of the spilled blood of these young men, and in a way that will deal a devastating blow to those who would murder more Jews.

It will take a little time, but may the Spirit of God comfort all who mourn in Zion today, console them, give them beauty for the ashes they have been left with, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness that weighs them down tonight.

“For I will turn their mourning to joy, will comfort them, and make them rejoice rather than sorrow.” (Jeremiah 31:13)