Eight names gape at me,

eight names in big, bold, black letters

stare from posters plastered along the City’s cobbled streets.

Doron Meherete, twenty-six, from Ashdod –

was he my friend’s brother?

I phone her.

He was her parents’ neighbor, not their son.

I’m happy.

I groan.

Eight boys, Doron Meherete, 26, Yehonadav Haim Hirshfeld, 19, Roi Roth, 18, Yochai Lifshitz, 17, Yonathan Yitzchak Eldar, 16, Avraham David Moses, 16, Segev P'niel Avihail, 15, and Neriah Cohen, 15, were murdered in the shooting at Jerusalem's Mercaz Harav Yeshiva on Thursday night, Rosh Hodesh Adar II 5768, 6 March 2008