Hadar Buchris, 21, who was murdered in a stabbing attack at the West Bank’s Gush Etzion Junction on Sunday, was a student at the Zohar College for Women in the settlement of Bat Ayin.
Hadar originally lived in Beitar Illit, a Chareidi town near Gush Etzion and then went to live in Netanya. She attended schools in Safed and in the Golan Heights, majoring in theater and then completed two years of national service working with disadvantaged children at a Moshav near Tiberias and at a Kibbutz in Beit She'an.
After her national service Hadar decided to tour the Far East, choosing to visit India. She spent a half a year in India and studied for a period at the Chabad House at Pushkar. After her death, the Chabad House published a moving letter that she had left them, thanking them for their warmth and hospitality and for the learning that she had gained while staying there. She ended the letter by writing “Would that we could all spend next Shabbat in Eretz Yisrael together with all the Jewish nation and Mashiach, and she signed off with the words of the song “Even though he (Mashiach) may tarry, despite this I await his arrival every day”.
“Hadar was a fantastic, bright girl. She was always a source of good energy for the whole group,” Ayala Eretz Hazvi, Hadar’s theater teacher from her school in the Golan Heights, told the Ynet news site.
Hadar had arrived back from India just two weeks ago and decided to join the Zohar college in order to strengthen her Jewish knowledge and observance as well as learning a degree. She was described by all as thirsting for knowledge, intelligent and very personable. She was known as a highly empathetic person whose friends used her as a “wailing wall” when they needed someone to hear them out.
Hadar was standing at the junction on Sunday when an Arab terrorist attacked her and fatally wounded her. She died later at the Shaarei Tzedek hospital. Her father, Aryeh, eulogized her, as well as Chief Rabbi Lau who said “The word Hadar appears in the Torah in connection with beauty and joy. But today we ask ourselves: How could an evil man hurt such an innocent soul?”.