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Obama Condemns Terror Attack in Shiva Call to Parents of Ezra Schwartz

President Barack a Obama spoke with the parents of Ezra Schwartz HY”D and offered condolences for the tragic murder of their teenaged son during a phone call on Monday, a White House senior administration official said on Tuesday.

“The President offered Ari and Ruth Schwartz his profound condolences and condemned in the strongest terms the terrorist attack that took his life,” the official said in a briefing to reporters. “The President also underscored that Ezra’s studies in Israel strengthened the bonds between Israel and the United States, and as we mourn his death, those bonds only grow stronger.”

Secretary of State John Kerry also spoke to the Schwartz family on Monday ahead of his short visit to Israel. In statements ahead of his meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin in Jerusalem, Kerry said, “I talked to the family of Ezra Schwartz from Massachusetts, a young man who came here out of high school ready to go to college, excited about his future. And yesterday, his family was sitting at Shiva and I talked to them and heard their feelings, the feelings of any parent who lost their child.”

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