The funeral today in Israel of Elan Ganeles is a moment to reflect on the intimacy in which America and Israel — and our city — are linked. An American graduate of Columbia University, Ganeles, a native of Connecticut, according to wire and other reports, was  killed two days ago by terrorists who shot him at close range. The terrorists then burned their car and fled on foot to Jericho, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority.

Ganeles had attended the Hebrew Academy at West Hartford and was graduated from the Hebrew High School of New England. While a student at Columbia, according to the various reports, he worked as a geospatial analyst at the university’s Center for International Earth Science. He’d served in the IDF for two years and was living at Manhattan. He’d returned to Israel for a friend’s wedding, only to be shot while in a car.

The murder has struck a painful chord with millions of New Yorkers, starting with Mayor Adams, who issued a statement declaring that Ganeles “was a New Yorker,” calling the loss of Ganeles a tragedy, and saying that “his generation deserves a world free of terror, a world where we stand up in the face of hate and reject the forces who divide us.” Said His Honor: “We stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel.”

Yet we note that the murder has received scant coverage in the press, whose focus has fallen away from the human dimension of the terror attacks in Israel. There was, though, a vigil in respect of Ganeles Tuesday on the campus at Morningside Heights. His mother, Caroline, speaking at his funeral in Israel, called his death “a loss for the world.” May his family and friends be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.