Terror attacks in Israel are not unusual. It is appalling that anyone should have to live with such a reality, but that remarkable country and its citizens bear the burden well.

But this week’s double bombing in Jerusalem is especially concerning because it is of a different order of sophistication and magnitude from the knife and gun atrocities that have become the norm in recent years. They have tended to be one-off sudden attacks from individual terrorists.

This week’s bombs, however, are reminiscent of a form of terror not seen since the Second Intifada, requiring planning and coordination — and raising the spectre of an escalation in Palestinian terror.

Above all, the murder of 16 year old Aryeh Shtsupak brings home what so many of us feel in our bones: that Israelis are our kith and kin, often literally our family members and friends. When they are attacked, we worry. When terror strikes, we stand with them.

To reduce the diaspora’s relationship with Israel to some sort of political calculus, as some have done recently, entirely misses the point. We love Israel for one simple reason: that it is Israel, the eternal home of our people.