JWR Wandering Jews

Jewish World Review March 4, 2002 / 20 Adar, 5762

JERUSALEM DIARIST



"Where's My Baby?
Where's My Arm?"


http://www.jewishworldreview.com | Chana had just heard the havdala ceremony from the rejoicing fathers and uncles of her nephew, the bar mitzvah boy. The family was in Jerusalem for the Sabbath to join with their relatives for the simcha, joyous event. The women and children were gathered outside the guest house in the Beis Yisrael section of Mea Shearim. In the Toldos Aharon area, the Chassidic communal tisch was still going strong, even though it was one hour after the end of the Sabbath in Jerusalem.

Suddenly the explosion around the strollers and kids playing jump rope lit up the street. Chana had just walked over to kiss her 70 year old mother with a shavua tov, "good week," kiss. As they embraced, the bomb went off near where the children were playing on this street closed to vehicular traffic on the Sabbath.

Chana screamed as she heard and saw the orange ball of fire grow near the kids. This was the result of the suicidal bomber setting off his bomb. Chana raced over to the area only 40 feet from where she had just embraced her mother to find the children.

The car that was parked there, began to catch fire while it blew up from the flames of the bomb. Chana was thrown to the floor as her clothing was on fire. The children around her were crying in the darkness, "Eema!" (Mommy). There, screams in Yiddish and in Hebrew by the mostly under 10 year olds who had been playing outside while their older brothers were singing with their fathers inside the hall, filled with zemiros, liturgical songs of seudas shlishi. Chana rolled around until she was able to douse the flames on her Sabbath suit.

Chana felt blood coming from her shoulder and realized that her hand was severed at the elbow. "Where's my arm, where's my arm?" Miriam Esther, her 2 year old, had fallen asleep in the stroller about 15 minutes before the bomb in Meah Shearim. Miriam Esther and Chana were now separated as the Eema, mother, cried in pain without half of her hand as she listened to the screams of her 2 year old who was burning in her stroller.

Chana woke up at Shaarei Zedek Hospital a few hours ago. She has talked to the nurses to find out about Miriam Esther. The tear on her husband's clothing of his kaftan (Sabbath garb) as he stood near her bedside confirmed that Miriam Esther had burned to death.

The toddler was named after a great grandparent of Chana's whom had burned to death in Auschwitz in 1943. The baby Miriam Esther would be buried in the early hours of Jerusalem's Sunday in Har Menuchos cemetary. The bar mitzvah celebration of their relatives has now been extended to hospital visits, shiva mourning houses, and long months of rehab for the victims.

There are over 25 children under the age of 13 who are in critical and moderate condition from their post havdala terror experiences. There are 9 funerals in the next few hours which are being planned here.

As the Arabs danced all night in Ramallah and in Gaza for these Jewish kids who are burning throughout their bodies, the Arabs have now completed their heinous murders of Jews here.

There is no difference between a "settler," "soldier," "secular," or "Chassidic Jew." The target is the JEW.

  —   Harvey Tannenbaum,
Watching the children burn in their strollers in Meah Shearim

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© 2002, Harvey Tannenbaum