The Sabbath was almost over. I sat on the curb with another girl as we watched the evening fall and waited for our fathers to return from the synagogue. “Ehud Barak told Arafat we're going to war1” she blurted. I recalled the phone conversations I overheard before our move. “We need to pray,” I said, “and say Tehillim” added my new friend.
The stars came out in the sky and the day of rest was over. I climbed the stairs to our apartment. “Ema, my friend said there’s going to be a war here. We need to say Tehillim”.
In my mind, I pictured a biblical war of armies battling face to face. But what we got was very different. For nearly five years, the second Intifada raged. Explosives were planted in crowded and confined spaces full of civilians like buses and marketplaces. Rocks were hurled at vehicles on the road and tossed off the temple mount at those praying beneath, with deadly consequences. Snipers even picked off innocents in the street as they arrived home from work.
On the rare occasions we took the bus I was trained to look beneath the seats for a “chefetz chashud” - suspicious objects left unattended. Charity pamphlets delivered to our door displayed the faces of victims and their families, complete with blood spatter graphics.
Terror got really close during our summer of 2001 visit to the Sbarro restaurant. An uncle was in town from the US, and our entire family went to Jerusalem for pizza at the Sbarro. We walked along Jaffa Road and complained about being tired. Father said we were nearly there at the intersection of Jaffa and King George.
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