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August 17, 2001/Av 28, 5761, Vol. 53, No.45
Bomber claims sabras, immigrants alike
GIL HOFFMAN AND ENID WEISS
New Jersey Jewish News
WHIPPANY, N.J. - Hundreds of friends, family members, classmates and former students of Shoshana Greenbaum were among those gathered at Har Hamenuchot Cemetery in Israel to pay their last respects.
Greenbaum, 31, of Passaic, N.J., was five months pregnant. Buried Aug. 10, she was one of 15 people who died Aug. 9 when a suicide bomber entered a crowded Jerusalem pizzeria and detonated a large bomb packed with nails to maximize its lethal effect.
Greenbaum's husband, Shmuel, had returned to the United States two days before the attack, after spending the summer with her in Jerusalem, where Greenbaum attended a summer program for students seeking master's degrees in Jewish education.
Shmuel Greenbaum returned to Israel for the Aug. 10 funeral, then left again the evening of Aug. 11.
Greenbaum's parents could not make it to Israel before the Sabbath so the family, after consulting their rabbi, decided to hold the funeral, without her parents. They plan to go to Israel to mark the end of shloshim, the traditional 30-day mourning period.
"She spent her whole life helping people," Benuck said of Greenbaum. "She was beautiful inside and out."
Shoshana Hayman, Greenbaum's aunt, described her as a passionate teacher whose love of her profession inspired a love of learning in her students.
Hayman hoped that his niece's death would serve as a wake-up call for Diaspora Jews to move to Israel.
It doesn't matter to Arabs whether Jews "live in Israel or in New Jersey. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew," Hayman said. "Solidarity missions are not enough. They should live here, because the only solution to destruction is building."
Close friend Shoshana Greenspan said Greenbaum was "super excited about the baby and the fact that she had started to hear the heartbeat."
Greenspan, who lives in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Eshkol, was one of the last people Greenbaum spoke to before her death, telling her friend she would pick up lunch on the way to Greenspan's house.
Now, Greenspan regrets that Greenbaum turned down an invitation to eat with her at home, and instead went to the pizza shop.
Chana Tova Chaya Nachenberg, 31, remains in a coma after a nail penetrated her heart.
Now a resident of Israel, Nachenberg was born in the Bronx, moved to Israel at the age of 10 and returned to the United States to attend high school in Lakewood, N.J.
Nachenberg was at the pizzeria with her three-year-old daughter, Sarah, her uncle, Howard Green, and his wife, Dora, when the bomb went off.
The Aug. 9 bombing took place at the Sbarro Restaurant on the corner of King George and Jaffa streets, one of downtown Jerusalem's busiest intersections.
Among those killed by the suicide bomber were:
- Lily Shamilashvili, 33, and her daughter, Tamar, 8, both from Jerusalem.
- Frida Mendelsohn, 62, from Jerusalem.
- Yocheved Shoshan, 10, of Jerusalem.
- Malka Roth, 15, of Jeru-salem.
- Tehila Maoz, 19, of Jeru-salem.
- Michal Raziel, 16, of Jerusalem.
- Zvi Golumbak, 26, a Hebrew University student from Carmiel.
- Giora Balash, 60, from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
The suicide bomber also claimed the lives of five members of the Schijverschuurder family: Mordechai, 43, Tzira, 41, and three of their children, Raya, 14, Avraham-Yitzhak, 4, and Hemda, 2.
Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau had married the Schijverschuurders - and spoke at their funeral Aug. 10.
Lau wondered aloud how remaining family members would be able to go on after such a tragedy and then asked another question: "Until when shall the wicked rejoice?"
There are five surviving children in the Schijverschuurder family: Two girls who were injured in the attack, Leah, 11 and Haya, 8, remain hospitalized. There are also three boys, Ben-Zion, 22, Meir 20, and Israel, 17. They read the Kaddish at the Aug. 10 funeral.
Leah insisted on leaving the hospital to attend the funeral. She was brought there on a stretcher.
Her younger sister Haya could not attend.
Haya, who was still in the hospital this week recovering from her wounds, recalled the fateful day.
"Suddenly there was an explosion," she said Aug. 14. "Then I saw my brother, for the last time. ... He just lay there and did not say a word."
She also described her first encounter with her older brothers after the explosion: "Their shirts were torn, but at first they would not say why.
"Then they told me that my parents died, and that my sister died and my younger brothers died. I didn't believe that this is what happened to my parents, and to my brothers and sister.
"I was always a happy girl. Everyone said that I was always happy. I would like to be happy again."
JTA correspondent Gil Sedan in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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