Who Were The Victims?

LARRY DERFNER
ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

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turning over the cars, burning
the cars. The police ran out of
here — they were afraid."
Some in Israel expected the
people of the Katamonim to riot
again after the bus bombings. "If
1 percent of what happened in
the last couple of weeks had hap-
pened back then [in the 1970s],
they would have burned the
neighborhood down," Mr. Ben
Aroush says.
But this time, there were no ri-
ots, no angry demonstrations.
The neighborhoods have
changed.
"They used to be overflowing
with people. Families had 10-12
children each," Mr. Ben Aroush
says. "Now the children have
grown up and gone away. A lot of
young couples have moved in, a
lot of Russian immigrants. People
live more private lives now; they're
dealing with this on their own."
Sources differ on whether
three residents or five residents
from the Katamonim's Bar
Yochai Street died in the bus
bombings. In one of the apart-
ments there, Michael Barika-
shvili was sitting on the living
room couch next to a framed pho-
to of his father, Samian, and a
burning yahrzeit candle.
Samian Barikashvili wanted
to take his family from Georgia
to Israel in the early 1970s, but
didn't manage until 1992, his son
House. Six were "imported" Ro- dead in the two local bus blasts, said. "He was a Zionist. He wasn't
deeply religious, but he was tra-
manian laborers heading for but the toll was about 15. The No.
18 pulls out in the morning from ditional. He observed Shabbat,
work at construction sites.
Not all were Jews — two were a lot in the Katamonim and Pesach, kashrut — whatever he
Christian Palestinians. Not all weaves through the neighbor- knew," Mr. Barikashvili said.
Samian Barikashvili worked as
the Jews were Israelis — two hoods on its way to the Central
a
handyman
at Binyanei
were Americans. Ten of the Is- Bus Station.
The streets of the Katamonim Ha'Umma, Jerusalem's conven-
raelis were recent emigrants
are lined with dreary, identical tion center. He was killed on his
from the former Soviet Union.
way to work on the first No. 18
The Dizengoff Center attack took apartment blocks of concrete and
bus.
place on Purim; school was out brown tile. It is known as a low-
"I was amazed at how many
er-class Sephardi area,
and many of the 160 or so
people
came here for the shiva,
where most of the people
injured were children in
are religious to one de- how many people came to show
costume.
A view of the
gree or another and tend their respects — people he worked
wreckage
Among those killed,
following a
to vote for the Likud and with, his friends, people from the
Dana Gutterman, 14,
Hadass Dror, 15, and Bat- suicide bus bomb other right-wing parties. neighborhood," said his son.
Samian Barikashvili used to
explosion in
The Katamonim are
Chen Shachak had come
Jerusalem.
ride
the bus to work with Itzic
well-remembered for the
down together from their
riots that took place Yachnis, another recent emigrant
moshays near Netanya to
from the former Soviet Union
spend the day running around there in the 1970s, when the chil-
who lived in the Katamonim. The
Tel Aviv. Kobi Zaharon, 13, and dren of Israel's early North
Yovav Levy, 12, were friends liv- African immigrants came of age two men's families visited each
other.
and demanded an end to Ashke-
ing in the city.
Michael was close with Mr.
But this wave of terror has nazi discrimination and a better
Yachnis' daughter. Mr. Yachnis,
been identified mainly with a life than their parents had found.
"In 1979, when the prices of 53, was on his way to work in a
cluster of four neighborhoods in
dairy plant when he was killed
Jerusalem called the Katamon- gas and bread were raised, the
on the No. 18 bus with the elder
people here came out and almost
im.
Barikashvili and 23 others.
Sources differ slightly on the burned down the gas station,"
VICTIMS page 84
exact number of Katamonim says Mr. Ben Aroush. "They were

AP/EYAL WARSHAVSKY

No generalizations
can be made about
those killed
in the five suicide
terror attacks.
They were all
uniquely human.

aniel Biton, 43, killed
in the first bombing of
a number 18 Jeru-
salem bus, was one of
thousands of demon-
strators in the violent
riots that took place in
the capital's poor
Sephardi neighbor-
hoods during the
1970s. At the end of his
life, he was divorced,
living with a girlfriend,
and working as a gar-
,
dener for the municipal-
ity here.
"He was a closed person. He
didn't make conversation; he
didn't discuss politics. You'd see
him sitting at the bus stop a lot.
He'd say 'shalom,' but that was
about it," said Shlomo Ben
Aroush, an old acquaintance and
neighbor.
Michael Barikashvili was re-
calling life with his father, Sarni-
an, 60, who was killed on the
same bus. "We lived in a Jewish
city in Georgia, and once I ran
away to the forest for a whole
day. My father came and got me
and took me to the police to show
me what would happen if I didn't
straighten out."
At the funeral of army Sgt.
Yonatan Barnea — also killed on
that bus — his father Nachum
Barnea, probably the most
prominent newspaper columnist
in Israel, said in his eulogy: "You
were killed by hatred. Yet I think
that if you were standing here,
and somebody else were in your
place, killed under the same cir-
cumstances, I don't think there
would be hatred in you."
No generalization can be made
about the 59 victims killed in the
five suicide terror attacks that
struck Israel in the eight days be-
tween Feb. 25 and March 4.
(Twenty-five dead in the first
Sunday morning No. 18 bus; one
on an Ashkelon bus the same
morning; one at a Jerusalem bus
stop the next afternoon; 19 on the
No. 18 bus the following Sunday
morning; 13 the next afternoon
at Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Center.
In all, nearly 300 people were in-
jured.)
Most of those killed were the
kind of people seen on the No. 18
around 6:30 in the morning.
Twelve were soldiers, the major-
ity 19 or 20 years old, going to
their bases. Three of the soldiers,
including Yonatan Barnea, were
recent graduates of the elite high
school Beit Hinuch, or Education

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