Bridal Couture
Presents
Israel
When Russians Fall
M & B
Hairlooms
An inspiring group of
volunteers cares for
terrorist victims with no
extended _family or social
network in Israel.
Friday, Nov. 14th
10am-6pm
Saturday, Nov 15th
10am-5pm
Come and meet
with the designer
LARRY DERFNER
Israel Correspondent
who will help you
I
select the perfect
headpiece to
compliment
your gown.
BRIDAL COUTURE 248-645-0500
Call for an appointment
F
is often easy to pick out the
Russian immigrants at the hos-
pital after a terror attack.
Veteran Israelis, whether they're
lying injured or have family members
among the injured or dead, are invari-
ably surrounded by a crowd of rela-
tives, friends and neighbors. The
Russians, who might have come to
Israel alone, or with only one relative,
ceremony at a Jerusalem cemetery,
Shapira and another council volunteer
were two of the eight people —
including the rabbi — who turned up.
At a nearby gravesite, about 100 peo-
ple had gathered for a similar com-
memoration of a veteran Israeli also
killed at Mahane Yehuda. "After their
shloshim was over, we borrowed about
seven or eight men so we could have a
minyan," Shapira recalls.
So many of the victims of the
Mahane Yehuda bombing were
Russian immigrants. Likewise with the
Jerusalem #18 bus bombings in
February of last year. The immigrants
tend to be lower-middle-class — the
kind of people who ride buses to work
and frequent inexpensive markets like
Mahane Yehuda.
The council started out four years
ago sending groups of volunteers to
act as support networks for lonely
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Russian immigrants who were sick or
or are waiting for their families to join
injured. Soon, though, suicide bomb-
them, are frequently alone.
ings provided many new clients.
So immediately after every terrorist
"In Meah Shearim, in Bnei
attack, volunteers of the
Brak, among Israel's reli-
A woman watches
Israel Public Council for
gious community as a
Soviet Jewry go to the hospi- over her son who
whole,
if you fall, there's a
tals looking for lonely Soviet was seriously
system
in place to catch
injured in the July
immigrants.
you," says Ruth Bar-On, the
market
bombing.
After the Mahane Yehuda
group's director general.
bombing, volunteer Dr. Zvia
"But in modern, secular Israeli society,
Shapira went to Sha'arei Tzedek hospi-
there's a terrible void in providing sup-
tal and saw a young woman sitting in
port for people who do not have a
the emergency room lobby by herself.
natural social network."
Her name was Raisa, her parents had
Visiting one Russian immigrant
been at Mahane Yehuda and she didn't
woman whose husband had been
. know where they were. After a few
killed in a bus bombing the previous
hours of searches and inquiries,
day, and who would be buried the fol-
Shapira said, it turned out that Raisa's
lowing day, Bar-On recalls, "We sat
mother had been seriously injured and
there for seven hours and no one
her father killed.
knocked on the door.
At the father's thirty-day memorial