The Pain Lingers On

Photo by AP/Zoom 77

.

Vatican Criticizes
Church Teaching

Rome UTA) — Pope John Paul
II's Easter message criticized the
Christian teaching that Jews bear
responsibility for the death of
Jesus.
The pope also criticized the
Israeli policy of building Jewish
settlements in eastern Jerusalem,
saying peace is being threatened
by "dangerous political decisions."
A prayer read by a speaker on
Good Friday in the presence of
the pope said it was not the Jews
who were responsible for the cru
cifixion., but "all of us and each of
us," and, it decried the fact that
Jews had been "crucified by us for
so . lone because of this false accu-

chiridler

A suicide bombimg victim
leaves the hospital on the long road to recovery.

arranging midnight bedside concerts of
compositions by Brahms, Mozart, Bach
Israel Correspondent
and Pergolesi. Daniela did not respond,
though, Birman notes, "the Russian
he family of Jerusalemite
Daniela Birman — a teenag- male nurse in the ward clearly enjoyed
hearing the music. He even
er who was the only
one of three girl-
A couple and suggested that I also include
pieces by Tchaikovsky in the
friends to survive the Ben-
their child
Yehuda St. terror attack of last
leave the site concerts."
September — is finally cele-
of the suicide While appreciating the wide-
bombing at the spread concern for his daugh ;
brating her return home.
ter's well being, he resented the
Jerusalem
This event would have gone
eagerness of some elements to
pedestrian
unnoticed were it not for the
capitalize upon her tragedy. For
mall.
fact that Daniela's father,
example, Channel Two tried to
Amnon, writes for the
arrange a televised meeting between the
Jerusalem weekly newspaper Kol Hair
Birman family and the family of a girl
and told his readers about the home-
whose
two friends, like Daniela's own
coming as he had, week by week, about
two
friends,
had been killed in a previ-
her painfully slow recovery at Hadassah
ous
terror
bombing.
Hospital.
The Birmans saw this as sensational-
Without people like Daniela's father,
ism
and rejected the idea, which they
Israelis
are
apt
to
forget
that
ordinary
.
attributed to "the relentless battle of
pain lingers on for dozens of men,
TV stations to win over viewers from
women and children long after the sui-
their rivals." They were also less than
cide bombers and their victims have
been buried. In Daniela's case it was far enthused when religious elements
opened up a Web site for prayers on
from certain that she would survive at
Daniela's behalf and when various
all for she was very badly burned and
charismatic rabbis sent them amulets
remained unconscious for many long
that would, they assured the family,
weeks.
help her get well.
During that period, he attempted to
In a particularly moving column,
evoke some response from the girl by

NECHEMIA MEYERS

Amnon Birman described how he and
his wife felt in the early stages of their
daughter's recovery: "In a certain sense
Mrs. Birman and I have again become
a young couple. Suddenly we have a lit-
tle baby, a baby of 14 who doesn't yet
know how to walk or to speak. So you
sit by her bed and show her pictures,
hold up dolls and make all sorts of
sounds you didn't realize were still in
your repertoire. Here we are almost 50
and waiting for our infant to grow up."
The big day came earlier this month
when — after two days in the recovery
room, ten days in the burns unit, two-
and-a-half months in the intensive care
unit and almost four months in the
rehabilitation department — Daniela
left Hadassah Hospital and came
home.
Knowing that full recovery still lies
ahead, in his last column on the subject
Amnon Birman quoted the words
uttered by Winston Churchill when the
tide began to turn during the Second
World War: "This is not the end. It is
not even the beginning of the end. But
it is, perhaps, the end of the begin-
ning."
"No one," Birman concludes, "could
have better expressed the way I feel
today." ❑

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4/24
1998

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