For Openers
Life's Strange Twists
tgPAT9cha
n't Know
I
n just two days, Detroit native David
Roth participated in the emotional
observance of his son's bar mitzvah on
._
Israeli soil and heard firsthand of the
most frightening side of being in Israel.
"On Aug. 1, the Thursday before my son,
Yonatan, read from the Torah on Shabbat, I
went to shul," says Roth, who has homes in
Southfield and Jerusalem, where his children
SHELL'
reside. "There was a man there saying Birkat
LIEBMAN
HaGomel
(the prayer said when surviving
DORFMAN
danger)."
Staff Writer
After the service, Roth asked the man —
Martin Friedlander, a former New Yorker
who made aliyah in 1976 — why he had said the prayer. "He
told me his wife dropped him off on a street corner the day
before when, 50 feet away from him, a bomb went off," Roth
says. He was referring to the July 30 suicide bombing at the
entrance of the Yemeni Falafel Center in central Jerusalem that
wounded five Israelis.
After calling his wife, Rena, to assure her he was safe,
Friedlander, an Israel Defense Forces reserve medic since /981,
ran to the aid of a 17-year-old young man who lay injured
nearby.
Friedlander, a translator for the Ha'aretz newspaper in
Jerusalem, says as the man looked into his eyes and focused,
he remembers telling him, "tinshom amok" (breathe deeply),
and giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
"The man died a few minutes later, and then [Friedlander]
said he heard a policeman call to him," Roth says. "He told
him to move away from the bomber.
Friedlander "had been trying to save any victim he could,
and the one he tried to save turned out to be the bomber. He
had risked his own life."
His involvement came naturally, Friedlander said. "I was
just doing what needed to be done — what every human
being would have done. I was lucky enough to have the skills
to try and save a human life."
Even though he feared for his health, requiring a potent
immunization upon discovering the terrorist had tested posi-
tive for Hepatitis B, Friedlander said, "the incident has made
me stronger."
o2002
IV
hat do the Yiddish
words for broken, old
and smooth have to do
with laws dealing with
what is kosher?
— by Goldfein
-iadns ApDpas uaaq
•moiTE3
Dq . lsnal spiau upqm JuDA
Tuanas Jo qp_iyuqs alp Jo
temlmoIJSE
pIoxe LIED mou (pp)
uoysod Sursn • (UDAED1) 71QUIELID but
-tuoDaq 'Jam laS o1 AmIT DJOLU sr (u3)1
-alq) lqoatqa.,5' s! JEtp tfezlEw LIQMSUlif
Martin Friedlander of Jerusalem and David Roth of
Southfield, at the King David Synagogue in Katamon, Israel.
In an e-mail to friends and family a few days after the inci-
dent, Friedlander wrote, "I have been reviewing the whole
thing over and over: the fact that we probably drove right past
the terrorist; that I was 30 seconds away from walking into the
shop for a falafel; that I never had to make the call on whether
to treat a terrorist bomber because I never realized that's what
he was; that I was carrying a gun, and would have shot him
dead if I'd known what he was about to do, but 20 seconds
later was trying to save the life of a human being; that I may
have given my enemy a few extra seconds of life in which to
suffer; that he died hearing a Jew telling him to breathe
deeply, and trying to save his life. There's a lot to digest."
Turns out Friedlander's connection to Detroiters doesn't
stop at Roth. Joining the Israeli as he rides this month in
the Jerusalem-based Alyn Hospital Pediatric and
Adolescent Rehabilitation Center's Charity Bike Ride in
Israel will be Oak Parker Howard Sherizen and West
Bloomfield resident Bill Graham.
❑
Shabbat Candlelighting
"Friday night, it had been raining in the sukkah when I lit my candles. One candle sputtered out and
another candle hissed out. I said aloud, 'God, please leave me two lit candles representing shomer
(observance) and zachor (remembrance) of Shabbos.' Later, it stopped raining and we hurried out to
the sukkah. Lo and behold, two candles were serenely and majestically burning from our personal
Sukkos miracle."
— Hilda Ploni, mother; Oak Park
Sponsored by tubavitch
Women's Organization.
"lb submit a candlelighting
message or to receive
complimentary candlesticks
and information on Shabbat
candlelighting, call Miriam
Atnzalak of Oak Park at
(248) 967-5056 Or e-mail:
amzalak@juno.com
SET.' lEDUI IDITS031
(11100111S) 1427# JO SUISSD30.1d
Candlelighting
Candlelighting
Friday, Oct. 4: 6:51 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 11: 6:39 p.m.
Shabbat Ends
Shabbat Ends
Saturday, Oct. 5: 7:51 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 12: 7•39 p.m.
Quotables
"I became obsessed by the idea that if
there had been an explosive-sniffing
dog at the entrance to the hotel, this
tragedy could have been averted."
— American economist and ex-kib-
butznik Glenn Yago, the impetus behind
Pups for Peace, which trains dogs to foil
would-be bombers in Israel, speaking
about the Palestinian provoked Passover
seder massacre in Netanya, as quoted by
JTA.
"Camp expanded my daughter's
Jewish community to include friends,
teachers and role models from around
the country and from around the
world. Camp is where she first devel-
oped conversational Hebrew and met
her first Israeli peers. Camp is where
she argued Talmud with young teach-
ers."
— Author Anita Diament, about her
daughter Emilia :r Jewish summer camp-
ing experiences, as quoted in the sum-
mer issue of Contact, the journal of
Jewish Life Network.
Yiddish Limericks
Look, son, when
my time to go,
My riches won't follow
llow in tow.
fo
7kchrichim mach men
Un keshenes,* Ben.
You can't take it with you, you know.
— Martha Jo Fleischmann
* They make shrouds without pockets.
10/4
2002