Clockwise
from top left,
opposite page:
Nathan
Nosseri,
11, and Ben
Nadis, 10,
both of West
Bloomfield,
serve as ushers.
Soldiers
Shahar Borek,
Aviad
Mizrahi, Amit
Friedman and
Ran Algov -
take a break
before the
peifomance.
Shiran
Shahar, 21,
of Tel Aviv,
belts out a
number.
Capt. Kobi
Shamir speaks
to the crowd.
Michael
HarPaz
of Farminton
Hills sings
the American
national
anthem.
Yaffa Sherach
of West
Bloomfield
applauds.
Opposite
page, center:
Hannah
Korelitz, 7,
of untington
Woods and
Tess Relle,
8, of West
Bloomfield
watch the
performance.
In His Prime
2002, after it was found car-
rying 50 tons of illegal
weapons in the Red Sea.
They spent days checking
for booby traps and securing
with him.
the cases of mortars and other
"I'm on call all the time,"
weapons,
all 50 tons of it.
says the 25-year-old Israel
His team works only the
Defense Forces captain, who
Israeli border and the territo-
commands his country's Bomb
HARRY
ries.
A suicide bomber in Tel
Disposal Unit.
KIRSBAUM
Aviv or Jerusalem is a police
Get a good night's sleep?
Staff
Forget it. Party with your
Commentary matter.
There are no morale prob-
friends? Not so fast. Not when
lems
in the team, but some-
the threat of this line of work
times the news media reports he sees
looms at any moment.
on cable television can be "very annoy-
Dressed in civilian clothes, Kobi
ing."
could blend in with just about any
"Most of the time, it's secondhand;
crowd of American twenty-somethings
they don't see the events," he says. "I
shopping at a mall or sitting at a table
was in the field. My men were doing
ordering a latte at Starbucks.
the job, and the press gets an entirely
When his beeper goes off, Capt.
different angle.
Shamir knows something serious has
"This is a very risky line of work,
gone down. And its sound can reach
very demanding, with no room for
Detroit.
Just a few hours before he spoke to a mistakes," he says. "My soldiers have
tremendous stress in their lives and
crowd of 600 at the Michigan Friends
of the IDF fundraiser May
15 at Adat Shalom
Synagogue in Farmington
Hills, he learned his team -
was being assembled for an
operation in the Gaza
Strip.
He's not allowed to dis-
cuss details of the bomb
squad unit, but he was able
to share a few stories with
me before dinner.
Remember Operation
Defensive Shield last year?
Capt. Shamir and his
team were there disarming
they work around the clock."
booby traps in buildings and in the
His soldiers go through a very harsh
West Bank alleys in Jenin and
18-month training period with
Tulkarem — while his men were
extreme mental and physical tests.
under fire — so IDF soldiers could
Then
they are trained as combatants,
safely and "carefully" advance.
he says. "This is just the beginning of
Early in the campaign, when IDF
an even longer period of time in
soldiers were ambushed and killed in
which they have to prove their skills in
Jenin, three of their bodies were kid-
a combat situation."
napped.
I look at Capt. Shamir with a sense
The IDF started a rescue operation,
of awe, but I look at Kobi with a sense
"so the bodies wouldn't be used for
of sadness. No way a 25-year-old
negotiations," he says.
needs to live under such pressure.
When they found the bodies, the
And this isn't a "chicken or the egg"
team was sent in to remove the booby
riddle, either. The blame lies strictly
traps from the house and the bodies.
on one side. When the Palestinian ter-
On other missions, they also dis-
rorists stop blowing themselves u u,
armed suicide bombers — still wear-
when they stop setting booby-traps,
ing their vests — who had been killed
before they could detonate their explo- Capt. Shamir can return his beeper
and his cell phones. He can become
sives.
It was his team that first boarded the Kobi, a young man in the prime of
life. [II
Palestinian ship "Karine-A" in January
A
beeper runs Kobi
Shamir's life. That,
and the three cell
phones he carries
Under fire, they disarmed
booby traps in buildings and
alleys in Jenin and Tulkarem
so that IDF soldiers could
safely — and carefully
advance.
5/23
2003
27