Israeli guide and friend Itai Tennenbaum reiterated to me Monday afternoon that Israel is a country of "highs and lows" -- the highs are very high and, he reminded me, the lows can be very low, and are for real and can really get to you some time.

A two-hour experience Monday afternoon illustrated that vividly. Itai and I, along with another guide, Yoram Preminger (who had been with me earlier in the day before I hooked up with Itai), were having coffee at an outdoor cafe on the back streets of one of Tel Aviv's older neighborhoods.

It was a perfect afternoon cup of coffee -- great conversation, relaxation, and a gentle breeze blowing while we sat, knocking the edge off of the July Tel Aviv heat.  As we left, and both Itai and Yoram began escorting me to my next visit at the Israel Crisis Management Center across the street, I remarked to them both half-joking, "See, we can tell people there has never been a better time to come to Israel -- two guides for every visitor."

A joke, but like so many jokes here these days, funny but not funny.

Yoram went on his way and Itai and I arrived at the offices of the Israel Crisis Management Center and its dynamo director Ruth Bar-On. Ruth, who has been to Birmingham, runs a program that provides assistance and support to immigrants whose lives have been hit by tragedy, and particularly as of late, terror. Funds raised through our Federation are helping underwrite Ruth's efforts, so I was particularly glad for the chance to see her.

JUNE 1, 2001

Itai and I walked into Ruth's office and met a woman who had been meeting with Ruth that day -- a widowed woman who had come to Israel from the former Soviet Union three years ago with her son and daughter. She lost her 15-year-old daughter in the suicide bombing at the Dolphinarium disco June 1, 2001. 

Her daughter, Anya, was killed along with 20 other children. Anya's mom talked quietly about Anya, remembering her at first with sadness and then with joy, showing us pictures she keeps in her wallet. You could see from the pictures the young girl's love and enthusiasm for life.

In fact, Anya's mother told us, it was Anya who most wanted the family to move to Israel.

"Why?" I asked. I was told she was a child who loved life, wanted new adventures and opportunities and thought Israel would be beautiful and safe. Come they did, and now Anya is no longer here -- a beautiful young child ensnared like so many others in the trap of terror that haunts Israel daily.

Was the mom sorry they had come to Israel, I asked gently. No, she answered, this was their dream, especially Anya's. And being in the land of the Jewish people, she said, has brought her closer to G-d, and it is through this closeness with G-d that she has developed the strength to go forward.

Bar Mitzvah Assistance

Bar-On and the ICMC were in the midst Monday of helping her prepare for her son's bar mitzvah. 

A handsome young man, he waited outside Ruth's office as we met. The ICMC is providing financial support for the bar mitzvah as well as the counseling and emotional support to help both mother and son prepare.

"Please remember my daughter," Anya's mom said as we departed. "Remember these children and remember what happened...let it somehow be for good." 

With that we said goodbye and Itai took me on a short walk to the Dolphinarium, which ironically was not far away at all.

There, a memorial has been created by friends of the 21 kids who were killed by the suicide bomber. The memorial includes a large silhouette of a teenage boy and teenage girl standing side by side, with Hebrew words across the top. They say, "We shall not stop dancing."

That, in my mind, is the quintessential Israeli response: We shall not stop dancing...and we shall not stop living.

To go forward though is not always easy, as a visit to the Mizrahi family this afternoon in Jerusalem illustrated clearly. 

The family has twin 16-year-old sons who were on Ben Yehuda Street the first weekend in December, when suicide bombers created one of the most devastating scenes of death and destruction.

One of the sons was lightly injured. He is fine physically, but now suffers from significant trauma, having witnessed and remembering clearly close friends and others blown up in front of his eyes.

Left for Dead

The other brother was severely hurt in the bombing and the emergency medical response team wanted to leave him among the dead, thinking that he had been killed. One young paramedic -- an 18-year-old girl -- argued otherwise and insisted that he too be loaded on to the rescue vehicles headed for the local hospitals.

His parents, meanwhile, upon learning of the bombings, could not locate the second boy and began frantically searching the hospitals and morgues. Finally, they found him at one of the local hospitals after learning that a cell phone belonging to one of the victims had been found. They called the son's cell phone number; it was answered by a nurse and it led them successfully to their son's whereabouts.

There, in the operating room, doctors removed six steel bolts from his skull. He has begun to recover gradually and has embarked on what will be a long and arduous program of physical and psychological rehabilitation.

We talked to the two boys and their parents for a while. Yes, the boys said, they now live in fear and have hatred toward their enemy. At one point, one of the family members brought out a small prescription vial and handed it to me.

At first, I wondered why they were giving me medicine. Then, I realized that inside the bottle were the six bolts removed from the kid's head.

"Memorabilia," the family explained to me sardonically. A seventh bolt is still lodged in the young man's skull and he is scheduled for another operation shortly.

This is a family that we are assisting through our Israel Emergency Campaign. Part of our money provides stipends for the victims of terror to assist with their rehabilitation and other needs. 

With us was a representative of the Jewish Agency, which is handling this fund. He asked me to present the check to the family, as an expression of our community's support for the people of Israel at this time.

I did so with pride and sadness. Pride in our community and our continued efforts; and sadness, as I thought about these two boys, not too different in age from my own children, and how their lives have been irrevocably altered by the war of hatred launched against the people of Israel.

May it stop one day, and may that day not be too distant.