and the home of the brave

Chanoch Ne’eman 2 Sh’vat 5775 Jerusalem (c)

This morning, as I was jogging back from the mikveh, I ran past my local bus-stop, where people were waiting to travel to work and school. Among them was a teenage girl, observant evidently, as she was dressed modestly wearing a skirt, and sitting in her electric wheelchair. Thank goodness our buses in Jerusalem are now wheelchair accessible, and we are getting a lot better at handicap access, though the wheelchair bound are still often forced to ride in the dangerous lanes of traffic, because the sidewalks are blocked by parked cars.

Anyway, besides the normal compassion and love such a sight would arouse in me, I was doubly moved because just yesterday on  a Tel Aviv bus, an Arab Israeli starting stabbing people. The driver, who was attacked first, fought with him, and managed to call the dispatcher and report the attack before losing consciousness, telling his friend, “I am bleeding, I am going to die, …take care of my children!” Thank God he has come to, and it looks like he will survive. We pray for the other injured too, that they should all survive. Thank God also that, by “chance”, a group of armed prison guards were travelling in the vehicle behind the bus, gave chase to the attacker, and brought him down with shots to the legs.

And here the next day, in Jerusalem as well as I am sure all other Israeli cities, people are riding the buses fully as usual, young and old, including this young woman in a wheelchair. Imagine how it must feel to be in a wheelchair on a bus knowing someone could start stabbing people at the drop of a hat.

I am proud, truly, to live in Israel, the home of the brave.

Tags: Israel