Posted on 05/12/2002 2:10:56 PM PDT by BellStar
Posted on Sun, May. 12, 2002
Judith Hayman Greenbaum's childhood passions were painting ceramics and swimming at the beach. Fortunately, her grandfather, who lived nearby and was an avid swimmer, often took her to the Santa Monica Beach, not far from their home in Los Angeles.
An only child, Judith was her parents' hope and dream. They gave her everything she needed to succeed: a great education and tremendous love, the tools to develop her talents and the confidence to express her soul.
After high school, she decided to become an elementary school teacher. Her parents saw it as the merging of her best qualities: a desire to help others, a desire to teach children and a desire to make a difference in her community.
In 1999, Judith met a young, soft-spoken man named Samuel Greenbaum in New York. He had every virtue she valued, and he was the man of her dreams. They married four months later in a modest ceremony.
The day of her marriage was the happiest day of her life. It was the most wonderful day of her parents' life, too.
The glow on Judith's face was spiritual. A sense of unity flowed between her and Samuel that could be felt by all but expressed by none. The 29 years of work and worry, care and concern that her parents had invested in her was worth it just to see her smile that night.
The couple settled in the New York City area, where she taught second- and sixth-grade students at a local Jewish day school.
The second happiest day of Judith and Samuel's life was when, in early 2001, they found out that she was pregnant. The family, excited beyond words, began a mental countdown of days until they would hold their first grandchild.
For a number of years prior to her marriage, Judith had applied to an exclusive summer program for educators in Jerusalem, only to be turned down because of lack of space. In 2001, things were going her way, and her application was accepted. Judith and Samuel decided to spend two weeks in Israel together and planned to have her follow him home one week later, after the program ended, on Aug. 15.
Aug. 9, 2001, was a hot summer day in Jerusalem. The course was winding down, and class ended after just half a day.
About 2 p.m., Judith walked down Jaffo street to a Sbarro pizza parlor she had come to like and ordered lunch: two slices of pizza and decaffeinated Coke. She always ordered decaf since she found out she was expecting.
A young Palestinian man entered after her. He was wearing a long coat. Beneath his coat was a "suicide belt" packed with explosives and screws. He walked within five feet of her and pushed a button.
Judith presumably felt no pain. She was murdered instantly, either by the seven kilos of dynamite or by the many kilos of screws packed carefully around it.
Another 14 people were killed and 130 wounded. Arms and legs - of women, men and children - were strewn all over the room. Among the dead were six children and five members of the Schijveschuunder family. The last thing they did in their lives was place an order for lunch.
The Palestinian was Izzadin Masri, 23. He was a member of Hamas, a group that PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat has done nothing to contain and everything to encourage. Arafat's encouragement has been understood so clearly that the military wing of his own Fatah group, the Al-Aqsa Brigade, recently has sent out a string of suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians in coffee shops and vegetable markets.
I was privileged to meet Alan and Shirlee Hayman, Judith's parents, in their Los Angeles home last month when I was in that city, visiting my in-laws.
A retired engineer at Raytheon Co. and a social worker at St. Vincent's Medical Center, the Haymans shun the media. They feel too much pain and do not want to be drawn into making political statements that will cloud that pain.
They only accept speaking engagements that will inspire other people. Alan recently addressed a support group for people dealing with tragedy.
The first things I saw when I stepped into their home were the black bags under their eyes. They did not have to tell me that they hardly sleep at night and wake up throughout the night in a cold sweat, envisioning the moment before the explosion and shouting, "Judith, watch out!" I saw it on their faces.
Judith's colorful ceramics sit on their coffee table next to a photo of Judith and her grandpa at her wedding. A large booklet sits next to them. It contains a collection of more than a hundred letters sent by Judith's students, about how much they loved her and how much they will miss her.
No longer do Alan and Shirlee plan the color themes of their grandchildren's rooms. Now they want to write a book about Judith's life as a means of channeling their grief in a positive way.
We spoke for about an hour. As I walked down the street, I was overcome. I cried for them.
I cried for their dreams that were shattered so violently. I cried for the pain and desperation that they felt when they received an overseas call saying that Judith's notebooks had been found in the wreckage of the pizzeria and that she wasn't answering her cellphone.
And I cried with another emotion, too - with anger. As the Haymans mourned their daughter's death, thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank celebrated it. They fired their weapons into the air. They gave sweets to children. Terror had been struck into the hearts of Israeli civilians.
Now no Israeli was safe - from the one doing laundry in Netanya to the one buying flowers at a stand in Neharia. That was just the result that the terrorists wanted. A nation that loses its confidence will be led to political capitulation. And if the death of innocents will accomplish their objective, it is a holy obligation to kill innocents.
Our world is filled with "freedom fighters." Some of them fight for just causes, and some of them fight for unjust causes.
I often hear people say about Palestinian terrorism, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." It is a dastardly lie. One who purposely kills pregnant women and children in strollers has left the arena of civilized men. He must be destroyed.
It matters not if the larger objective he promotes is right or wrong. If one sees the death of civilians eating lasagna as a reason to dance in the street, that person embodies evil.
The New York Times and other newspapers speak of "missed signals" at Camp David. If there was any missed signal, it was this: Arafat wants not peace but the destruction of Israel. When then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered him 90 percent of what he wanted, including half of Jerusalem, and he walked away from it without making a counter-offer, he was sending a signal.
He was saying that the reason the map on his desk shows Palestine as covering all of Israel, and the fact that the school textbooks show Palestine extending from the Jordan to the Mediterranean without an Israel in between, is not (as the apologists say) the result of a bureaucratic mess in an emerging nation. It is a calculated decision that sees peace as the most efficient launching pad for war.
It is not easy to epitomize evil, but Palestinian terrorists do. A few weeks after Judith was murdered, an exhibit in Nablus commemorated one year of violence against Israel. One exhibit featured a model of the Sbarro pizza shop, with slices of pizza and human limbs strewn all over the floor.
Hundreds of Palestinians went to see it and liked what they saw. Some of those limbs represented those belonging to Judith Hayman. They were the arms that made creative art, the legs that swam at Santa Monica Beach. And they were defiled by this heinous group of people.
For 38 days, some 150 men sat confined in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Among them were men who organized the murder of civilians like Judith and people supported those murderers in any way they could. On Friday morning, a partial victory was achieved when the murderers were exiled to Europe and their supporters were sent to the Gaza Strip.
It was only a partial victory because many more of their friends are still on the loose, in Gaza and in the West Bank. And as they plot to kill and maim civilians, the Israeli army is making its greatest effort ever to neutralize and exile them. May God grant it success
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