Jerusalem in Red

			 Schulamith C. Halevy
			    September 1997


I was in the Mahane-Yehuda market when the bombs went off on
Ben-Yehuda Street.  I stopped by the shuk -- the market -- to pick up
some food for Shabbat, having just gotten back to Jerusalem.  The
entrance into town was jammed and I heard many ambulances, but somehow
I remained numb to what was happening, and persisted in living, as it
were, in my own world.

I had only stepped as far as the alley leading to the Iraqi shuk --
opposite the one that was blown up by terrorists just a few weeks ago
-- when a man came after me handing me two bags with a huge watermelon
in each.  I explained I did not buy any but he kept insisting.  I was
confused, until the man from the plum stand nearby reassured me that
this was a gift.  I don't recall what I said, but in a moment the bags
remained in my hands and the watermelon-man was gone.  Now the man
from the plumb-stand came over, looked into the bags, and commenting
the melons were "not good enough" he handed me a basket of plums!  I
stood there stunned and weighed down with the heavy gifts.  Nothing
like this ever happened to me before.

So there I was in my white dress, a huge and somewhat sticky bag in
each hand, going down the shuk, promising myself I would take a cab
home as soon as I reached Agripas Street.  I had to stop and rest
after every few steps, having no idea what I would do with so much
melon, but I could neither refuse not abandon this sweet gift from the
humble.  I made it to Agripas, but no cabs -- only police and
ambulances.  By then I learned of what had happened.  I slowly made my
way back toward the Davidka, and while crossing Jaffa Road, one of the
melons began rolling down the street.  A soldier rescued it for me
while just a few blocks away...

At the bus stop a few young men of about 16-17 years were talking
about what they just saw.  They were being tough and macho, and I was
thinking them silly braggers.  They were exchanging gory descriptions
of heads without bodies, bodies without heads, limbs and other body
parts scattered on the street.  I only realized they were really
there, when I heard them disagree with the newsreports stating that
the terrorists were inside restaurants, since they saw them blow
themselves up outside.  They were right; the latest update made this
clear.  Around that time, another youngster passed by acting cool with
a girl at his side.  One of the boys next to me got up, gave him a hug
and asked what's doing.  The boy casually answered he was fine and
walked on.  The one who got up to greet him returned telling his
friends how the poor boy was screaming and crying on Ben Yehuda Street
not long ago, thinking his sister was killed.  It was the only moment
I saw a tear, and it quickly disappeared.  But to use rabbinic logic,
this was the exception that came to teach us the rule -- the true
emotion the boys were dealing with.

I made it home on the bus.  No one was talking.  When we passed Zion
Square, we had a hard time looking up Ben-Yehuda street, a hard time
looking away.  The street was uncharacteristically dark and empty of
its daily mundane pleasures, which were replaced by ambulances, police
and wreckage.

I did not watch the news much this time, tried not to see or hear the
list of injured and dead; did not learn till Shabbat that our neighbor
Noam Rosenman was injured.  I just tried to concentrate on the acts of
kindness the men in the market were inexplicably moved to do for me.
I ate watermelon and made watermelon juice, and salad, and I ate plums
and kept thinking of the sweet people in the market which was hit too
so recently, but whose generosity and love of their fellow person was
left intact.  Through their acts of kindness, these people shielded me
from complete despair.

By Sunday, there were already people at the coffee shops; the rapid
repair work was impressive.  Some people are still avoiding the street
or rushing through it, while others walk slowly, looking at the little
gashes left in the pavement.

The cab driver who took me home from my errands downtown on Sunday
kept talking about the repairs and who did not reopen his store, and
why.  I sat in silence, the watermelons swinging in my mind like two
pendulums of red sweetness against all the carnage.