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.