Report from the Mideast: A human drama
Haifa
Shiva for a child slain in a Palestinian raid
HAIFA, Israel – The Hadani family was sitting shiva. The house was filled with family and friends observing the ancient Jewish custom, a custom that surrounds the bereaved with the living so they will not dwell morbidly on the dead.
In the 48 hours since their daughter, Na’ami, who was 9, died in the Palestinian commando raid on the highway between here and Tel Aviv, Joseph and Levana Hadani have not been alone.
It was the same in a score of homes where the victims of the terrorists lived – neighbors and friends and family from all over Israel arriving to succor the survivors.
And it was the same, in a larger sense, throughout this tight little country, where everyone is touched by a single death and the death of 36 Jews is a tragedy both national and personal.
In English, the rite acted out by the Hadanis is called “sitting shiva for the dead.” But shiva is really for the living. The women bringing food and the men bringing news, and the coffee and the self-consciously normal talk are all designed to keep the family thinking in the present and looking to the future.
There is strength in feeling so much life around, warmth in kissing and being kissed.
In the Hadani home, the treatment was working. Joseph and Levana Hadani, their brothers and sisters and fathers, had gathered in a small room at one end of the apartment for part of the night, to quietly tell their story.
When the story was told, Joseph Hadani left the room for a moment, walking stiffly because of his wounds. When he came back, he was followed by four of his co-workers, who gathered behind him in the doorway.
Hadani drew to him Ayelet, 10, the daughter who remains, and he said in English he had obviously rehearsed:
“We are not broken.”
It was to have been a festive occasion. Joseph Hadani’s family and families of others in the national bus cooperative were on a sightseeing tour. Joseph, for a change, did not have to drive a bus.
His wife began her story.
“I heard a shot and I didn’t know what happened. All the people in the bus were singing, and with accordion. Everyone was so happy. It was the end of the outing for the Egged (bus cooperative) and we were going back to Haifa.
“I heard the shots and I heard someone fall down, and I heard crying. I recognized my husband’s voice and I began to cry, ‘Yosi, Yosi, my husband. I ran to the front and shouted to them to open the door of the bus.”
Levana Hadani was one of the lucky ones. She and Ayelet had been sitting in the back of the bus, away from the first bursts of machine-gun fire that came from the roadside.
The first bullets flying through the windshield wounded her younger daughter, Na’ami, who had been sitting in the little jump seat beside the driver, and her husband, Joseph, who had been standing just behind.
When the bus stopped, some of the other Egged drivers pulled Joseph onto the asphalt. Mrs. Hadani lifted her wounded daughter and ran toward the traffic to flag down a car.
“The man who stopped put his own children out of the car to take me and my daughter. Then he saw in his mirror the terrorists coming back toward the bus and his own children were around the bus with the shooting.
“He said he could not take me and he put me out on the road again. Then he went back to get his children.”
