Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Haim Smadar

Over at My Shrapnel, Gila's brought my attention to something that, no offense Gila, I could have avoided having my attention brought to--the fact that there's now a documentary about a 2002 suicide bombing in Jerusalem. This is the one that motivated Newsweek to run a picture of the bomber and one of her victims side by side, since they were both West Semite girls in their late teens with long dark hair, and it was somehow supposed to 'mean' something, or at least tug at your heartstrings.

Anyway, now we've got this.

Gila does a pretty good job slicing and dicing the Director's Statement, so I'll leave it be. But this caught my attention, since there were actually two victims of Ayat al-Akhras' March 29, 2002 attack, and the one who goes unprofiled in this movie happens to be a personal hero.

Over the years, name after name, terror attacks start to run together. But now and then, one stranger, one face, one detail stands out and remains with you, and for me that was Haim Smadar, the 55-year old security guard at the supermarket that day. He was born in Tunis, the same year as my father, and was the father of six. During the school year he worked as a security guard at a school, but was working shifts at the grocery store to make a little holiday money during the Pesach break.

We'll never know how many lives he saved by intercepting the bomber as she moved toward her target. Witnesses say that his last words to al-Akhras, as he stopped her from entering the store were "You are not coming in here. You and I will blow up out here."

He'd always told his wife he would never allow a terrorist to get into his school, that he would stop an attack with his own body. He was not kidding.

Just an ordinary, everyday hero.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a fellow human being, I am ashamed of your existence to a degree I normally reserve for criminals.

May I suggest you take your Bronze-age bullshit and shove it?

I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, but when your dream house involves separate dishwashers for religious reasons, you need a fucking hobby.

Your god is no more real than Zeus or Thor or Pua'a'alikibunukata.

Fucking deal with it.

Friar Yid (not Shlita) said...

Not to be, you know, contrarian or anything, anon, but if the worst religious fantasy our kind hostess has involves two (horrors!) dishwashers, she's heads and feet ahead of most of the world's crazies.

You, however, just seem to be a grade-A douchebag. Is this your hobby? Might I suggest you find another one?

As a fellow human being, I am ashamed of your existence to a degree I normally reserve for criminals.

Yeah, nothing like some perspective.

Fucking deal with it.

My thoughts exactly. Bye now.

BBJ said...

"May I suggest you take your Bronze-age bullshit and shove it?"

Well, of course you may. But I don't think anyone had even one dishwasher during the Bronze Age.

Or, more precisely, I think the 'dishwasher' was a human being. Rich people might have owned several. Baruch Hashem, I live in the high-tech, post-Englightenment world I do, where we have gadgets, rather than slaves.

Seriously, though, I think it is you who needs the hobby. Deep breaths, Anonymous. Deep breaths.

Eliyahu said...

thanks for your post! personally, i think bronze dishwashers are way over the top...stainless steel is bad enough. actually, until you get to the multiply part of be fruitful and multipy, 2 sinks would be awesome.

Anonymous said...

Hey Balabusta...forgive me, but...:) I tagged you for a meme. It's over on my blog. :)