NEW YORK — Despite Jerusalem being terrorized by a seemingly endless string of Palestinian bombings, Hebrew University had stood apart on its Mount Scopus hilltop as an island of quiet and coexistence.
No more.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian bomber left a deadly parcel on a tabletop in the popular Frank Sinatra cafeteria killing seven people –at least three of them Americans — and injuring 86 in a lunchtime blast. Police said fatalities could rise because many injuries were serious.
“Until today [Wednesday], the university was regarded as a very safe place,” agreed Amy Sugin, director of the Office of Academic Affairs in New York.
“Hebrew University has been the last island of sanity in Jerusalem with respect to Arab and Jewish coexistence,” noted Peter Willner, executive vice president of the American Friends of Hebrew University in New York.
Lisa Magnas, president of the university’s American alumni association in New York, described the bombing as “not just an attack on Israel, not just an attack on Jews, but an attack on an international community.”
Magnas, a descendant of Rabbi Judah L. Magnes, a San Francisco native who was among the founders of the university, added that “this was an attack on international students, on international academics. I think it was well thought-out.”
One of the victims at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Na’ama Cohen, 24, predicted that the attack would sour the decent relations between Arab and Jewish students on campus.
“It was very sad to me to think that someone tried to hurt us and, you know, kill the hope that we can learn together,” she told JTA in a phone interview from her bed in Hadassah Hospital, where she was taken for injuries to her ears and stomach. There’s “no place safe.”
Jewish students can no longer be sure which of their Arab peers are “regular people” and which are potential bombers, said Cohen, a media student who is from Jerusalem.
Another bombing victim, Spencer Dew, 26, said the attack would not deter him from taking his final exam — assuming it will still be held — or returning for further Hebrew study next year.
Dew, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School who is taking summer Hebrew courses, said that terrorism is just “part of the risk in coming here.”
This leaves the university pondering how enrollment will be affected.
During the first intifada — which began in 1987 — enrollment fell for two years but then returned to high levels, Magnas said.
“This time,” she added, “I think it’s a hell of a lot worse.”
The fall semester won’t begin until after the High Holy Days in September, so it will be at least a month before the bombing’s effects on enrollment are seen, Magnas said.
The university’s Rothberg School for Overseas Students — which runs a summer ulpan, masters programs, and year- and semester-abroad programs — is likely to be hardest hit.
Rothberg’s enrollment already has plunged since the intifada began in September 2000.
“On a good year, there should be approximately 1,000” American students in the Rothberg School’s various programs, Sugin said.
Enrollment this year already was down 40 percent from the previous year, which itself was far below the goal of 1,000.
The effect has been less pronounced among graduate students, who are older and can make their own decisions, and among Europeans.
“The American parent sees America as being a nice place for Jewish students, whereas in Europe Jewish students are not having a good time, so parents are happy to send their kids to Israel,” explained Magnas.
“Now it remains to be seen how many more years it will take to get enrollment back up to where it once was.”
Hardest hit have been the school’s flagship year- or semester-abroad programs for American undergraduates, who generally need their parents’ permission to attend — as well as their home universities’ acceptance of Hebrew University credits.
A number of American universities — including the University of California system and the California State University system — have stopped or threatened to stop programs that send undergraduate students to Jerusalem because of fears for their safety.
If enrollment falls much lower at the Rothberg School, administrators fear, the school may have to cut back its course offerings — endangering its accreditation with American universities.
Despite the numerous terrorist attacks that have taken place all around the university, Hebrew University has rarely been targeted since it was founded in 1925 by a group of intellectuals and dignitaries that included Albert Einstein, Chaim Weizmann and Martin Buber.
The university’s student body includes Israeli Jews and Arabs, new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and American and European exchange students.
Following Wednesday’s attack, Hamas claimed responsibility, saying it was in retaliation for Israel’s assassination of terrorist leader Salah Shehadeh in Gaza City on July 23. At least 14 Palestinian civilians were killed in that attack.
At least five of the seven dead at Hebrew University were foreigners, Israel Radio reported. At least two of the dead were Israeli: Lavina Shapira, 53, head of the university’s student authority, and a 29-year-old man from Jerusalem.
Dew, the injured Chicago doctoral student, had just sat down at an outdoor patio table because the interior of the air-conditioned cafeteria was full on the blazing hot summer day.
Moments later, he was cut by flying glass when the bomb blew out the cafeteria’s windows.
Dew, 26, jumped through a flower bed and kept running.
“It was horrible because immediately I knew what it was, and then there were dead and dying people everywhere. People who had just been hurt in awful ways, lost a lot of skin or bleeding a lot,” he said. They were “all young people who I didn’t know,” but their faces were familiar from campus.
Dew and two others — with cuts to the scalp that bloodied their faces — went into a building to wash off. When he left the building, he found a classmate whose head had been smashed by bits of ceiling. Dew then realized his own pant leg was cut open and glass had cut his leg, and he was rushed to the hospital.
Other students rushed into the cafeteria to help the wounded, removing their shirts and using them as tourniquets to stem gushing wounds.
Along the stone walkways outside the cafeteria, rescue workers had lined up the seven dead, wrapping them in dark body bags.
At the New York headquarters of the American Friends of Hebrew University, phones were “ringing off the hook” Wednesday as concerned parents tried to confirm their children’s safety. University staff in New York instructed parents to call (212) 606-4264 for more information. In Jerusalem, two university psychologists were dispatched to the dorms, and more will be sent in coming days to help students cope with the tragedy.