JERUSALEM — Inside the cafeteria next to Hebrew University’s Frank Sinatra Building, Arab and Jewish students gather for lunch. Though they sit at separate tables, they chat and laugh together, seemingly carefree.
The blown-out windows have been repaired, the blackened walls repainted. Almost no trace can be seen of the bomb that killed nine, including five Americans, and injured more than 80 at the university July 31 of last year.
Former Berkeley resident Marla Bennett was among the Americans killed in the blast. A U.C. Berkeley graduate, Bennett was deeply involved in Bay Area Jewish community and education. Berkeley Hillel may hold a memorial for her on the date of her Hebrew yahrzeit, which falls in August, and it will plant a spice and flower garden in her memory once the students are back on campus. At her memorial at the time of terrorist attack, Bennett was called “a bright light on the planet.”
A memorial for Marla Bennett and other victims of last year’s bombing sponsored by the American Friends of the Hebrew University was to be held Thursday at Chabad of S.F.’s downtown office.
Directly in front of the cafeteria grows an unusual-looking tree: Its leaves are hearty and vibrant but its trunk is tilted and its roots jet out of the ground at various angles.
“We have planted a living tree” as a memorial for the bombing victims, “which is symbolic,” said Hebrew University President Menachem Magidor. “Our roots were shaken but, just like the tree, we keep growing and going forward.”
Exactly a year after the bombing, Magidor, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, other university officials and family and friends of the victims attended a memorial ceremony with songs, poetry and speeches in memory of the tragedy — amid hopes for real peace.
Despite the challenges it has faced over the past year — mourning, replacing lost faculty, increasing security and drawing new students — Hebrew University is pushing forward.
Citing the tenacious Israeli sprit, Magidor reported an increase in overall student applications this past year.
The Rothberg International School is still suffering, however: Before the bombing, it averaged 500 to 600 undergraduate overseas students each year. Fewer than 100 came last year.
“Many schools in North America have issued a ban for their students to come here because of the fear of danger,” and fear “that they will be held responsible,” said Shimon Lipsky, Rothberg’s vice provost. “Some schools have even put stumbling blocks in front of students who still wanted to come.”
With the recent abatement in the intifada, there has been a 10 percent rise in enrollment for Rothberg’s upcoming summer Hebrew language classes. The school expects the rise to be reflected in enrollment for the fall semester as well.
Lipsky said there will be a big push to attract North American students for the spring 2004 semester.
“There really is a feeling that we have turned the corner and that things are getting better,” he said. “We’re hoping that students will again say that Israel and Jerusalem is a place that they would like to come to.”
Still, the university’s roots have been shaken permanently.
Inna Zusman, 22, who was injured in the bombing, woke up from a coma a month after, unable to breathe or walk on her own.
“The first month and a half I was just working on breathing without a machine,” she said. “Six months after, I realized that there was no progress” with her legs “and that I would have to stay in a wheelchair.”
The university has provided Zusman with an apartment near campus, and she plans to return to her computer studies this fall.