What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist who Tried to Kill Your Wife?

by David Harris-Gershon

  I took a breath. “Hi. Yes. This is a long story, but my wife was injured in the bombing at Hebrew University in 2002 and Judge Zaban presided over the trial of the Hamas cell tried in December of that year and I’m just looking for – ”

  The stenographer stopped me. “You know this is not a public office, yes?” she said, her stern face shadowed by a hint of mischievousness.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that – ”

  “How did you find it?”

  “This office?” I couldn’t believe this question again. “From the directory outside.”

  “You’re American, yes?”

  I was a rare specimen, it seemed. This was good. “Yes.”

  “Come here,” the stenographer said, beckoning me to her side with an outstretched finger. “Tell me again what you want.”

  “Court documents, I’m hoping. That’s what I’m trying to get. I traveled all this way to learn more about what happened. Anyway, I was just in the secretarial office, hoping to acquire some documents from the trial, and was told I can’t have them.”

  “Why can’t you have them?” said another woman who magically appeared, seated in the first row, this one brown-haired and young, wearing sleek glasses, her lip gloss shining as the words formed, her skin liquid. Sirens, I thought. The lip gloss woman leaned her elbows on the railing separating us.

  “They said I have to be an official party involved with the trial. I’m not, I guess.” I replied.

  “Huh. Do you remember the date of the trial?” asked the stenographer. I realized that she was Judge Zaban’s secretary.

  “I think, December 15, maybe?”

  “I’ll help you. Don’t worry, my sweet,” she said, opening up some internal court database.

  “You’re lucky. Normally, people can’t just walk into chambers like this,” said the woman with lip gloss. “But she’s the nicest assistant in this entire building. An angel. She’s an angel. And she’s also the best. You’re in good hands.”

  But this angel was unable to locate the trial in the database. She stood and said, “Excuse me a moment,” before floating up a side staircase, past the bench, and toward a curtained room in the back.

  “Judge Zaban is here. He’s in a meeting.”

  I nodded.

  When the stenographer returned, she smiled and slipped a note gently into my hand. “Judge Zaban remembers the trial clearly. He wishes you good luck. The note has the trial’s archival number and the judge’s signature.” Then she took the note back and scribbled her number on the other side. “Tell them to call me if they give you trouble.”

  “Tell who?”

  “The secretarial office. They have what you need.”

  When I handed the stenographer’s note over to the red-haired secretary, she looked at it and then looked up. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a note from Judge Zaban. You said I needed something from somebody involved, so here’s a note from him. He was the judge presiding over the trial I’m seeking documents for. It’s got his signature right there below the case number.”

  “And?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “So what do you want from me?”

  “What do I want? Um. Records from the trial, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’re not here.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We don’t have any files here from that long ago. They’d be in the archives at the prosecutorial office downtown.”

  “Where’s that?”

  She gave me the address, which was across town. Two hours later, after trekking to the prosecutorial office and learning that they had no such documents, I was referred back to the courthouse. Back to where I started.

  “I’m back.”

  “Hello.”

  “You sent me to the prosecutors’ office, but they sent me back. They said the documents I’m looking for are here.”

  The secretary picked up the phone and began yelling, “Why’d you send him back? You have all the – they are? – Okay – Fine.”

  She hung up and stared through me. “Go see the Secretary for Criminal Records next door. She has them.”

  I handed this new secretary, a large-boned Ethiopian woman, my note from Judge Zaban and explained the situation. She nodded. “Sure. No problem. Just fill out a request and it should be here in about a month.”

  “A month? But I’m leaving the country soon. I don’t live here. Is there any way I can get it sooner?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s in the archives, and it takes time. They have to retrieve it, send it over. You know. It’s a process.”

  “But I can’t wait that long. There’s no way I can pay for a fast service or something?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  A woman next to her, listening to our conversation, took the note and began pecking into her computer, after which a printer began spitting out pages. She grabbed the stack and slapped it on the counter.

  “Here’s what you need.”

  “What?”

  “It’s what you’re asking for. Here. Take it.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the closing arguments and the sentencing. About fifty pages. Can’t imagine it doesn’t contain what you’re looking for – all the details of the case will be covered.”

  “How did you do that? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s in the system. Nothing to it.”

  “In the system?” I looked at the other woman, who looked back and shrugged sheepishly. “Do I owe you anything?”

  “No.”

  “Not even for the printing?”

  “No.”

  I picked up the pages, the weight of information almost unbearable. I knew it would take time, knew that I would take the pages back to America and work many nights on a good translation. I knew that the work would be slow, navigating through legalese, through thirteen indictments and all the evidence contained within, looking for some small mention of remorse, looking for any word as to how Mohammad had become involved with Hamas, looking for something, somewhere, to explain Jamie’s scars.

  Months later, at home in North Carolina, with Hebrew–English dictionaries strewn across an oak desk, I would learn many things:

  I would learn that the attack was meant to have happened on July 28, three days prior to when the bomb went off – that Mohammad had placed the bag on a table in the cafeteria, similarly to the way in which he did so on July 31, then got in the getaway car with Kassam. Called the bag. And then retrieved it after nothing happened. After no ambulances rushed to the scene.

  I would learn that Mohammad took the bomb to Ramallah for repair. For another attempt. The malfunction just a stumbling block. An obstacle around which to maneuver.

  I would learn that he was born in 1973, a year before me.

  That he returned home after successfully bombing Hebrew University on July 31 to his family and ate dinner.

  That he was captured at his home three weeks later, dragged away by police in front of his wife and son.

  That he had planned to bomb a supermarket in downtown Jerusalem and had helped scout locations for other attacks, including the bombing of Café Moment, where he and an accomplice cased the streets, gauging traffic and escape routes.

  I would learn that Mohammad was recruited by the terror cell’s leader, Abu Moaz.

  That Abu Moaz was impressed by Mohammad’s determination, his creativity, his Israeli resident status.

  That Mohammad was convicted because of such determination. “He wasn’t deterred by the difficulties which stood in his path,” the judge had said.

  I would learn that Mohammad was a dedicated killer, and that he was rewarded for such dedication with 9 counts of murder, 84 counts of attempted murder, 124 counts of providing aid for attempted murder, 5 counts of aiding the enemy during a war, 2 counts of giving information to the enemy, and 1 count of connection to the execution of murder. />
  And I would learn other things. I would learn that Mariam was organizing peace initiatives amongst her East Jerusalem students – basketball games between Israeli and Palestinian children.

  I would learn that the Odehs had asked after me and my family, had extended an invitation to visit anytime.

  I would learn that these people were now my friends. That I would expand the definition of “friend” to include them. And in including them, I would feel finished. Feel done. Feel that it was over. It was over. The journey, at least. The traveling backwards, trying to unravel everything. Somehow, meeting them, meeting the other side, the side responsible for what had happened – along with the impersonal information coldly reflected in the court documents – had helped close a door ripped open by the attack.

  And though it was a door I couldn’t lock – never learning firsthand if Mohammad’s words of remorse were true – just closing the door was enough.

  Reconciliation. It had happened, to some degree. And in happening, had impressed upon me the force of restorative dialogue. Its capacity for release, for unclogging the synaptic pores and letting loose all the filth which was contained within.

  I had not picked up a gun. I had not involuntarily sought revenge, nor had I succumbed to any form of demonic violence as a way to exact justice. I just got on a plane, sat on a couch, and provided an opportunity for my subconscious voice to say, as Mariam translated streams of Arabic, My god, they are not monsters. They are not monsters.

  And in understanding this – they are not monsters – I understood that maybe, maybe there is hope for this world. For this land. For my people.

  28

  The evening before leaving Israel, I walked through the old neighborhood where Jamie and I had lived. I walked our old street, Rachov Yehoshuah bin Nun, stopping at our old building, 28א (28A), the front bordered by the same low, stone wall, the same wood-stained fence embedded into the stone wall, the same cactus-sprinkled garden bordered by cobblestones and tended in the same courtyard by the same Dutch woman who, years before, had been responsible for gathering the building’s maintenance fees and collecting our mail when we went abroad.

  I ascended the interior stairs and flipped a red light switch, timed to stay on for twenty seconds, just enough time to conquer four floors when hustling. I hurried to the sky blue door of apartment 8. The door was closed. I pressed my ear to the metal surface just as the light went off. Silence. The same silence we left years before.

  I could have stayed there, concentrating, my ear flush against the metal, listening for the voices of our friends – our past lives – echoing off the linoleum and plaster within. But I didn’t stay. Chose not to stay. It was enough. Just knowing it all still existed was enough.

  Outside, the air was cool. I headed south on Kovshei Katamon. Then the phone rang. It was Lieutenant Colonel Dominitz.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, David, this is Ian from the Prison Service.”

  “Hi Ian.”

  “I want to let you know that I checked with your request one last time. I’m sorry to say that, unfortunately, the prisoner has again refused.”

  “Thank you for calling. I understand.”

  “If there is anything I can do, please let me know.”

  “Of course, Ian. Of course. Thank you for your help.”

  “It is no problem.”

  “Well, that’s it, then.”

  “Have a safe trip.”

  I hung up the phone and glanced over to see a young boy, while helping his mother unload groceries from the back of a van, pause from the task to toss a pomegranate into the air playfully. As it rose, slowly arcing in the night sky, I thought of my family. Of my love for them. I imagined squeezing my girls and holding Jamie as the pomegranate fell into the boy’s hand, his mother saying, Maspeek – Enough. The boy reached the pomegranate out to her pleadingly, a gesture of forgiveness. The fruit rolled into her cupped palm. She placed it in a bag, kneeled down, and kissed him on the forehead, his arm reaching round her neck, her palms gently pressing the small of his back as he lifted his body to hers, standing on his toes.

  And I knew. Knew everything needed was contained in feet lifting onto pointed toes, was contained in kisses on foreheads and arms reaching. Knew it was time to go back, time to live the life we’d been granted by chance.

  The boy looked over at me as the van’s door closed and smiled, waving. I waved back. “Goodbye,” I said. “Goodbye.”

  Notes

  Part I. The Bombing

  1 Three weeks before … over his shoulder. – From a transcription of the sentencing of Mohammad Odeh and three others on December 15, 2002. The documents, procured from the Jerusalem District Court, were in Hebrew – a transcription of the final arguments, which entered into the record all indictments and evidence pertaining to them before the sentencing. For posterity’s sake. About sixty pages’ worth of posterity. And so I translated all of them, to rid myself of posterity. Or to rid it of me.

  2 “passed time” – Exact words used by the prosecutor when relating during final arguments the time spent by Mohammad Odeh before striking. I found the words so casual, so normal – so perfect in expressing the callousness of it all – that they were irreplaceable.

  3 Mohammad Odeh lived … The phone ringing. – Most of this is again from the Jerusalem District Court’s sentencing documents, though supplemented by a few news articles:

  1) “Handyman is Arrested in Bomb Blast” by Laurie Copans, Associated Press, August 21, 2002;

  2) “Arrests in Hebrew Univ. Bombing” from CBS News, August 21, 2002;

  3) “HU Bomber Worked on Campus” by Etgar Lefkovitz, Jerusalem Post, August 21, 2002.

  4 The voice of the blood … from the ground. – Genesis 4:10. Much of rabbinic commentary on this verse focuses upon the word blood due to its plural construction in the Hebrew: “ךיחא ימד לוק –The voice of your brother’s bloods.” This construction leads Rashi to conclude that “blood” is pluralized to indicate that not only was Cain killed, but so too all future descendants. However, it has always been the word “ground” that has most sparked my interest in this verse. Perhaps it’s the writer, the metaphor-seeker within who gravitates toward striking images, toward an image of the ground, soaked, emitting screams: “המדאה ןמ ידא םיקעוצ – Yelling to me from the ground.”

  5 Genesis 2:22.

  6 Genesis 12:1.

  7 Many answers have been given … points as well. – This is my understanding of Nachmanides’ comment on the verse, which I read in the original Hebrew from a volume entitled Torat Hayim, published by Mossad Harav Kook, which is a multi-volume set covering the books of the Torah with accompanying rabbinic commentary.

  8 For several months … Palestinian cabinet ministers. – This is from a July 21, 2002 Associated Press article entitled “Israel, Palestinians Plan Talks” by Nicole Winfield.

  9 Activists from Fatah’s … sealed since June, – From two July 18, 2002 Associated Press articles: 1) “Israel Suspends Palestinian Talks” by Mark Lavie; 2) “Israel Keeps Restrictions After Bomb” by Jason Keyser.

  10 But first, July … the terrorists out. – Ibid.

  11 Here is what … struggle for independence. – From a July 20, 2002 Ha’aretz News article entitled “Report: PA Discusses Suicide Bombing Halt with Hamas, Jihad” and a July 25, 2002 New York Times article by James Bennet and John Kifner entitled “Palestinian Cease-Fire Was in Works Before Israeli Strike.”

  12 According to a … a moral mistake. – From a July 25, 2002 Times (London) article by Stephen Farrell entitled “Agreement Was to End Attacks Immediately.”

  13 However, an anonymous … the Palestinian people. – From Ha’aretz News, “Report: PA Discusses Suicide Bombing Halt with Hamas, Jihad.”

  14 Those in the … and the Palestinian Authority. – From Bennet and Kifner, “Palestinian Cease-Fire.”

  15 In their three … A start. – From Winfield. “Israel, Palestinians Plan Ta
lks.”

  16 Few things were … the Palestinian people. – From a July 21, 2002 BBC News article entitled “Israel, Palestinians Resume Talks.”

  17 Immediately, funds Israel … million it owed. – From a July 22, 2002 Reuters article by Danielle Haas entitled “Israel Says Releasing Withheld Palestinian Funds.”

  18 Much of this … to succeed. – From Bennet and Kifner, “Palestinian Cease-Fire.”

  19 Ninety minutes after … entire families. – From a July 22, 2002 Associated Press article by Ibrahim Barzak entitled “Israel Air Strike Kills at least 10” and Bennet and Kifner, “Palestinian Cease-Fire.”

  20 Here is what … the targeted bombing. – From a July 24, 2002 Times (London) article by Stephen Farrell entitled “Palestinian Ceasefire Plan Lies Buried in the Rubble of Gaza” and Bennet and Kifner, “Palestinian Cease-Fire.”

  21 Israeli officials acknowledged … on terrorist activities. – From Bennet and Kifner, “Palestinian Cease-Fire.”

  22 According to media … its suicide bombings. – From a July 24, 2002 United Press International article by Saud Abu Ramadan entitled “Hamas Halts Palestinian Authority Talks.”

  23 Shahada had been placed … began in 2000. – From a July 23, 2002 Ha’aretz News article by Amos Harel entitled “Israel Kills Hamas Founder in Gaza in Air Strike.”

  24 Having founded … over ten years. – From a July 23, 2002 BBC News article entitled “Profile: Sheikh Salah Shahada.”

  25 A span during … hundreds of attacks. – From a July 23, 2002 Independent (London) article by Justin Huggler entitled “Ten Killed in Israeli Air Strike on Home of Hamas Chief.”

  26 After escaping one … conducted or not. – From BBC News, “Profile: Sheikh Salah Shahada.”

  27 [Shahada] had grown close … next in line. – From Harel, “Israel Kills Hamas Founder” and BBC News, “Profile: Sheikh Salah Shahada.”

  28 Shahada’s death sent … the other victims. – From a July 23, 2002 Ha’aretz News article by Amos Harel entitled “100,000 Attend Funerals of 15 Fatalities of Gaza Bomb Strike.”

  29 Retaliation is coming … of our operations. – From a July 23, 2002 CBS News article entitled “White House Scolds Israel for Attack.”