Behold, Neither Slumbers Nor Sleeps…
by: Schvach Yid

…the guardian of Israel; this we daven in Psalm 121. There are often times when we see proof positive of this maxim of Jewish belief.

Yesterday, Soccer Dad posted Haveil Havalim #150, and in doing so awarded the Post of the Week to My Shrapnel, the blog site of Gila Weiss, an olah from the United States who suffered injury in a terrorist bombing attack in Jerusalem in 2002.

Here’s what she writes as her side bar ‘message’:

I am, of course, neither sad, nor heroic nor particularly victimized. What I am is an "ordinary Joe" who was seriously injured six years ago in a suicide bombing while waiting for a bus at the Machane Yehuda open air market in Jerusalem.

Ever since I learned how to write, writing has served as a sort of therapy for me. In the months and years after the bombing, I did an enormous amount of writing. What I was thinking. What I was feeling. How the world reacted to me. How my bombed-out self reacted to the world. Some of the articles were sent to friends and relatives via email lists. Many more of them just sat on my computer. I always meant to do something with them.

Of course, I never got around to it.

This year, I promised myself that I would, at last do something. And since blogging is the best way to do something without having to do all that much (no publishers, no rejections, no work apart from editing), I decided that this was the way to go.

Please comment. I am putting these out so that people will read them. Let me know that you are reading.

Thanks.
Gila

You know the old cliche, 'words alone cannot express..' Well, I am at a loss to express my gratitude for the heroics of this heroine of Zion. To read her blogs is something akin to watching a remake of the old flick Fantastic Voyage, but this time viewing the horror experienced by a target of a terrorist’s bombing. She’s stoic, but at the same time candid and sharing, evidently extending her concern for others who have perished in similar atrocities or for those who might unwittingly fall victim, as she did.

On line, we are favored to learn about the life events of others, some of who share their naches, while others choose to share their experiences with the other side of what life can, and all too often does, dole out. Gila manages to combine the two, by providing a paradoxically positive reflection of this event, which was momentary in its execution and yet life long in its impact, and on her devoted attachment to her Jewish identity.

She provides a superb reputation to the efforts of personal introspection.

My many thanks are extended to her. Baruch HaShem she has succeeded where her attacker failed, and may she know only joy, success, and brachot in the Jewish Homeland.