In LV, Israeli man details devastating toll of violence

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, April 19, 2002 | 9:32 a.m.

He is here to share his grief. To ask for understanding. To call attention to the horrors of recurring terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

Meir Schijveschuurder lost five members of his family in the Aug. 9 suicide bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria -- his parents Mordechai, 43, and Tzira, 41, sister Raya, 14, brother Avraham-Yitzhak, 3, and sister Hemda, 2.

On Thursday he spoke -- voice soft, head hanging low -- at the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas as part of a brief tour of Western U.S. communities. He was accompanied by David Douek, a representative of the Consulate General of Israel.

"I come here because I hope that people in the U.S. understand the real situation," Meir, 21, said.

"I don't feel angry or want to make fire, I feel more down, without hope. Like I cannot understand why," he said. "I want the terrorism to stop, to have peace."

Last summer Meir was in the Israeli army. On Aug. 9 he spoke to his dad on the telephone an hour before the bombing. It was, Meir said, "a regular day." Mordechai was taking his wife and five of his eight children shopping.

The family stopped to have pizza at Sbarro restaurant in central Jerusalem around 2 p.m. As they waited at the food counter, a terrorist entered carrying a bag packed with a bomb and nails.

The explosion destroyed the restaurant, killed 15 people and injured 130. The terrorist was killed in the blast. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad later claimed responsibility for the attack.

Meir looks away when he recalls the story.

"My girlfriend worked in a hospital in Jerusalem, and she called and said there had been a bomb," he said. "I don't know why, but I felt panic. I asked if she would go to the emergency room to look for my family. ...

"Five minutes later my friend called me and said my little sister was injured," he said. "But she was still alive."

Meir and his older brother, Ben Zion, 22, went to Jerusalem to search the hospitals for the rest of his family.

"I got to a hospital and found another little sister. ... Then I get a call from another hospital and they found a 14-year old girl, and said she is wounded very hard, and she is not alive anymore. ...

"They give me a photo and I cannot be 100 percent sure this is my sister, the face is so crushed and covered with blood," he said.

"This is the moment I feel like I lose hope."

Meir's sisters Leah, 8, and Chaya, 10, survived -- although both were burned and peppered with nails. His other brother, Shevual, 18, was not with the family in the restaurant.

Several days later, at Jerusalem's Har Hamenuhot Cemetery, when the bodies of his parents and three siblings lay next to their graves, Meir addressed his father, according to the Jerusalem Post:

"I promise you, father, that we will follow the path in which you guided us: to love each other, to look after each other, to believe in God, and to follow his path, even if it's difficult. It's going to be tough without you, without your smile and the confidence you instilled that everything will be fine. Father and mother, we'll be strong; we'll continue what you have begun."

Leah and Chaya were sent to Switzerland to be brought up by their oldest brother and other relatives; Meir now lives with Shevual in Jerusalem and studies law.

Although it has been eight months, Meir says the attack is always on his mind.

"It makes me angry to think why it happens," he said Thursday morning in the Jewish Federation office.

"I am Orthodox, I am religious. I was before and I am now. I think there is a reason from God, but I don't know what that reason is," Meir said. "I try to understand what is the reason of the Palestinian suicide bomber, but it is something I cannot be sure about."

He said he thinks world leaders have waited too long to stop the violence.

"It's too late to really stop the terror, it is going on now," he said. "People keep getting killed."

Beth Miller, director of communications for the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, said she hopes Meir's visit awakens the Las Vegas community, which includes more than 75,000 Jews, to the dire state of affairs in Israel.

"These are human beings being killed, and having Meir here makes everything become real," Miller said. "We want to increase the awareness and education so that people understand the situation in Israel."

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