Jerusalem, Israel - Mar. 17, 2016 -Today was an ordinary Thursday. My cleaner had just finished cleaning our apartment and I wanted to keep it clean. I Thought of taking the kids to the park but it was too cold and then my cleaner suggested going to the mall. I thought that was a good idea. I had never tried to new Pizza Hut in the Achim Yisrael Mall. I set out to pick up my 8 year old from school when the sirens started. One ambulance is normal for an ordinary day. Then two Hatzola motorcycles, then more ambulances, more police, after seeing more then 10 ambulances and more than 10 police cars pass by I understood that "something happened". This is a concept that every Israeli knows exactly what it means. "mash-hu kara".
Because I live in the industrial area in Talpiyot, I am very used to seeing the many Arabs who work nearby. Some from Beit Lehem, some Israeli citizens. Because I don't have a car I walk a lot, taking my kids to school and gan (kindergarten) every morning and afternoon. Naturally, when there are so many terrorists attacks my kids ask questions about Arabs. They ask if they are bad. I say that most of them are okay and just want to live good lives. I am used to walking passed many Arabs a day and used to hearing about attacks that happen in the center of town or in Gush Etzion. Sometimes the whatif section of my imagination gets the better of me but I keep going.
When I saw all the emergency vehicles racing towards the south I thought something must have happened in Gush Etzion... again. I looked at my phone on saw nothing on the news or on facebook so I understood the whatever happened is still happening and it has yet to be reported. Walking, worrying and wondering I arrived at my daughters school. As we turned around heading home and the sirens were still going strong, I got a call from my husband. His friend is part of a civilian volunteer neighborhood watch and he got the news before it was publicized.
There was a stabbing outside the Achim Yisrael mall. I was walking past that exact street. I told my daughter the truth about what had happened and we help hands tightly. I wanted to text my family in our Whatsapp groups that we were ok before they heard on the news. I didn't want to look down and text while walking so I asked my daughter to keep her eyes open and look around for us. Just after we crossed the street I saw the yellow ambulance racing in the opposite direction, going towards the hospital. The yellow ones are intensive care vehicles. I told her to say the Tehilim she knows by heart and I couldn't hold back my tears. The sirens were non-stop and I had no idea how many people were hurt. I told all the people walking around me not to walk in that direction because there was a stabbing.
My sons kindergarten is a half a block away from the site of the attack. I was trying to call the head of the gan, who was at home on the other side of town, to tell her to have the staff make sure the gate is locked. The gan does not have a guard even though it is in a very dangerous area. The municipality says that we are not eligible. There are only 60 kids in the building and you need 100 to get a guard. So instead there is a gate that needs to be buzzed every time someone goes in or out. At pick up time it buzzes too often and the staff can't keep running back and forth to the button so they just leave the gate open. I whatsapped our parents group asking if anyone can come and guard the gan, preferably with a gun.
We came home and was trying to think about what to do. I needed to go pick up the baby and 5 year old but I didn't want to go out walking around with my kids. And then I get the text with the "good news" that is only good news in Israel. "Ze Plili" It is criminal. I had to explain to my 8 year old why that was good news. I said someone like this: "Someone tried to hurt someone because he hated him not because he wants to kill all Jews just because they are Jewish". It took her a while to grasp this concept. "So why did he try to kill him?"
"He must have fought with him but he knew him and he was angry. He wasn't trying to kill as many Jews as he possible even though he doesn't know them."
We sat for 5 minutes and then walked to pick up the little ones. It had been close to an hour and the sounds of sirens and were scarce. Got to the babysitter's house. She is from France and always scared of the "situation". I am the Israeli who is always chilled and telling her that life must go on. She commented how it was so untypical of me to be freaking out, I am always the level headed one. Once she kept her kids home from school because there had been so many terror attacks and I told her that life must go on as usual and kids need to go to school.
Her comment made me realized how scared I was. I told her that I am not hysterical but I am safe. I am never afraid of driving but I will always put on my seatbelt. When you don't know if someone is running around on your street with a bloody knife it is not frantic to stay home. It is better to be safe then sorry.
We head out to pick up the last kid on the trek and one neighbor was saying that she saw on facebook that it was a terror attack but another heard it was criminal. As I got to the gan I saw a dozen uniformed officers casually walking towards me away from the site of the mall . I asked them if is it true that it was criminal one guy said so casually "Yeah don't worry. It was just a criminal stabbing. It's all good".
My heartbeat resumed. I had 3 little kids standing next to me and everything was back to normal. My 8 year old had been pretty shaken up as she had never seen me lose my cool like that before. I asked her if she was ok with going to Pizza Hut even though it happened at that mall maybe 30 meters from Pizza Hut. I told her everything is ok now. I wanted to calm her down by showing her that life goes on and we are not afraid anymore and I wanted to give the restaurant our business as it was Thursday at 5pm and no one was in the mall. We went to the mall and she commented. Wow I have never seen the mall so empty. We got the kids climbing toys all to ourselves and then got Pizza and ice cream with no wait at all.
She just gave me kiss good night and she told me that she is too excited to fall asleep... Too excited about her Purim costume, her new shoes and for school tomorrow when they will be seeing a movie.
