As the world today spitefully refuses to recognize a Jewish connection to its capital, one South African recalls that same hateful expression 34 years ago as body parts were strewn across a street in Jerusalem.
Living today in Cape Town, Soprano, Futurist and Mystic, Belinda Silbert (Metlitzky) is a household name in South Africa, having appeared frequently on local television, notably “Making Contact” on SABC 3 and “Your Date with Destiny” on ETV and radio slot on KFM 94.5.
Learning to play piano at the age of five, what followed was a journey of musical studies at renowned schools that included, at the age of 18, studying Opera at the internationally acclaimed Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. It was while in Jerusalem that an event occurred that so profoundly affected Belinda’s life that she says: “Throughout the most profoundly dark times, my passion for singing has given me the strength to persist. I shall NEVER give up!
What are the “dark times” referred to by Belinda?
“It was a wintry Jerusalem night on December 5, 1983. I was tucked up cozily in my bed having gone to sleep peacefully, only to wake up the next morning weeping. I had had a nightmare that I was on a bus and there had been an explosion with nails everywhere and that the bus driver had been blown through the windscreen.”
Disturbed by this nightmare, she poured out the gory details to her flat-mates, so graphic, it was entrenched in her mind. “They just pooh-poohed me; “It’s only a dream Belinda!”
If only it was!
So, Belinda traipsed off to the Rubin Academy as she normally did on bus No 18. The morning was filled with lectures and recitals and she left the Academy before midday to catch her bus home – the No. 18.
“Now in Hebrew,” says Belinda, “the word for life is chai and has the value of 18. This makes 18 a favorable number as it indicates hopes of a long life.”
Not this 1983 winter’s day in Jerusalem!
The red and white No. 18 bus that Belinda boarded was jammed as it headed from downtown Jerusalem along Herzl Boulevard.
“The bus was full; not a seat to be had and I found myself, standing in the central section next to two young girls who were happily chattering away.”
Suddenly, about seven stops before her own, “I was overcome by a sense of panic that I had never experienced before. As the doors opened at a traffic light, I heard a loud voice say in English – although I was surrounded by Hebrew speakers – “get off the bus!” I was in a rush to get home and nature was calling, so I had no intention of getting off.”
However, this is where “it gets strange” and possibly led Belinda on the path to becoming a Futurist and Mystic. “It was surreal – for I felt myself being lifted and thrown out of the bus. How – I cannot to this day explain – but there was I, outside the bus, sprawled on the road with a badly grazed knee.”
The next thing she knew, “there was a deafening bang and debris – including limbs – were strewn into the empty field on the side of the road. A smell of burning flesh pervaded the air. I shall never forget that odour. It was a long time before I could endure the smell of a braai after inhaling the smell of human flesh burning. The smells and sights have been etched into my consciousness forever.”
According to eyewitnesses, the roof of the bus was blown off and debris was scattered more than a 150 meters down the street.
Belinda stumbled into the nearest phone-booth and called her relatives in Netanya to tell them what had happened. “The following Shabbat my uncle recited a Birkat Ha Gomel in his synagogue to give thanks that I had been saved.”
Observing shortly afterwards the scene from a few floors up in the student dorms that were located at Beit HaKerem, “the reality sank in as I viewed the destruction.” The Hatzolah (volunteer Emergency Medical Service organization) men were busily collecting body-parts in the field and “I was transfixed by the burnt-out shell of the bus. I just kept on repeating to those standing in the room, “that was my bus, I was on that bus.” As soon as the road was reopened, I went downstairs, bought a cheese boureka from “Sami’s Bourekas” and got on the next bus No.18. I knew that if I had not forced myself to get onto that bus that I would never have boarded another bus again. I was traumatized.”
That ride to nowhere in particular, “felt endless and I kept on waiting to hear a loud bang.”
In The Blink Of An Eye“At the tender age of eighteen, I realized that I was mortal, and that life could be over in the blink of an eye. I would later come to understand that I had ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ because there were no answers as to why I was spared and those little girls who were equally innocent were not.
“Why did God not tell me that the bomb was only a small distance away? Why could I not save anybody else? The “why’s” were great challenges to my faith and yet my visionary experiences of both the premonitory dream and the “Angel” throwing me out of the bus could not be brushed aside easily.”
This was much for an eighteen-year-old South African girl far from home to process.
“To this very day, my choices are still shaped by that experience. I shall never forgive and never forget and my commitment to countering terrorism is fueled by those memories.”
Apart from the number 18 “signifying life in Hebrew, the terror attack occurred on the sixth day of the twelfth month (December) and this too adds up to 18. Since that fateful day – 6 December 1983 – I have made a point of celebrating that day as my “re-birthday” every year. Life was restored to me on that day, and yet it was indeed the year of Tashmad (destruction) for others.”
The casualties on that crowded bus at the height of the lunchtime rush hour in Jerusalem was four dead and 46 wounded. In Tripoli, Lebanon, the press agency of the pro-Yasser Arafat faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) claimed responsibility for the bombing.
Eli Hershkowitz, a photographer, was standing about 100 yards away, when it happened. Why was he there? He was hoping to get a shot of former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who he had heard was planning to move that day from the official residence to a new apartment in the neighborhood.
Instead, Eli records:
“They were so under shock that they couldn’t even scream. It was very silent, and you could hear only the voices of the people who said, ‘Please, take this one and that one”. There was a fire under the bus. A lot of wounded were lying around, and it looked like an air bomb fell on the bus. And then, in the last seat on the bus, there were two children who sat there, and they took them out. And really, really, the dramatic thing in all the situation was that it was very silent.”
And what about the ‘silence’ of the world when it comes to terror on the streets of Israel?
Today the USA is poised to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a promise given by previous American presidents and administrations, but never carried out to avoid inflaming the Arab and Muslim world.
“Nothing in this decision speaks to a final status resolution, or boundaries or sovereignty issues,” a senior US administration official said. “It doesn’t change the status quo with respect to the holy sites and other very sensitive issues. We are leaving space for the Palestinians, for this peace process to move forward.”
Unacceptable says the Arab world. “It will inflame Muslim passion.”
Amazing; daily death of Muslims by Muslims in Syria – over half a million murdered – Iraq, Yemen and Libya – to name a few – does not inflame the same ‘passion’ as Israel having its capital in the very spot where King David established the first Kingdom of Israel and his son, Solomon, built the First Temple in the Old City over 3000 years ago.
The ‘passion’ that inflames today is the same that inflamed on the streets of Jerusalem in 1983 that took the lives of four, and nearly the life of Belinda Silbert.
Jewish sovereignty is an anathema.
Yes, that ‘passion’ has a name – it’s anti-Semitism.
