anti-semitism

20 YEARS: Never fogetting Sbarro blast

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It didn’t start on 9/11, 20 years ago this September. Israel had been the canary-in-the-coal mine for years, living — and dying — under a barrage of civilian-targeted terror, with the second Intifada underway that summer.

Twenty years ago this Thursday, the 20th of Av 5761 (Aug 9, 2001), evil walked into the Sbarro pizzeria at King George Street and Jaffa Road in Jerusalem. Ahlam Tamimi scouted the location for the suicide bomber who entered and exploded a shrapnel-laced guitar case, killing 13 Israelies, one pregnant American, and one Brazilian. He injured 130 more, many seriously. To this day, Chana Nachenberg, 31 years old in 2001, remains hospitalized in a perment vegetative state.

Tamimi, who said she had picked Sbarro’s because of the many children it atrracted, was tried in Israel and sentenced in 2003 to 16 life terms. But she was released in 2011 — along with 1,026 other convicts — in an exchange for Gilad Shalit, a solider held captive by Hamas. Since then, she’s been a popular spewer of Israel-hate, protected by the King of Jordan.

The horrific day in 2001 is recounted again by Rabbi Binny Freedman, who was there. (Click here)