For the week ending 28 June 2003 / 28 Sivan 5763
Saved by the Mishna
"I leaned down into my bag to take out my Mishna I think thats what saved my life and then the blast occurred, sending my glasses flying across the bus."
Thus spoke Major Yaakov Engelberg from his bed in Jerusalems Shaare Zedek Hospital where he was taken from the scene of a suicide bombing.
Engelberg was one of the victims of an explosion on a No. 6 Egged bus at Jerusalems French Hill intersection on May 18 caused by a Palestinian terrorist. Seven passengers were killed and twenty wounded, four of them seriously, when a 19-year old Hamas activist from Hebron, disguised as a religious Jew with kippa and tallit, blew himself up. Thanks to his move for his Mishnayot volume Engelberg got away with only light wounds.