Twenty people, six of them children, were killed in a suicide bombing Tuesday on an Egged bus in Jerusalem, and another 128 people were wounded.
Hanoch Segal, 65
Bnei Brak Hanoch Segal worked as a teacher at the Talmud Torah school in Bnei Brak for 40 years, and was also a cantor on the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
Like many others involved in the terror attack, Segal boarded the bus Tuesday night after evening prayers at the Western Wall.
"He came to breathe the air of Jerusalem. He was crazy about the pure air of the city," his son, Shmuel said Wednesday.
Segal was born in Jerusalem to Holocaust survivors. He was buried Wednesday, his 44th wedding anniversary, at the Har Hamenuchot cemetery in the capital. He is survived by five children, 20 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Avraham Bar On, 12
Jerusalem In another six months, Avraham Bar On was supposed to celebrate his bar mitzvah. The second of seven children, the student at a B'mesila Na'ale, a Sephardi Talmud Torah, Avraham was the oldest in practice, since his 17-year-old older brother has been living in France in recent years.
He was on the bus with his parents, but while they sat in the back, he wanted to be in the middle of the two-car bus, and ended up right next to the bomber, killed in the spot. His parents were only lightly wounded - and only learned of his death at the hospital.
A neighbor described the boy as "the flower of the neighborhood, who helped everyone. He was serious and good. Wherever he went he only spoke words of Torah."
Hava Rechnitzer, 19
Bnei Brak Hava Rechnitzer was killed just three months before she was due to get married. Hava, the daughter of Leah and Rabbi Yosef Zvi of the Belz Hasidic sect, was in Jerusalem for Zion Day, the day of remembrance for the Belz rebbe at the Har Hamenuchot cemetery.
Afterward, she went to pray at the Western Wall before boarding the ill-fated bus. A neighbor, who last saw her some two weeks ago preparing for her wedding said, "she was a gentle, modest and very special girl."
She was laid to rest Wednesday at the Har Hamenuchot cemetery.
Lilach Karadi, 22
Jerusalem Lilach Karadi was eight months pregnant when she was killed in the suicide bombing. She is survived by her husband Shmuel and one year old son. Until three years ago she lived in Netanya, before she met Shmuel Karadi in an arranged match and the two moved to Jerusalem.
Seven years ago, Lilach lost her father in a work accident in the Electric Corporation. Her mother died six years ago after a long illness. Her elder brother stayed in Netanya and her young brother moved in with her in Jerusalem.
"In the late afternoon Lilach ran some errands in City Hall and before going home decided to pray at the Western Wall," said her uncle, who was in Jerusalem on the day of the bombing. "She used to pray there a lot. I heard of the bombing but it wasn't on her route. When I heard Lilach did not return home that night I drove back to Jerusalem and we started looking for her. At about 1 A.M. we met three social workers who directed us to the police station at the Russian compound, where we learned that the worst had happened."
Lilach's girl friends said she had become ultra-Orthodox after her parents died. "She was righteous and modest," one friend said.
She was buried Wednesday in Netanya.
Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish, 42
Jerusalem Rabbi Eliezer Weisfish of Ramat Shlomo in Jerusalem, was a Bratslav Hasid who spent all his time studying Torah. He left behind a wife and daughter, aged 9. Weisfish was the son of Rabbi Yehiel Zvi and father-in- law to Yitzhak Wolloch, a member of a well-known Jerusalem family.
"Weisfish was not on the bus but was standing next to it, intending to go to Bnei Brak. Shrapnel from the blast hit his neck and killed him," Magen David Adom paramedic Ben Zion Leizerovitz told Weisfish's brother. After the evacuation of the injured and the dead, Rabbi Weisfish's phylacteries were found at the bomb site. His brother called his friend Leizerovitz and asked him to check whether Weisfish was among the injured. On Wednesday morning it transpired that Weisfish had been killed.
His funeral departed from the Shamgar funeral home in Jerusalem and passed through the Bratslav yeshiva in Mea Shearim.
Yaacov (Yankele) Binder, 50
Jerusalem Yaacov Binder left behind seven children and many grandchildren. A Gerer Hasid who made his living as a kashrut inspector for Agudat Yisrael, he was close to the rebbe and the previous Gerer rebbe.
Binder was not on the bus Tuesday night - he was coming out of a bar mitzvah celebration at the Zvil wedding hall when the bomb went off.
Yosef Haberfeld, a neighbor and friend said: "Yankele was a very honest Jew who gave his children excellent education. Each one of his children was more successful than the next and every morning he got up, went to pray and then went to the grocery to make sure there was food for his wife and children."
He was a good man, added one of Binder's brothers-in-law, "who gave to charity."
He was buried Wednesday at the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem.
Goldie Taubenfeld, 43, and her son Shmuel, 5 months
New Square, New York New Yorker Goldie Taubenfeld, was visiting Israel to attend the wedding of her nephew with her husband and two of her 13 children.
Her five-month-old son Shmuel was also killed in the attack, although her 15-year-old daughter Batsheva survived. The family is from the Hasidic community of New Square in New York state.
New York state Assemblyman Ryan Karben said Taubenfeld's husband Moshe was not on the bus when it blew up. Taubenfeld and her infant son were laid to rest Wednesday in Jerusalem.
Mordechai Reinitz, 49, and his son Yisachar, 9
Netanya The Reinitz family were spending their holiday at Mordechai's family in Jerusalem when Mordechai and his 9-and-a-half-year-old son Yisachar were killed in Tuesday night's terror attack
Mordechai had taken two of his children, Yisachar and Mendel, 11, to pray at the Western Wall when the bus they were traveling home in exploded. Mendel is still in a serious condition.
Mordechai, 49, came to Israel with his parents from the United States some 39 years ago. Shalom Satmar, a spokesman for the Sanz Hasidim community, said that the Reinitz family were one of the oldest families in the Sanz neighborhood in Netanya.
Mordechai was an excellent student from a young age and when he was 14, he received a special certificate from the then-admor for learning 300 pages of Gamara by heart. Five years ago, the current admor appointed him spiritual headmaster of the Talmud Torah school where he himself learned. The admor had much respect for him and had asked for his help in editing his book.
Like his father, Yisachar was a great student who had a great "love of life" and was always very friendly, according to Satmar.
Students at Talmud Torah and residents of the Sanz neighborhood of the coastal town have been stunned by the deaths and rabbis and psychologists were on-hand at the school yesterday to help the students cope with their grief.
Hundreds of people attended their funerals in Netanya on Wednesday.
Benjamin Bergman, 15
Jerusalem The youngest child in a family of many children, Benjamin Bergman was a student at the Shomrei Hahomot Yeshva, not far form his home on Beit Yisrael Street in Jerusalem. He had told his family he was going on an errand and apparently was on his way to the Shmuel Hanavi neighborhood when the bomb went off.
His uncle, Meir Bergman, called him "a sweet lad, who excelled in every aspect." He was buried Wednesday night at Givat Shmuel cemetery.
Elisheva Meshulami, 16
Bnei Brak Elisheva and her mother, Sima, were returning from prayers at the Western Wall when the blast occurred. Sima, who was sitting beside her daughter on the bus and suffered severe head injuries, still does not know of her daughter's death.
"Elisheva was told there was no room at the front of the bus, so she sat in the back, near the door the suicide bomber entered soon before exploding," her uncle said.
Born in Bnei Brak, Elisheva studied at the ultra-Orthodox Beit Ya'akov school in town, then at the Beit Ya'akov ultra-Orthodox girls' seminar, where she excelled. She was the youngest daughter of Rabbi Meshulam Meshulami and Sima and had seven brothers and sisters. The family also has a foster child.
Elisheva died just two months before the scheduled wedding of her brother. She was buried in Jerusalem's Har Menuchot cemetery Wednesday.
Miriam Eisenstan, 20
Bnei Brak A teacher in a Bnei Brak yeshiva, Miriam left behind eight brothers and sisters and was "a paradigm and outstanding student for all the girls in her classes," said one of her neighbors.
She was known for spending Fridays visiting ailing children in hospital and taking children for walks. "Bnei Brak was hit badly, all our best have left us and in our family we have lost as well," said a relative in the town. As she did once a month, Miriam was in Jerusalem to pray at the Western Wall for the children she took care of as a volunteer. But she never returned home.
Liba Schwartz, 54
Jerusalem Liba Schwartz is survived by her husband, who serves as a rabbinical court judge, five children and 11 grandchildren.
Liba had gone to the Western Wall on Tuesday to recite psalms to mark the occasion of her son, Yoel, beginning his studies at an elite yeshiva in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of the capital.
"My mother was very tied to the Western Wall," her son, Eli, said Wednesday. "Whenever she had a problem or request in her life, she would go the Wall. The fact that she died on her way back from the Wall makes me feel that she died at one with herself."
Zippora Dushinsky, 50 Jerusalem Friends and acquaintances of Zippora Dushinsky and her husband, Mordechai, spoke of a benevolent couple always willing to volunteer and donate to the needy.
"Zippora was an extraordinary woman," one of her friends said. "Over the past five years, she would prepare meals on the weekends for around 300 needy people and worked for hours cooking. She and her husband were always doing things for and helping others."
Menachem Liebel, 24 Jerusalem Menachem was buried Wednesday in Jerusalem.
Shmuel Zargari, 11 months Jerusalem Shmuel was buried Wednesday in Jerusalem.
Tehila Nathanson, 3 Jerusalem
Shmuel Volner, 50 Jerusalem
The 20th victim is a foreign worker from Thailand who has yet to be named
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