Mourners in San Diego Recall a ‘Mighty Woman of Israel’

In a tearful funeral here, a 24-year-old San Diego woman killed by a terrorist bombing at Hebrew University in Jerusalem last week was eulogized Monday as “one of Israel’s martyrs for shalom, for peace.”

Rabbi Martin Lawson remembered Marla Bennett, a graduate of UC Berkeley who went to Jerusalem to study Hebrew and Judaism, as “a mighty woman of Israel” who was dedicated to the survival of the embattled nation and who worked for reconciliation between Jews and Palestinians.

“How could it happen that a person of such goodness would be taken from us?” asked Lawson, of Temple Emanu-El. “The world too often teaches hate and violence, rather than love and peace.”

Under tight security, an overflow crowd of more than 2,000 people attended the hourlong service at Tifereth Israel Synagogue. The casket was draped with the U.S. and Israeli flags.

“Like 605 Israelis who have been murdered in the last two years, Marla’s life was taken through no fault of her own,” said Tzvi Vapni, deputy counsel general of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles. “She was targeted by a Palestinian organization which believes that the innocent have no right to live ... an indiscriminate cult of death that has brainwashed so many in the Middle East.”

Bennett, an honor student, had planned a career as a teacher and administrator in the Jewish education system. She had planned to return to San Diego late last week for a family bar mitzvah and the wedding of a college friend.

She was among five Americans killed when a remote-controlled bomb exploded in the cafeteria at Hebrew University, once considered a safe zone from terrorism. Two other people were killed and nearly 100 injured in an attack that brought a swift retaliation by the Israeli military.

Lawson said Bennett had been “murdered at the hands of Hamas terrorists.” Leaders of the radical Islamic organization, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, have expressed regret for the death of “non-Zionists,” but have also said “they were in a place they should not have been.”

Bennett’s boyfriend, Michael Simon of Long Beach, noted that she had always been careful to avoid places where terrorism might strike, except last week when she was shopping for presents for friends in San Diego. He had planned to come to San Diego to meet members of her family; instead, he accompanied her body on the flight from Israel.

“She never missed an opportunity to bring goodness into the world,” said Simon, his voice breaking. “The pain is so unfathomable, the emptiness is so deep.”

Terry Smooke, a representative of Gov. Gray Davis, presented a proclamation from Davis naming Monday as Marla Bennett Memorial Day and condemning the “clenched fist of religious violence and hatred [that] has now struck one of our own.”

Rep. Susan Davis (D-San Diego) said that “terrorism has hit us hard. We will never forget. We will never forget Marla.”

Lawson suggested that Bennett’s grief-stricken friends and family members should look to the story of Job, who lost his wife, his children and all his possessions but refused to lose faith.

“Job in his sorrow cried: ‘God has given, God has taken away, blessed be the name of God,’ ” Lawson said. “An ancient people, we are not strangers to grief or the valley of shadows.”

The other Americans killed in the explosion were Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Susquehanna Township, Pa.; Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, an assistant director of graduate studies for the university’s Rothberg International School, based in New York; graduate student David Gritz, 24, of Peru, Mass.; and Dina Carter, 37, who also had Israeli citizenship.

Born in San Diego, Bennett was an honor student in local schools and was active in student government and cheerleading. She worked with the homeless at the St. Vincent de Paul Center in downtown San Diego. Her mother, Linda, is a columnist for the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage and her father, Michael, is an insurance executive.

“Marla was the essence of a superstar,” Lawson said. “To be with Marla was magic, spiritual magic.”