Love of Israel Kept American Victims There

SAN DIEGO —  When friends and family members pleaded with Marla Bennett to return home to San Diego to escape the violence in Israel, she assured them that she was being careful.

She avoided public transportation, political rallies and crowded public places. She thought carefully about where she ate and which route she took to school. Yet the 24-year-old acknowledged that, in the Jerusalem of today, even meticulous planning might not be good enough to ensure her safety.

In April, she e-mailed a cousin in Los Angeles: “I admit it. Israel is really scary right now.”

And yet, Bennett had told friends, she wanted to remain in Israel as a sign that Jews should not be intimidated by terrorism.

“I have a front-row seat for the history of the Jewish people,” she wrote in a column in May for a San Diego Jewish newspaper. “I am part of the struggle for Israel’s survival.”

When a bomb ripped through a cafeteria at Hebrew University on Wednesday, the promising college student’s forebodings proved tragically correct. Bennett and six others, four of them Americans, were killed in the explosion, which injured nearly 100 more.

The Americans were Bennett, who was studying Hebrew in preparation for a career as a teacher and administrator in the Jewish school system; Benjamin Blutstein, 25, of Harrisburg, Pa.; Dina Carter, 38, a librarian who held dual Israeli-American citizenship; Janis Ruth Coulter, 36, a teacher at the Hebrew University’s branch in New York; and David Gritz, 24, who held dual American-French citizenship, living in Paris and the Berkshires in western Massachusetts.

Some had been drawn to Jerusalem by a long-standing commitment to Israel, others by a desire to understand the nation’s mixture of cultures and religions. All had hoped that they would remain safe at the university, long a popular outpost for Americans and other exchange students.

Those who knew Bennett, an honors graduate at Patrick Henry High School in San Diego and then UC Berkeley, spoke of her particular dedication to her second home, despite the spiraling violence that sent many others home.

“She felt it was her calling to stay in Israel,” said Hyim Brandes, a teacher in Los Angeles, one of Bennett’s friends who decided to leave. “She genuinely believed that the school was safe from attacks and that she would be safe if she avoided dangerous places.”

Friends remembered her Thursday as a bright, enthusiastic young woman who was dedicated to helping others. Even as the violence worsened, she remained optimistic that someday Arabs and Jews would learn to live peacefully. She collected clothes to be distributed to poor Palestinians.

“She took precautions. She tried to stay safe,” sobbed Julie Jacobson, 24, a lifelong friend in San Diego.

“She loved life. She loved Judaism,” said an equally distraught Emma Lefkowitz, 24. Two months ago, Bennett returned to San Diego to serve as maid of honor at Lefkowitz’s wedding. “We were all so happy that day,” Lefkowitz said.

The three friends--who jokingly referred to themselves as the Three Musketeers--were to be reunited this weekend when Bennett arrived for a vacation before returning to her studies at the Pardes Institute, which has a joint degree program with Hebrew University.

Her parents--Michael, an insurance company executive, and Linda, a columnist with the San Diego Jewish Press-Heritage--remained in seclusion Thursday. The couple’s other child, Lisa, 29, works at the San Diego Jewish Academy.

“Marla was an extraordinary young lady,” said Norman Greene, co-publisher of the newspaper and a friend of the Bennett family. “In everything she did she was top, top, top. She was her parents’ joy. And now she’s gone.”

In high school, she was student body president, a cheerleader, a journalist and a leader in social causes, such as seeking solutions for homelessness. At Berkeley, she studied political science, taking her junior year at Hebrew University.

“She loved Israel and said many times that she felt at home there,” said Josh Miller, who worked at the Hillel Jewish student center at Berkeley. “She was a take-charge type, but in a gentle way. She had a wonderful warmth and everybody wanted to have conversations with her. This is all so very sad.”

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Blutstein had been studying in Jerusalem to become a teacher of Judaic Studies and was about to start a two-year master’s program. Like Bennett, he was set to return home for summer vacation. He had been a leader in the Jewish community at Dickinson University in Pennsylvania.

On Sunday, he had e-mailed Andrea Lieber, his former neighbor and professor at Dickinson, to offer to lead discussion groups on campus about Israel while he was back: “As someone who has experienced the intifada [the Palestinian uprising] first hand, I think I could provide an interesting perspective for them.”

Karim Youssef, an Arab-American and a good friend of Blutstein’s at Dickinson University, saw him as a potential peacemaker: “We respectfully disagreed on a lot of issues with each other, but overall, we reached the fact that we’re both human beings and it didn’t really matter how much we disagreed.”

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Carter was employed at the Jewish National and University Library as a librarian and archivist in the manuscripts department and archives. Born in North Carolina, she earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and a master’s in social welfare from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Carter immigrated to Israel in 1990. Rafi Weiser, head of the library’s manuscripts department, described Carter as “perceptive, intelligent, well educated, with a winning personality.”

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Coulter had been inspired to convert to Judaism by her studies of the Holocaust. A teacher at Hebrew University’s American branch, the Rothberg International School in New York, Coulter had escorted a group of 19 American graduate students to Jerusalem.

Coulter had gone with the students to visit the Western Wall Wednesday, then sat down in the cafeteria for lunch with a friend. Most of the students ate quickly, then left to settle into their new dorms, but Coulter lingered over her lunch.

Rabbi Barbara Penzer of Temple Hillel B’nai Torah in Boston said that Coulter had felt at home in Israel, and, despite her apprehensions about safety, felt going there was not an act of courage, but an act of love.

Coulter’s family issued a statement that said, “Janis Ruth was a wonderful, loving, caring person. Her faith, to which she converted, was at the core of her being.”

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Gritz had been scheduled to start classes in Hebrew at the university on Thursday. After graduating from the Sorbonne in Paris, he had turned down a grant for graduate study in Berlin in favor of the program at Hebrew University.

“He was fascinated by Jerusalem as a place where different cultures and religions come together,” said a family friend, Nancy Kreger.

The son of a Croatian mother who is an artist and an American father who is a teacher, Gritz spent most of the year in Paris and summered in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts with his family.

Kreger spoke of him as a young man on the verge of making his way in the world, but one who still liked to play basketball and swim. “He was a fun-loving, lovely person,’ she said.

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Bennett had planed to attend a bar mitzvah and a wedding in San Diego on Saturday. Instead, her funeral is planned Monday at the city’s Tifereth Israel Synagogue. Her boyfriend, Michael Simon of Long Beach, was set to accompany the body on the flight from Israel to the United States.

She had graduated from Berkeley in May 2000, also receiving the Hineini Award for leadership from the Hillel group. She had formed a discussion group for Jewish women and mentored young students about the meaning of religion in their lives.

“She was the glue that held it [Hillel] together,” said Adam Weisberg, the organization’s executive director in Berkeley. “She was the person you hoped to have as a friend or that your child would have as a teacher.”

She returned to Jerusalem for the intellectually rigorous courses at the Pardes Institute. When not studying, she traveled to the Ukraine to organize a Passover Seder for Jews there. Her faith deepened and she began observing the Sabbath and keeping a kosher table.

In traditional Berkeley fashion, Bennett was “a bit of a peacenik,” said Greene, the San Diego publisher.

“She was bringing clothing to Arab families,” he said. “She was interested in human beings and finding a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

Said Brandes: “She really was hopeful that someday there would be peace. She cared about a lot of people and was cared about by a lot of people.”

Greene said Bennett’s father told him that he has been “in fear of this day” ever since his daughter returned to Israel amid the violence. At the family home near San Diego State University, friends kept a daylong vigil Thursday.

UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl issued a statement that the Berkeley community is “shocked and grief-stricken” by Bennett’s death.

“We’re all shocked and devastated,” said Shaked Halaby, a Los Angeles accountant who studied with Bennett in Jerusalem. “No one thought this could happen at the university. The campus is surrounded by walls and gates. But now we know that’s not enough.”

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Times staff writer Elizabeth Mehren contributed to this report.