Vigil marks end of mourning for victims of suicide bombing

JERUSALEM, Oct. 8 (JTA) – Dozens of Israeli women held a silent 24-hour vigil this week to commemorate the end of the 30-day mourning period for the victims of Sept. 4 triple suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall. Elana Rozenman, an immigrant from California, planned the vigil after her 16-year-old son, Noam, was badly injured in the bombing. The teen-ager, who suffered burns and broken bones, was transferred Monday to a rehabilitation hospital. He is expected to make a full recovery. Rozenman said she founded a group called Women Shaping the Future just days after the attack. “As I lay on the floor next to my son at Hadassah Hospital’s burn unit, Noam asked me how something like this could happen. “I told him I didn’t know, but promised that I would do something so that it wouldn’t happen again,” she said. In addition to planning the vigil, the organization formed a support group, has organized visits by teen-agers to hospitalized victims of terror attacks and hopes to form a dialogue group of Jewish and Arab mothers. Jewish women in 30 other cities around the world held solidarity vigils for the five people killed and more than 190 injured in the attack.