Rabbi Mordechai Yehuda Friedman

Aug 4, 2002 - Rabbi Mordechai Yehuda Friedman, 24, of Ramat Beit Shemesh, was one of 9 people killed in the suicide bombing of Egged bus No. 361 traveling from Haifa to Safed at the Meron junction in northern Israel.

Egged bus No. 361 left Haifa for Safed at 7:15 Sunday morning. The terrorist, who had boarded the bus, exploded the bomb at the Meron junction near Safed just before 9:00. The blast blew off the roof of the bus, which then burst into flames, killing or wounding nearly everyone inside.

Mordechai Friedman, a Gur hassid, was a student at a yeshiva for married men. On the morning of the bombing he was on his way back to Safed after visiting the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai at Mount Meron with two fellow students, who were lightly wounded in the attack. The suicide bomber detonated his explosives just after Friedman and his friends boarded the bus at Meron.

"He was a brilliant and devoted student," said family friend and journalist Zvi Rosen, who noted that Friedman was studying to become a rabbinical court judge and teacher.

Rabbi Mordechai Yehuda Friedman was buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He leaves a widow, Bina, in her sixth month of pregnancy and an 18-month-old son, Pinchas.