Sima Novak

Nov 21, 2002 - Sima Novak, 56, of Jerusalem, was one of 11 people killed in a suicide bombing on a No. 20 Egged bus in the Kiryat Menahem neighborhood of Jerusalem.

The bomber, wearing a five-kilogram bomb belt packed with explosives and shrapnel, boarded the bus at approximately 7:00 A.M. on Mexico street in Kiryat Menahem. Before it reached the next stop, the terrorist, who was standing in the front section of the bus, set off the bomb, killing 11 people and wounding about 50.

Sima Novak, who had been a teacher of chemistry and biology, immigrated to Israel from the Ukraine in 1994 with her daughter Svetlana. She took Bus no. 20 as usual yesterday morning to her job as a housekeeper in the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood of Jerusalem and was killed in the blast.

Sima had had a narrow encounter with death earlier this year when she crossed a sidewalk seconds before a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the intersection of King George Avenue and Jaffa Road.

Svetlana met her husband Alex while they were living in Beersheba, and after their marriage moved to Jerusalem. Novak lived with her daughter and husband, and her toddler granddaughter.

Sima Novak was buried in the Givat Shaul cemetery in Jerusalem. She is survived by her daughter, Svetlana, and granddaughter, Ilana.