[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 4, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E726]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   COMMEMORATING THE CREATION OF THE MARLA BENNETT PEACE TILE GARDEN 
                                PROJECT

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Tuesday, May 4, 2004

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, nearly two years ago, Marla Bennett, age 24, 
was one of the nine innocent victims of a terrorist attack at the Frank 
Sinatra cafeteria of the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus in 
Jerusalem. Ms. Bennett was a recent graduate of the University of 
California at Berkeley who was studying to get her Masters at Hebrew 
University. Marla's tragic and needless death brought the horror of the 
Israeli conflict home to the Berkeley community and on May 9, 2004, the 
Berkeley Hillel will unveil its permanent tribute to her with the 
dedication of the Marla Bennett Peace Tile Garden Project. This is a 
fitting tribute to a young lady whose life was ripped from those who 
loved her by a senseless act of terrorism.
   During her academic career at UC Berkeley, Marla's face was a 
familiar one among the Jewish student population as well as the Jewish 
community of the Bay Area. She was an active student organizer, a 
Hebrew school teacher, and resident of the Bayit, the Jewish student 
cooperative of UC Berkeley. Marla's personality, her enthusiasm, and 
her zest for Judaism and the Jewish way of life made her well-known 
within her community and she was the first recipient of the Berkeley 
Hillel award, Hineni, given to the student who best exemplifies 
selfless devotion to the Jewish Community by answering ``here I am'' 
whenever a task needs to be completed.
   Marla's tragic death had a profound effect on the Jewish Community 
at Berkeley and led to many inspiring endeavors in honor of Marla. The 
Rosh Chodesh Women's Group at the Berkeley Hillel was revived to honor 
her memory and scholarship funds in Marla's name for students seeking 
to study Jewish education in Israel were established. As wonderful as 
these tributes were, Dana Blecher, the Cultural Arts and Educational 
Programs Coordinator, for Berkeley's Hillel wanted to create a 
permanent memorial to this extraordinary individual who blessed our 
world for too short a time. Ms. Blecher envisioned the unused backyard 
of the Berkeley Hillel as an ideal space to construct a lasting tribute 
to the memory of Marla Bennett.
   During the past year, Ms. Blecher has been instrumental in the 
creation of the Marla Bennett Peace Tile Garden Project and I want to 
publicly commend her for incorporating so many aspects of the Berkley 
and Bay Area community into the project. For example, she collaborated 
with Bay Area artist Jodi Gladstone, and invited the students of 
Berkeley Hillel to contribute sketches, poetry, and memories of Marla 
to be the foundation of the inspirational material for the creation and 
design of a tile project. Keeping with our Bay Area sensibilities, Dana 
contacted Jonathan Pilch, a student instructor in the subject of 
organic farming, and a UC Berkeley student, to prepare, recommend, and 
supervise the formation of the garden.
   Mr. Speaker, friends of Marla's, as well as students who never had 
the opportunity to meet her, have come from across the country to help 
build the Marla Bennett Peace Tile Garden Project. They all came to 
Berkeley to create a lasting tribute to a person whose life touched so 
many and was tragically cut short. This new space at the Berkeley 
Hillel, while dedicated to Marla, also will be presented in the name of 
peace and hope that there will be a time in the future of Israel when 
violence does not play such a tragic and terrifying role in the history 
of the Jewish state.
   The Marla Bennett Tile Garden will serve as a place for recollection 
and reflection, an appropriate memorial to a person who took 
investigating her Judaism very seriously. As the expression says, ``to 
live in the hearts of those who love you is to never die,'' and this 
wonderful memorial will allow the memory of Marla to continue to live 
on so that in the words of the Executive Director of Berkeley Hillel, 
Adam Weisberg, ``Her name will be for a blessing.''

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