Baltimore immigrant: 'God saved me from bulldozer terrorist'

Baltimore immigrant recounts his family's close brush with death.

By MATTHEW WAGNER
bulldozer 63 (photo credit: )
bulldozer 63
(photo credit: )
"We were on our way to the museum with the kids when we suddenly saw a bunch of construction workers run frantically out of the construction site," Rick Eissenstat said Thursday. The father of three who immigrated with his family from Baltimore, Maryland, four years ago, said God saved them from Jerusalem's bulldozer-driving terrorist. "The guy was driving about 30 miles an hour, probably the maximum speed that bulldozer could go," Eissenstat continued. "I tried to back up to get out of the way but cars behind me blocked me." "The right wheel of the bulldozer crushed a taxi cab and the left wheel crushed our Mazda. He saw that he did not kill [us]. I looked at him and he looked at me. And all that I could think was, 'How do I get my family out of this.' "Then he put the bulldozer in reverse. He wanted to finish off the job. He ran us over us again. But nothing happened to us. "Then he lowered the shovel on us and began crushing the roof of the car. My daughter Nechama put her arm over her head to protect herself. "For reasons unknown to us Hashem did not let him kill us. I think he [the terrorist] realized that and decided to move on to someone else." Eissenstat believes he and his family might have merited being saved as a result of their donations to the Chabad Terror Victims Project. "Last year [at] this time we were visiting terrorist victims in Sderot," he said. Rabbi Menachem Kutner, head of the Chabad project, said he was certain the Eissenstats' salvation was in part a result of their charity to terror victims. "Eissenstat and his family were unique donors," Kutner said. "They did not just write a check and send it, they themselves visited the terrorist victims. They involved themselves, using their feet to walk from victim to victim and their hands to comfort the injured. "Because they used their bodies to perform the mitzva of visiting the sick, Hashem protected their bodies from the terrorist." Despite her narrow escape, Nechama, who turns 14 next week, said she wasn't sorry about her family's decision to immigrate to Israel. "I am happy to be here in the Land of Israel," she said.