May 8, 1997 Fighting spirit By URIEL HEILMAN JERUSALEM A Jerusalem bus bombing paralyzed Swiss resident Peter Malina. But that didn't dampen his desire to move to Israel, Uriel Heilman writes After two grueling years, Yonah Peter Malina's determination has brought him home. Malina - who grew up in Switzerland, not knowing he was Jewish - visited Israel for the first time 10 years ago and immediately fell in love with the country. But just one year after moving here, his life was suddenly and irrevocably transformed on an August morning in 1995, when a terrorist bomb ripped through the Jerusalem bus he was riding, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. It has been nearly two years since the incident, and months since Malina reluctantly left Israel to receive medical treatment at a special facility for paraplegics near Lucerne, Switzerland. Since then his one great wish has been to come back and live in Israel. Yesterday, that wish was finally fulfilled when he arrived on a special flight from Switzerland and was transferred to the Neurological Department at Tel Hashomer Hospital. Malina, now 30, was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, where his parents had fled on the eve of the Holocaust to escape Nazi persecution. Having hidden their Jewish roots for so long, first from the Nazis and later from the Communists, Malina was unaware of his Jewish origins until about 10 years ago, when his grandmother urged him to visit Israel. At age 20, he volunteered on a kibbutz and attended Hebrew ulpan. From then on, Malina came back as often as possible, eager to become an Israeli and discover his Jewish heritage. But it was not until 1994 that Malina confirmed his Jewish identity. After months of searching led him to the municipal archive of Bratislava, he located the birth certificates of his mother and her parents, which contained Hebrew writing. He stopped calling himself Peter and adopted the name Yonah. He insisted on coming here to study despite his parents' entreaties to first complete his degree in international law at the University of Zurich. After immigrating in 1994, he began studying Judaism at Machon Meir and Hebrew at Ulpan Etzion. Teachers and friends describe Malina, who is fluent in six languages, as an excellent and enthusiastic student. He won a prestigious award for his studies at Ulpan Etzion in early 1995 and, according to a letter he wrote that year, felt a certain thrill every time he was addressed in Hebrew. In his letter of application to Machon Meir, Malina wrote: "After a few visits to Israel I decided to go back to my origins and started to look for a place where I could study religion and the history of Judaism. I need to first study the basics." But on the morning of April 21, 1995, his life was tragically altered. That day, while Malina was on a bus on the way to the Mt. Scopus university campus, a suicide bomber aboard a passing bus blew himself up, wounding scores of passengers in an explosion that tore both vehicles apart. Rescuers found Malina unconscious and not breathing. After initial CPR was administered, Malina was rushed to Hadassah Medical Center. Ironically, Malina had switched bus routes several days earlier, after concerned friends warned him that the bus which he used to take was the target of occasional stone-throwing as it wound its way through the streets of eastern Jerusalem. At the hospital, doctors found that a piece of metal had lodged between Malina's third and fourth vertebrae, paralyzing him from the neck down and prohibiting him from breathing without the aid of a respirator. The initial prognosis was that if he survived, which doctors deemed unlikely, he would suffer serious brain damage. Malina lay in a coma at the hospital for weeks before he began to regain consciousness and eventually communicate by blinking his eyes. Doctors were astonished to find that he suffered no brain damage despite the serious injury that left most of his body inert. And even though many of his internal organs had been damaged by the blast, they had slowly begun to heal. During his initial period of recovery at Hadassah, Malina's room was the site of frequent activity. Friends and teachers from Machon Meir, Hebrew University and Ulpan Etzion came to visit him every day, talking and reading to him. However, after several months, Malina's parents, who came to Israel immediately after their son's injury, convinced him to return to Switzerland to a special paraplegic center near Lucerne. Malina's recovery has been painstakingly slow. His mother, Eva, recalls the doctors in Switzerland saying: "We should not say to him that everything will be okay because, in fact, nothing is." Today, Malina is still dependent upon a respirator to breathe and speaking remains a great effort. Using his lips, a special breathing device, and diminutive head movements, he is learning to operate a computer that he hopes will eventually enable him to gain some degree of independence, though the doctors expect he will always require 24-hour care. His mother maintains that there must be significance to the fact that her son was saved. "Everything from the neck down was cut off, and he could not breathe; only his heart was working. There has to be a reason why he was saved, because otherwise it is completely absurd." It has been Malina's courage and stubborn desire to return to Israel that has given him the will to live and the stamina to progress along his difficult path, according to Rabbi Zvi Kleinman, head of the English-speakers' program at Machon Meir. He maintains that now, as before the tragic attack, no power in the world could keep Malina away from Israel. Malina has told his parents and friends that despite all that has happened, he does not regret immigrating here. Not a day passed in Switzerland in which Malina did not reiterate his wish to return to Israel. This was made possible through the efforts of a special committee comprised of members of Ulpan Etzion, the Jewish Agency, Hadassah Hospital, Machon Meir and the Hebrew University, with financial support from the National Insurance Institute. Friends and family hope that Malina's arrival in Israel will accelerate his rehabilitation process. In a television interview a few weeks ago, Malina said, "I closed my life here {in Switzerland} a long time ago." Kleinman says the committee's next task is to provide Malina with the intellectual stimulation and emotional help he seeks in Israel. The committee is looking for people to spend time with Malina, read to him, and eventually help him complete his degree. He has even expressed a desire to learn Arabic. Shortly before arriving in Israel, Malina said, "I want to find some sort of peace and feel at home again."