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An Israeli Fighter Becomes a Paralympic Olympian

[Jerusalem Post] Stewart Weiss - Shai Haim is one of the 43 handicapped Israeli athletes who left this week for Beijing to participate in the Paralympic Games. Among the sports in which they will compete are tennis, swimming, kayaking, sailing, horseback riding, table tennis, archery, air rifle, and basketball. Shai is one of the 12 players on Israel's wheelchair-basketball delegation, selected from among the more than 200 players who compete at several disabled veterans' facilities around the country. On September 30, 2002, Shai's unit was part of a raid on Hamas headquarters in Nablus' infamous casbah. In the midst of their mission, the unit came under fire from snipers in a nearby building. Shai was hit and his best friend in the unit, our son St.-Sgt. Ari Weiss, rushed to his side to help him and was shot and killed in the process. A year after the shooting, he married his girlfriend Tamar, who had helped nurse him back to health, and I had the great merit to officiate at his wedding. Says a smiling Shai, "My motto in life - no complaints, no whining - just get back in the game."
2008-09-09 01:00:00
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