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Friday August 6, 1999

Prankster tricks Knesset with report of MK's death

JERUSALEM (JPS) -- Reports of Knesset member Amnon Rubinstein's death have been greatly exaggerated.
At 3 a.m. on Thursday of last week, Israeli legislators were on the verge of holding the final two votes on a much-contested bil

Knesset members were stunned.

Chairman of the Knesset Law Committee, he had become ill on July 25 during an opposition filibuster on the same bill during a committee session.

The Meretz Party member had suffered a mild stroke and was recuperating at Hadassah-University Hospital in Ein Kerem.

Burg's announcement was based on a note passed to him by Knesset clerk Aryeh Hahn. The information came from a phone call to the Knesset secretariat via the main switchboard from someone claiming to be a department head at Hadassah-University Hospital. The caller authoritatively announced the news, citing the exact time of the supposed death.

At 3:15 a.m., the entire Knesset gathered as Burg recited the El Maleh Rachamim prayer for the dead and led the Knesset members in a minute of silence.

Fifteen minutes later, Yitzhak Lifschitz, the Knesset doctor, ran toward Burg's office shouting: "He's alive, he's alive."

On Tuesday, police arrested Viola Barr, 68, and husband Haim Barr, 70, at their Herzliya home. They were released on bail after denying the allegations, though police expect to summon them again for questioning.

A police spokeswoman said the woman admitted to making several calls to the Knesset at the time the prank call was received. Her husband strongly denied any connection to the incident, saying he had gone to sleep at 10 p.m.

Burg apologized profusely to Rubinstein and his family. "There has never been anything like this," said Burg, who visited Rubinstein at the hospital later that day.

Rubinstein took his "death" in stride. "I feel great -- like the living dead or rather the dead living," he said Thursday of last week from his hospital bed. "I am actually getting a kick out of all of this."

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