David Ramati, injured in Friday’s terror attack, spoke of the moments before the terrorist rammed into him near Efrat in Gush Etzion.

“When I really looked at him, he actually started smiling, big smile, and I could see in his eyes he was thinking, ‘This Jew’s gonna die.’ That’s when I started to understand that I’ve got no more than four seconds to make a decision,” Ramati said.

“I had a gun in my holster, I could’ve taken it out, it might’ve even hit him or his car, but I’d have ended up underneath the wheels, a Ramati hamburger. The other option is to jump over the protective fence…and get out of his way, which I did. So I started to jump – and that’s why most of my injuries are from the right shoulder down.”

Ramati also spoke about his connection to Israel, his service in Vietnam and the Marines, his conversion to Judaism, and his service in the IDF.

“I decided that I’d have to check it out, I went to learn, and there was a question of how Jewish was I, and on which side,” Ramati recounted. “So Rabbi Moshe Feinstein made a psak (ruling of Jewish law) said, ‘Start fresh. You’re a convert. Start fresh. That way at least you’ll know you’re kosher by every possible way of looking at it.’ And so I did that, and my wife and I came to Israel within two months of finishing all the learning.”

“I continued with the army in Israel… There’s the Jewish side, building the Jewish homeland, and there’s the Israeli side, defending Jews… If you serve in the Israeli army, you’re a hero. It doesn’t matter what you do, what rank you have, what you are doing. You’re protecting the Jewish people, so that the Jewish people can build the State of Israel.

“I served 25 years in the Israeli army and came out as a captain… I consider it a very great honor.

“I don’t have enough money to pay the Israeli and the Jewish people back for the wonderful experience.”

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