Shira Ish-Ran, who was severely injured in a shooting attack near Ofra in December 2018, completed the education degree she began prior to the terror attack.
Ish-Ran studied at Orot of Israel College of Education in the town of Elkana in Samaria and received her B.Ed. on Monday.
Ish-Ran began her studies as did any other young woman, but was injured during her second year of college, when a terrorist opened fire and shot her in the lower abdomen, leaving her severely injured and depriving her unborn baby of critical oxygen. Doctors performed an emergency Caesarean section in an attempt to save both mother and infant, but the baby, who was named Amiad Yisrael by his paternal grandfather, died shortly after birth due to injuries from the shooting attack.
Ish-Ran had been seven months pregnant when she was shot. Her husband, Amichai, was also injured in the attack, but managed to stem his wife's bleeding, saving her life.
Speaking with Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, Ish-Ran spoke about the emotional moment when she received her degree despite the challenges she faced, and about the mission she sees in teaching, especially after she survived the terror attack.
"I began studying for my degree as usual," she said. "I got married in my first year of studies, in the middle of the semester, and there was amazing consideration on the part of the college. In year two, on Hanukkah, I and my husband were injured in a very serious terror attack. I was also very severely injured."
"I was really involved in the degree studies then. I remember that one of the first things I said when I woke up was, 'I have a project to submit tomorrow,' and they told me, 'Don't worry, they'll let you skip it.' It's so characteristic of Orot College. They did everything to be sure that I would finish my degree. They advised me personally on how to move forward, they helped me make up the material I'd missed. They came to the hospital to visit, there was a constant connection. They did everything and it's because of them that I am standing her today finishing my degree, and I feel enormous gratitude towards them."
The terror attack also left Ish-Ran with important lessons for her career as a teacher, especially "sensitivity to others. Every person has their 'journey' and their 'baggage', whether they are aged 70 or 14 or 15, and we need to be sensitive to that. Wow, I love the nation of Israel much more than ever, and I want to raise people who appreciate this nation and love this nation and who will do everything so that we will build an amazing people and land here, even more than what exists already."
She also has a message for anyone interested in being a teacher: "It's a mission, but only if you are really into it. You are working with the greatest souls there are and that's even greater than any money you could receive, and I hope that you will also see the blessing in it. You should be the teacher that you would have wanted to have."