Father Mourns Death of 7 Jewish Children Lost in Blaze at Funeral Service
- 9 yıl önce
The heartbroken father of the seven Brooklyn children who died tragically in a raging blaze buried them in Israel after a wrenching final farewell attended by hundreds of mourners.
When his children were tucked into the graves, grief-stricken Gabriel Sassoon knelt before each one, patted down the dirt with his bare hands and placed markers on the mounds bearing their names.
Then Sassoon stood up. And with smudges of dirt clinging to his knees, he began reciting — in a strong and unwavering voice — the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
His voice, carried by loud speakers, echoed through the Har HaMenuchot cemetery over the Jerusalem hills to the east while the sun set behind him and gave way to a chilly night.
Earlier, at a memorial attended by hundreds of weeping mourners, Sassoon struggled to contain his grief.
“Why seven? One is not enough?” he cried out at one point in his eulogy. “Seven roses. So beautiful, so pure.”
As Sassoon poured out his heart, his children lay before him on stretchers — their bodies covered with shrouds. And each time he uttered one of their names, the Jerusalem funeral home was convulsed by sobs.
“I have sacrificed everything,” he said. “Here, in front of you, seven pure sacrificial lambs.”
Seeking solace in his Orthodox Jewish faith, Sassoon said what happened was part of God’s plan. He said his lost children were neither Israeli nor American.
“What are they?” he asked. “They’re angels.”
Sassoon, whose doomed children ranged in age from 5 to 16, had planned to speak about each individually. But he admitted “it’s too hard on me.”
“We lost children,” he said. “But now they're in everyone's heart.”
Then he surrendered his “angels” to the Almighty.
“To you, God, my children,” he said. “To you, God, their dreams. To you, God, my grandchildren.”
And with those words, a fresh wave of grief crashed through the crowded memorial room.
“Each one is a flower in God’s garden,” said David Lau, Israel’s chief rabbi for the Ashkenazi Jews.
Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, also spoke before a crowd that included Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
When it was over, the children were carried to seven freshly dug graves at the cemetery overlooking Jerusalem.
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OBTAINED BY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The Sassoon family (from top left): Eliane, Siporah, Rivkah, mother Gayle, grandmother Francine Jemal (not at fire) and two unidentified boys; below, in front, Sara and Yaakob.
“Bring Rivkah,” a rabbi called out and the coffin bearing the body of the 11-year-old was lowered into the ground. “Now David ... now Yeshua, Moshe now.”
Sassoon lost his sons Yaakob, 5, Moshe, 8, Yeshua, 10, and David, 12. His other dead daughters were Sara, 6 and Eliane 16.
Sassoon will be sitting Shiva in nearby Ramat Eshkol, a neighborhood at the edge of Jerusalem, until Wednesday when he returns home to Brooklyn.
Back in New York, Alon Edri, who identified himself as a rabbi and relative of the family, said it was important to bury the children in the Holy Land.
“We believe that being buried in Israel is important because all of your sins are then absolved,” he said.
The children’s 54-year-old mother, Gayle, remained in critical condition and in a medically induced coma at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, still unaware of her family’s fate.
Her only surviving daughter, 15-year-old Siporah, was in critical condition at Staten Island University Hospital North.
“She mostly suffered broken bones,” a community insider said.
They escaped the flames that tore through their Midwood home Saturday by jumping from a second-story window. But there was no escape from the heartache gripping the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.
“I've lost sleep over the entire thing,” one of the children’s teachers, Dovid Leder, said. “I’ve been all mixed up ever since this happened.”
Over at the Bet Yaakov Ateret Torah school in Midwood, which some of the children attended, a teacher who did not give her name said “we’re managing.”
“I taught the children,” she said. “They were wonderful children. Just wonderful.”
When his children were tucked into the graves, grief-stricken Gabriel Sassoon knelt before each one, patted down the dirt with his bare hands and placed markers on the mounds bearing their names.
Then Sassoon stood up. And with smudges of dirt clinging to his knees, he began reciting — in a strong and unwavering voice — the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.
His voice, carried by loud speakers, echoed through the Har HaMenuchot cemetery over the Jerusalem hills to the east while the sun set behind him and gave way to a chilly night.
Earlier, at a memorial attended by hundreds of weeping mourners, Sassoon struggled to contain his grief.
“Why seven? One is not enough?” he cried out at one point in his eulogy. “Seven roses. So beautiful, so pure.”
As Sassoon poured out his heart, his children lay before him on stretchers — their bodies covered with shrouds. And each time he uttered one of their names, the Jerusalem funeral home was convulsed by sobs.
“I have sacrificed everything,” he said. “Here, in front of you, seven pure sacrificial lambs.”
Seeking solace in his Orthodox Jewish faith, Sassoon said what happened was part of God’s plan. He said his lost children were neither Israeli nor American.
“What are they?” he asked. “They’re angels.”
Sassoon, whose doomed children ranged in age from 5 to 16, had planned to speak about each individually. But he admitted “it’s too hard on me.”
“We lost children,” he said. “But now they're in everyone's heart.”
Then he surrendered his “angels” to the Almighty.
“To you, God, my children,” he said. “To you, God, their dreams. To you, God, my grandchildren.”
And with those words, a fresh wave of grief crashed through the crowded memorial room.
“Each one is a flower in God’s garden,” said David Lau, Israel’s chief rabbi for the Ashkenazi Jews.
Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, also spoke before a crowd that included Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.
When it was over, the children were carried to seven freshly dug graves at the cemetery overlooking Jerusalem.
FBMD0f00078d030000311f00008f5200009d59000056610000ce7f0000cbcb0000c6d40000
OBTAINED BY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
The Sassoon family (from top left): Eliane, Siporah, Rivkah, mother Gayle, grandmother Francine Jemal (not at fire) and two unidentified boys; below, in front, Sara and Yaakob.
“Bring Rivkah,” a rabbi called out and the coffin bearing the body of the 11-year-old was lowered into the ground. “Now David ... now Yeshua, Moshe now.”
Sassoon lost his sons Yaakob, 5, Moshe, 8, Yeshua, 10, and David, 12. His other dead daughters were Sara, 6 and Eliane 16.
Sassoon will be sitting Shiva in nearby Ramat Eshkol, a neighborhood at the edge of Jerusalem, until Wednesday when he returns home to Brooklyn.
Back in New York, Alon Edri, who identified himself as a rabbi and relative of the family, said it was important to bury the children in the Holy Land.
“We believe that being buried in Israel is important because all of your sins are then absolved,” he said.
The children’s 54-year-old mother, Gayle, remained in critical condition and in a medically induced coma at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, still unaware of her family’s fate.
Her only surviving daughter, 15-year-old Siporah, was in critical condition at Staten Island University Hospital North.
“She mostly suffered broken bones,” a community insider said.
They escaped the flames that tore through their Midwood home Saturday by jumping from a second-story window. But there was no escape from the heartache gripping the tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community.
“I've lost sleep over the entire thing,” one of the children’s teachers, Dovid Leder, said. “I’ve been all mixed up ever since this happened.”
Over at the Bet Yaakov Ateret Torah school in Midwood, which some of the children attended, a teacher who did not give her name said “we’re managing.”
“I taught the children,” she said. “They were wonderful children. Just wonderful.”