SOPHIA HOLLANDER, JOE JACKSON AND SONJA SHARP – WSJ.com
Gabriel Sassoon, a devout Orthodox scholar, spent Friday and Saturday morning at a spiritual retreat in Manhattan. Saturday morning’s Torah portion focused on the olah, or burnt offering.
Shortly after, officials found him and said there had been a fire.
Sunday afternoon, Mr. Sassoon’s voice shook as he memorialized seven of his eight children, aged 5 to 16, who perished Saturday in the deadliest blaze to strike New York City in nearly a decade. His wife and sole surviving child were absent from the funeral, fighting for their lives at hospitals in the Bronx and Staten Island.
“I lost everything in the fire,” Mr. Sassoon said through tears, naming and describing each deceased child. With every new name, cries of anguish echoed from more than a thousand mourners spilling out into the street at the Shomrei Hadas Chapels in Brooklyn. “There’s only one way to survive this—it’s complete and total surrender.”
The victims were identified as Eliane Sassoon, 16, her sisters Rivkah, 11, and Sara, 6, and brothers David, 12, Yeshua, 10, Moshe, 8, and Yaakob, 5.
All died from smoke inhalation caused by a fire that began with a malfunctioning hot plate, officials said.
It was the deadliest fire in the city since 2007, fire officials said, taking roughly 110 firefighters about an hour to extinguish the blaze.
Fire officials said a preliminary investigation found that a pot left on a hot plate overnight had overheated, setting off the blaze. Orthodox customs prohibit turning electrical appliances on or off, or lighting flames, during the Sabbath.
There was evidence of a working smoke detector in the basement, fire officials said, but none on the first or second floor that would have alerted the family to the fire, Fire Department of New York Commissioner Daniel Nigro said.
Mrs. Sassoon and 15-year-old Tziporah Sassoon escaped the burning house by breaking through windows. Both were listed in critical condition, Mrs. Sassoon at Jacobi Medical Center and her daughter at Staten Island University Hospital North.
On Sunday afternoon, seven child-size coffins were lined up inside the funeral home, to the left of Mr. Sassoon as he spoke. The crowds—including members of the Orthodox community, politicians from across the city and New Yorkers moved by the tragedy—flooded into the street.
The black-clad mourners seemed to shake in unison as they listened to speeches, broadcast on speakers from outside the chapel.
In his eulogy, Mr. Sassoon described each of his children with heartbreaking detail.
“Eliane, she came out fighting, even as a child she was all the way going to the maximum,” he said. “Rivkah, she had so much joy, she gave joy to everybody.
“And David, he was so fine. He was truly a gift from Hashem.
“Yeshua was so joyful and creative, always trying to make others happy.
“Moshe was always beaming, he was beaming and he tried so hard because he had learning problems, but he tried so hard,” he said. “And he was an inspiration because he tried so hard.
“Sara was like Eliane, she was the cutest, and Yaakob just wanted everyone to be happy. He was the youngest, he was the clown.”
As Mr. Sassoon mentioned his daughter Rivkah, a group of her classmates, who had gathered with the women along the south side of the chapel, began to sob and clutch at each other for support. Women passed tissues from hand to hand, while holding palm-size prayer books of psalms that they read tearfully in between speeches.
Rabbi David Ozeri, a leader in the Brooklyn Jewish neighborhood who teaches a class at the children’s yeshiva, called what happened Saturday morning “a holocaust” for the community.
“A tsunami has hit our city; an earthquake has hit the Jewish world,” he said, noting that their empty desks now dotted the school. “For the short time they were with us they enhanced every class and every student.”
Addressing the grandparents and other relatives, he said: “Please understand you’re not alone.”
The bodies of the seven children were driven from the funeral in a procession of black SUVs. Immediately after the service, they were to be flown to Israel—where the family lived until a few years ago—for burial.
Family members and others walked tearfully alongside the final vehicles, touching their sides, as more than a thousand other attendees followed behind.
Several blocks became a sea of orthodox Jewish mourners, a mass of black hats as far as one could see, shuffling along in near silence.
City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, Public Advocate Letitia James and Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams were all spotted outside the location following the service.
Mr. Sassoon told the anguished crowd, “I want to ask my children for forgiveness. I did my best and my wife did her best.”
“Please, everybody, love your child,” he said. “That’s all that counts. Understand that.”
Mr. Sassoon told the anguished crowd, “I want to ask my children for forgiveness. I did my best and my wife did her best.”
“Please, everybody, love your child,” he said. “That’s all that counts. Understand that.”
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
Hashem does only good to use we don’t understand and this we don’t need to understand. 1 think I do know ha she is full of love to us this is a big test for us to see who has questions and who could be quite. I could only cry for what I did and why I got Hashem angry. But I also very fro the pain the father and mother is going thru, I’m crying fro the kids who where screaming out of the window “Momy help me” but no one was there! Oy vey it hurts me I’m… Read more »
baruch Dayan emes. I just don’t know what to say I can’t believe that such a terrible thing could happen. This is a huge terrible tragedy there are simply no words to describe this. I wish that this is all just a terrible nightmare and I can’t wait for God to wake us up. I truly hope that they find comfort somehow in any way possible. May weren’t to be zoche in the coming up moshiach AMEN!!!
Too sad and horiffic for words
I want to see 7 small coffins so it hits me like a 2×4 in the face what a terrible tragedy has befallen the jewish community…what rachmonus to the poor family. Who is going to tell the mother when she wakes up …
this is too much pain to bear, please HKBH You cant allow this to happen….please….
lets add in achdus we need moshiach…..
sign the duch http://www.lubavitchunited.com
AD MOSAI!!!
I am taking on, Bli Neder, to Bentsch Licht by the time on the calendar for the entire month of Nissan, L’Iluy Nishmas these precious children and to bring Moshiach faster. I hope I will be successful in bringing this Korban.
Just crying and crying and crying!!!!
Why? Why? Why???
Moshiach! Come THIS second so we can understand and this family can be reunited as it should be!!!!!!!
There’s nothing to be said to the parents & surviving daughter. I have no idea how they will survive this tragedy. My sympathies & admiration go to Hatzala, Misaskim, and the Chevra Kadisha, making sure these precious children were given every kovod. It is the worst thing for a chevra to prepare a child for kevura, I know. I hope they are able to move on. All you wonderful people, with the chesed you do, deserve our thanks. May you never have to deal with anything like this again, amein.
Aibeshter, to lose 1 child is unbearable. 7? Doesnt make any sense! Moshiach now!!!
I just cried anf cried.. as i read this, for the first tome in my life i said hashem why? why? Why?
No comment can change what happened
bde horrible tragedy. moshiach now