Monday, September 14, 2009
Struck boy is family's second tragedy
A heartbroken Brooklyn family on Sunday buried a 9-year-old son struck and killed by a car - just five years after the boy's younger brother tragically drowned.
The sobbing father of Joshua Ganzfried escorted the small wooden coffin from Congregation Kehilas Yakov Pupa as about 500 Hasidic Jews packed the Williamsburg street.
Shlomo Ganzfried, 38, lost a 2-year-old son, Amron, on June 26, 2004.
The tot drowned in a pond in Westchester County after wandering away from a service his parents were attending at a synagogue.
"His son should go up to heaven and hold his brother's hand and go up to God," said family friend Sammy Gumbo, translating the dad's Yiddish sermon.
"It is a second tragedy," Gumbo, 36, said. "The father is heartbroken. But he is a firm believer in God."
Joshua woke up early Saturday to join other neighborhood boys studying Jewish prayers in exchange for candy.
The third-grader was part of a gifted scholar's program at the synagogue called chevera tehillim, Hebrew for "friends of psalms," neighbors said.
The boy was walking alone just a block from his family's Flushing Ave. apartment when driver Novella Bilkerdyk, 54, plowed her Honda into him.
She was arraigned for driving with a suspended license and released, said a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
"No one said goodbye," Shlomo Ganzfried cried to the crowd.
The family has six surviving children.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/14/2009-09-14_struck_boy_is_familys_second_tragedy.html
The sobbing father of Joshua Ganzfried escorted the small wooden coffin from Congregation Kehilas Yakov Pupa as about 500 Hasidic Jews packed the Williamsburg street.
Shlomo Ganzfried, 38, lost a 2-year-old son, Amron, on June 26, 2004.
The tot drowned in a pond in Westchester County after wandering away from a service his parents were attending at a synagogue.
"His son should go up to heaven and hold his brother's hand and go up to God," said family friend Sammy Gumbo, translating the dad's Yiddish sermon.
"It is a second tragedy," Gumbo, 36, said. "The father is heartbroken. But he is a firm believer in God."
Joshua woke up early Saturday to join other neighborhood boys studying Jewish prayers in exchange for candy.
The third-grader was part of a gifted scholar's program at the synagogue called chevera tehillim, Hebrew for "friends of psalms," neighbors said.
The boy was walking alone just a block from his family's Flushing Ave. apartment when driver Novella Bilkerdyk, 54, plowed her Honda into him.
She was arraigned for driving with a suspended license and released, said a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.
"No one said goodbye," Shlomo Ganzfried cried to the crowd.
The family has six surviving children.
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/09/14/2009-09-14_struck_boy_is_familys_second_tragedy.html
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