HAFTR boys participate in ‘Mes Mitzvah’

Rebbeim and students from the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway participated in a Mes Mitzvah last week, as they helped make a minyan and bury a Holocaust survivor.

“Gam ki elech b’gei tzalmavet” (“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death”) — Yechezkel ben Shlomo (Harry Feldinger) a”h, did not merely walk through that valley, he dwelled in the shadow of death for years, a victim of a humanity that had sunk to its lowest, most evil depths. Yet, he survived the hell of Auschwitz and Mauthausen.

Feldinger was born in Munkach, Czechoslovakia (currently Ukraine) in 1931. At age 14, he was taken to Auschwitz. He came from a family of nine — father, mother, four sisters and three brothers. Out of the three brothers, only he survived. And of his sisters, only two survived.

Rabbi Gedaliah Oppen officiated and pointed out that the numbers tattooed on Feldinger’s arm, B14670, is the numeric value of Chai, 18, LIFE, and that Feldinger survived and was forever grateful and proud to call himself a survivor.

The students were thankful to have had the opportunity to be part of such an amazing mitzvah.