Merkaz HaRav survivor visits West Hempstead before surgery

Triple operation planned in Indianapolis

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Oct. 31, 2008 / 2 Cheshvan 5769

He’s a miracle child — the most grievously wounded of the boys who survived the massacre at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in March – but although he lived when eight other boys did not, Naftali Sheetrit, 14, faces a long road to recovery.

West Hempstead was one stop along that road, where he spent last Shabbat with family before continuing on to Indiana. There, on Thursday, Dr. Richard Rink, the chief of pediatric urology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, was scheduled to perform a complex three-in-one surgery to reconstruct Naftali’s urethra, rectum and stomach. The loss of any one of those obviously constitutes a life-altering injury. All three were destroyed by gunfire.

“With this surgery he will be able to [use the bathroom] and eat normally,” said Rabbi Herschel Billet of the

Young Israel of Woodmere.

Rabbi Billet met Naftali and his family several days after the attack in March when he flew to Israel with other rabbonim to be menachem aveil the eight families sitting shiva for their murdered sons, and to visit the injured.

A month or so after the attack Naftali was sitting up and even playing the violin, but he very nearly didn’t make it. Shaare Tzedek’s chief of surgery, Dr. Yosef Alberton, carefully described the 9th grader’s arrival at the hospital in an interview with Yediot Acharonot.

“You can say that Naftali was already not among the living,” he recalled. “He had no pulse in the main arteries, just weak heart beats. He wasn’t dazed, he was unconscious. At such times, there is no room for sterilization procedures. We put him on the table, poured iodine on his abdomen and opened it. I grabbed the aorta and held it hard with my hand to allow blood flow to the brain. I actually felt like I was holding his life in my fingers, until we saw that the pulse was beginning to return to his veins and his condition was stabilizing.”

Rabbi Billet is assisting other rabbis and communal leaders in a fundraising effort for the family, calling it a chance to “participate in the miracle of Techiyas Hamaisim.”

Israel’s national health insurer, Kupat Cholim, has declined to cover the costs of the international trip for surgery that it says can be performed in Israel.

“In Israel the view is if they can do the operation, then why go to chutz la’aretz?” said Rabbi Billet. “It’s not so foreign to the American mentality to understand in-plan and out-of-plan [coverage]. If you choose to go to a doctor in chutz la’aretz when we can take care of you here, you pay for it.”

He defended the Sheetrit family’s decision to seek the care of Dr. Rink, a world-renowned specialist in genitourinary reconstruction. “There’s nobody who I know who wouldn’t do the same for their child,” he said. “The kid has already been through so much. The attack was in March. He’s had bone grafts; he’s had plates. It’s a miracle that he walks.”

Naftali’s father is the principal of a yeshiva in Sderot, where the family lives.

“The father is a mechanech,” Rabbi Billet continued. “I was very moved. I thought, ‘If G-d forbid this was my child and I had no money, I would be desperate. What would I do?’ So I tried to put myself in his shoes.”

“The family has no real connections and no money and so I took it upon myself,” he said. “We’ve given them the down payment to the doctor, who’s giving a discount, for the record, and to pay the hospital. The doctor has been very nice. He’s not doing it for nothing but he’s not charging his regular fee.

“Costs are completely undetermined. I don’t know what they are yet. Between the travel expenses and living expenses and the hospital, the doctor, and rehab, we’re approaching at least $100,000, if not more,” he predicted.

If you are in a position to be able to be a part of this mitzvah and you wish to participate, please make out your checks to THE YIW MAYER LEBOWITZ CHARITY FUND and earmark your check for Naftali Sheetrit. Checks should be mailed to the Young Israel of Woodmere, 859 Peninsula Blvd., Woodmere, NY 11598.

For more information, e-mail Dr. Asher Mansdorf, who is coordinating the fundraising effort, at amansdorf@aol.com.

“I give the people in my shul a lot of credit,” Rabbi Billet said. “They’re wonderful people – they’re very generous. This is a 14 yr old child – it’s his life.”

See The Jewish Star as it appears in print — Oct. 31, 2008 / 2 Cheshvan 5769