Father Mourns Death of 7 Jewish Children Lost in Blaze at Funeral Service

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. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />Earlier, at a memorial attended by hundreds of weeping mourners, Sassoon struggled to contain his grief. <br /> <br />“Why seven? One is not enough?” he cried out at one point in his eulogy. “Seven roses. So beautiful, so pure.” <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />“I have sacrificed everything,” he said. “Here, in front of you, seven pure sacrificial lambs.” <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />“What are they?” he asked. “They’re angels.” <br /> <br />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.” <br /> <br />“We lost children,” he said. “But now they're in everyone's heart.” <br /> <br />Then he surrendered his “angels” to the Almighty. <br /> <br />“To you, God, my children,” he said. “To you, God, their dreams. To you, God, my grandchildren.” <br /> <br />And with those words, a fresh wave of grief crashed through the crowded memorial room. <br /> <br />“Each one is a flower in God’s garden,” said David Lau, Israel’s chief rabbi for the Ashkenazi Jews. <br /> <br />Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, the former Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel, also spoke before a crowd that included Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat. <br /> <br />When it was over, the children were carried to seven freshly dug graves at the cemetery overlooking Jerusalem. <br /> <br />FBMD0f00078d030000311f00008f5200009d59000056610000ce7f0000cbcb0000c6d40000 <br />OBTAINED BY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS <br />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. <br />“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.” <br /> <br />Sassoon lost his sons Yaakob, 5, Moshe, 8, Yeshua, 10, and David, 12. His other dead daughters were Sara, 6 and Eliane 16. <br /> <br />Sassoon will be sitting Shiva in nearby Ramat Eshkol, a neighborhood at the edge of Jerusalem, until Wednesday when he returns home to Brooklyn. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />“We believe that being buried in Israel is important because all of your sins are then absolved,” he said. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />Her only surviving daughter, 15-year-old Siporah, was in critical condition at Staten Island University Hospital North. <br /> <br />“She mostly suffered broken bones,” a community insider said. <br /> <br />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. <br /> <br />“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.” <br /> <br />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.” <br /> <br />“I taught the children,” she said. “They were wonderful children. Just wonderful.”