Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Jewish Man Helps Evacuate Sick Friend From Puerto Rico

A Jewish man flew down to Puerto Rico to help evacuate his sick friend to Florida as Hurricane Maria closed in a heart-warming tale.

Elie Finegold, a native of Dallas, Texas, flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico to be at the side of his long-time friend Clovis Tobias, who had been evacuated to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Irma slammed into the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Tobias was hospital-bound and in dire need of medical attention – including a possible leg amputation – and so had to be evacuated out of Puerto Rico late last month as Hurricane Maria threatened Puerto Rico.

Finegold raised thousands of dollars on Facebook, and managed last week to get his friend to Florida, where he is being treated at an annex of the Cleveland Clinic.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.