Rabbi With ALS Makes Cross-Country Trip For Son’s Bar Mitzvah
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — A West Hollywood, California father of seven suffering from ALS made a cross-country trip to be at his son’s bar mitzvah with family and friends in his hometown of Brooklyn.
Rabbi Yitzi Hurwitz, 47, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2013. He can no longer move, and he cannot breathe without the assistance of a ventilator. He communicates using a computer with laser-based software that tracks his eye movements to move the cursor.
Hurwitz writes a weekly commentary on the Torah and a blog offering marriage advice.
On Monday, his youngest child, Shalom, 13, read from the Torah in the Brooklyn study of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson. The family visited the rebbe’s grave on Sunday, the New York Post reported. The rabbi cried at the grave as he prayed for his wife, his children and for a cure.
The rabbi’s wife Dina told the Post that her husband’s illness has helped the couple reach people that they could not reach before.
“There are thousands and thousands of people going through their own hardships, their own sicknesses, their own tragedies, that look to my husband for guidance, for love, for support, for somebody who understands them,” she said. “He knows what’s going on, and he chooses to be happy.’’
A fund has been set up to help the family with medical expenses, including daily care and exploratory treatments, as well as living expenses.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
