Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

David Behrbom, 47, Public School Teacher Who Loved The Yankees

(JTA) — David Behrbom was a talented athlete in his youth, making it all the way to the high school state championships in baseball. But it was a moment on the field in a Babe Ruth League game that his brother says truly encapsulates Behrbom’s character.

It was the final inning, the game was tied, and Behrbom, then maybe 13 or 14, was on third base when he got the go-ahead to steal home — which he did to win the game.

“It was pandemonium,” Adam Cohen recalled. “The look on his face was pure joy that he was able to do that for his team and his crazy idea worked. That shows his courage, his audacity, his willingness to step up.”

Behrbom, who died April 5 of COVID-19 at the age of 47, wound up becoming an elementary school teacher. He taught at PS 55 in the Bronx, 25 miles and a world away from Ardsley, the Westchester County suburb where he grew up and where he lived with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two children.

Behrbom was a physical education teacher at PS 55, and each year he would organize Olympic Field Day, a school-wide athletics competition that was a highlight of the school calendar. He was also a lifelong Yankees fan who loved old-school hip hop and coached baseball and soccer.

In March, Behrbom was diagnosed with leukemia and began undergoing chemotherapy. After he took ill with COVID-19, his family sought blood plasma from donors who had successfully recovered from the coronavirus, a treatment that researchers hope may help patients struggling to fight off the disease. Behrbom died the day he was due to get the treatment, the New York Post reported.

“I do think about him every day, we all do,” Cohen said. “I don’t think that’s ever going to change. The hole he leaves in our family is just profound. We were lucky to have him for as long as we did, and his memory is cherished by all of us.”

The post David Behrbom, 47, public school teacher who loved the Yankees appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A message from our CEO & publisher 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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

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.