Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Arizona Jews Join Tribute to 19 Fallen Firefighters

Joining the grief felt across the Southwest, the Phoenix Jewish community last week held a solemn tribute to the nineteen Arizona firefighters who perished on June 30, the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix reported

Batsheva and Hofit Hayat, the mother and widow of Israeli firefighter Danny Hayat, who died battling forest fires in Mount Carmel in 2010, flew in from Israel to attend the event.

Batsheva Hayat addressed the assembled community member, offering her sympathies and speaking of the shared values of firefighters worldwide.

“[Danny] believed that his purpose in life was to save human beings, and [the fallen 19] had the same trait,” she said.

Rabbi Jessica Rosenthal, of Temple B’rith Shalom in Prescott, told the paper that “most of us, we are in shock. Prescott is a small town.”

The Jewish Community Association of Greater Phoenix also joined with the United Phoenix Fire Fighters Association to raise funds to support the families of those who died in the fires.

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.