An Orthodox Jewish community in the US shattered by the deaths of seven siblings in a house fire held their funerals a day after a hot plate left on for the Sabbath is believed to have caused the blaze.
The bodies of the children from the Sassoon family, ages 5 to 16, were to be sent to Israel after Sunday’s funeral for burial.
The tragedy had some residents in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood reconsidering the practice of keeping hot plates on for the Sabbath, a common modern method of obeying religious strictures that prohibit the use of fire from sundown on Friday, the start of the Sabbath, until its end on Saturday night.
Sunday’s service began with prayers in Hebrew, broadcast on speakers to several hundred people inside and on the streets.
“They were so pure,” the children’s father, Gabi Sassoon, said during a eulogy. “My wife, she came out fighting.”
The blaze killed three girls and four boys — members of a community of Orthodox Jews.
The mother and a daughter — Gayle Sassoon and 14-year-old Siporah Sassoon — remained in critical condition.
New York City Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the house fire was the city’s worst in recent memory.
The Sassoons’ hot plate is thought to have malfunctioned, sparking flames that trapped the sleeping children in their second-floor bedrooms, investigators said.
Firefighters arrived in less than four minutes and discovered the badly burned and distraught mother pleading for help, officials said.
When they broke in the door, they encountered a raging fire, they added.
Daniel Bar of Israel’s religion ministry said the children’s bodies would be sent to Israel. A time and location for the burials had not been immediately set.
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