Thursday, July 08, 2021

Talmudic books recovered at Surfside collapse

TALMUD WATCH: ‘A piece of somebody’: Sacred Jewish texts recovered from homes in Surfside rubble (SAMANTHA J. GROSS, Miami Herald).
On Tuesday Israeli Col. Golan Vach worked alongside local rescue teams to locate the bodies of a Jewish couple buried in the pile of rubble where the Champlain Towers South condo once stood.

Vach, who heads a specialized search and rescue unit of the Israel Defense Forces, started to gather personal belongings near the couple, mostly shreds of paper, notes and books. He noticed that many books were texts from the Talmud, a compilation of Rabbinical discussions, debates and the teachings of Jewish religious law.

Someone, Vach doesn’t remember who, snapped an image of Vach in an orange helmet and red gloves, handing the small stack of dark blue books to a South Florida Urban Search and Rescue team member.

[...]

The photo is touching. All strength to the surviving victims and the families involved in this terrible tragedy.

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