By Mayer Fertig: Click HERE for additional photos of the Levaya. Rabbi Herschel Billet said he felt relieved, on Sept. 11, 2001, to learn that Mark Davidman was safely stranded in San Francisco. Davidman called to tell him so, and Rabbi Billet realized that, had Davidman been home when the towers were attacked he would certainly have been inside one of the buildings trying to save lives when they came down.

He planned to tell that story at Davidman’s funeral Tuesday afternoon.

On Monday night, Davidman, a long-time member of Hatzalah of the Rockaways and Nassau County was killed while riding his motorcycle on Peninsula Blvd. in Woodmere. He collided with a car making a left hand turn off Peninsula onto Saddle Ridge Road around 6:00 pm.

Known to friends as Whitey and to fellow Hatzalah members by his unit number, RL-51, Davidman’s motorcycle was a gift from his wife, Debbie, friends said. He would have turned 49 on October 1.

He was killed not far from the Young Israel of Woodmere, where he was an active member. He is listed on the shul’s web site as corresponding secretary. His funeral took place at the Young Israel.

Hatzalah rushed Davidman to South Nassau Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. His wife had received a call that there had been a motorcycle accident from someone who knew Davidman rode a motorcycle. When she couldn’t reach him on his cell phone she rushed to the scene where a police officer confirmed her husband had been struck. Friends accompanied her to the hospital.

Hours later sand was still spread across the center of the intersection and next to a light pole where the motorcycle came to rest.

According to Mendy Ackerman, a Hatzalah paramedic from  Woodmere, “That guy would drop anything to do a mitzvah, to go on a call, any time of day or night.” Ackerman and Davidman went on several calls together last weekend. “On Shabbos we were on a call and we were talking about his motorcycle. I said I had to take my car to the shop and he said, ‘I ride my bike to work, my car is just sitting there. You can use it anytime.’”

Davidman became director of operations at Ohel Children’s Home and Family Services about a year ago. “Mark made a very big difference in a very short time,” Ohel CEO David Mandel said. “Mark had an ability to see situations that could be fixed and then he went about, in a very quiet, determined way, to get it done.”

Calling him a man with “no patience for people or things that didn’t want to get it right,” Mandel said on one recent project, “Mark…made significant changes in the transportation services for Ohel that, on a daily basis, made the clients lives better, easier.”

Like everyone else who knew Davidman, radio personality Nachum Segal, a friend for nearly 20 years, was shocked by his sudden death. “He just contacted me last week — he wanted to send me an article. I just read it two nights ago,” Segal said. “[Davidman] will be remembered as somebody who helped thousands of people in every type of situation, large and small.”

Davidman was a radio star himself, of sorts, to one of the most select groups of radio listeners anywhere — the thousand or so people who hear Hatzalah’s radio frequency in New York City and Nassau County. “The most amazing thing about him is just the fact that for years he was doing that 4:00 a.m. [dispatching] shift every Shabbos that it was needed,” said Jewish Star columnist Michael Fragin, a Lawrence resident and Hatzalah member. “You just remember hearing his voice all the time. It was very distinctive.”

“His life intersected with almost everyone else in this community — with my parents, with myself, with my brothers-in-law,” said Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky, menahel of the Yeshiva of South Shore. “There was always an act of chesed that this guy did. He touched almost everybody. I don’t mean in a global way, I mean in a direct way.”

He recalled that Davidman “was passionate about that vasikin minyan,” which he helped found at the Young Israel of Woodmere. “When they first started he would invite me to daven with them,” he said. “When I would show up he would greet me as if I had come from out of town.” He recounted how a man who davened at the minyan on the morning after the accident told him “there was a pall cast over the minyan” by Davidman’s death.

When Davidman recently purchased a new home, friends said he looked only in the area around the Edward Ave. shul, in order to be near the Hatzalah ambulance parked there. He bought on Ibsen, near Church.

Asher Mansdorf, another friend who was deeply shocked by the sudden loss said Tuesday, “When I saw the e-mail this morning about Whitey being killed, the first person I thought of to call about the situation was Whitey. When a community tragedy occurred, he would do everything. He would take care of the family, he would arrange the food. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do. He would just do everything.”

“Mark Davidman’s whole life was to help people,” said friend and onetime business partner Shlomo Zakheim. “He would stop anything he was doing to run to be the first one at anyone’s time of need. Mark did not wait for someone to hit the bottom to call out for help. He was there to help them as soon as he heard that they were starting to have a problem. Mark was a good friend to so many that each one of us thought that we were his best friend. He made everyone feel so important. He will be sorely missed by his family and all his friends and his community.”

Davidman is survived by his wife, Debbie, their four sons, Michael, Benjy, Josh and Sammy, by his brother, Paul, formerly of Davidman’s Homowack Hotel, and by a sister, Lynn. Burial was to take place in Israel.

The Jewish Star covers the Five Towns and other orthodox communities of the South Shore of Long Island, and Far Rockaway.