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Hundreds Attend Levaya Of Brooklyn Father & Son Killed Sewer Tragedy


candle9.gifThe following are two article on the tragic death of Shlomo, & Harel Dahan Z”L – who R”L ied along with a third person at a Queens sewage plant (reported HERE on YWN). 

The NY Daily News Reports: 

Sobs and unspeakable sadness enveloped a Brooklyn family Tuesday as they bid farewell to a father and son killed in a freak cesspool accident at a Queens sewage plant.

“What can you say to a family that in one moment lost a patriarch and a son?” wondered Rabbi Yirmiyahu Levy in a moving eulogy before black-draped coffins and an overflow crowd.

“Who can believe this?”

Shlomo Dahan, 49, died Monday in a desperate attempt to rescue his 23-year-old son Harel from the deadly fumes of an 18-foot-deep cesspool at a Queens sewage plant.

A third man, Rene Francisco Rivas, was killed when he went after the elder Dahan.

Shlomo and Harel Dahan enjoyed their difficult and dirty jobs, friends said.

The elder Dahan, co-owner of S. Dahan Sewer Specialists, worked alongside his employees. The younger Dahan liked being at his father’s side.

“He loved what he did, because he worked with his father,” said Shaul Hanuka, 23, a friend of Harel.

The victims’ family was among the 500 mourners that filled the Shomrei Hadas Chapel in Borough Park. Three sons, ages 15 to 25, were left behind with their mother.

“Abba! Abba!” shouted one devastated son, using the Hebrew word for father. “I love you, Abba!”

Levy recalled Shlomo planning to watch his boys on their wedding days. “Who could believe that instead of marrying his son, he will be buried together with him?” Levy said.

The pair will be laid to rest today in Zichron Yankov, Israel, south of Haifa, where Shlomo Dahan’s parents still live.

The NY Times Report:

Dahan’s friends remember him as a skilled plumber, a dedicated scholar of the Torah, a humble man whose bearish frame belied his quiet demeanor — but most of all as someone who rushed to help anyone in need.

Tommy Velinskie said Mr. Dahan, his landlord and neighbor, brought him food when he had trouble making ends meet on his disability payments. Avi Chen, another plumber, said Mr. Dahan would take time off his own work to advise him on thorny jobs. Moshe Kindil, a longtime friend, said Mr. Dahan had been a powerful role model to his 23-year-old son, Harel, setting him up in his business and leading by example to make him a serious, prayerful young man.

Shlomo Dahan was so modest that he had often refused the honor of removing the Torah scrolls from their case before a reading, said Yirmi Levy, the rabbi at the Mill Basin Sephardic Congregation, where Mr. Dahan studied Torah. But on Monday, he accepted the privilege and carried out the ritual. A few hours later, he was dead.

“It was your last mitzvah,” Mr. Levy said, addressing the memory of Mr. Dahan before several hundred mourners on Tuesday at the Shomrei Hadas Chapel in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Loud sobs came from both sides of the curtain separating men and women inside the funeral chapel.

A crowd of men silently followed the coffins of father and son, draped in black velvet, out of the chapel, to be flown Tuesday night to Israel for burial. Sarah Dahan, Shlomo’s wife, walked unsteadily behind, supported by two other women, with a black scarf covering her face.

The Dahan family was too overwhelmed with grief to speak to reporters, friends said.

Earlier, mourners sat on the tall front stoop of the family’s house on East 73rd Street in Georgetown, Brooklyn, some resting their heads in their hands. “He was like nobody else in this world,” one woman said.

A man who other mourners said was Mr. Dahan’s business partner came to the door and ordered a reporter to leave.

Questions remained about how the men died and whether the accident could have been prevented.



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