Schneider Hospital has declared the death of a Haredi teenager who collapsed during a protest on Route 4 just a few hours previously.
A Channel 12 News reporter who covers the southern region of Israel reported on the tragic death of the haredi 14-year old Asher Hazut, who was struck by lightning on Tuesday at a beach near Ashkelon in a sudden thunderstorm and passed away on Wednesday.
The reporter, Tamir Steinman, wrote a moving post on Facebook on Wednesday following Hazut’s death, according to a report by B’Chadrei Chareidim.
“I didn’t know Asher Hazut and I never met him but his death saddened me greatly,” Steinman wrote. “I was near him throughout the day – he in the pediatric ICU hovering between life and death – losing his pulse every few hours, undergoing resuscitation by the doctors, struggling to breathe.”
“And I – reporting on his condition from the other side of the door – getting to know his special family, standing by the side whispering half of a prayer, hoping like everyone for a good ending.” “In the afternoon, a cry of pain erupted from the room and everyone ran in crying (in order to part from him). After a minute, someone cried ‘We need people to complete a quorum to say Kaddish (a prayer sanctifying the name of God said when someone dies). Anyone who can, please come in quickly.'”
“Suddenly I found myself inside the room and Asher is lying there, and I – a complete stranger – suddenly became part of the family. His heart stopped, my heart cried out on the injustice, on the too-short life that was cut off though a sudden bolt of lightning.”
Steinman ended his post by thanking Asher for uniting the Jewish people. “Thank you – that through your life you connected the multitudes in prayer, in unity, in small moments of togetherness. And now in your death everyone is united – in sadness.”
