Rabbi Shragi Gestetner was born to make music.
He started composing when he was 12. He sold his first song at 18. His debut album, Shragee, pulsates with the joy of a man who has found his calling. The year after it came out, Tablet called Gestetner one of the “rising talents of the current generation” of Hasidic music.
“His voice was the sound of music,” said Gershy Moskowits, the producer who discovered him. “It sounded like a violin playing.”
But when Gestetner died at Mt. Meron on Thursday at the age of 33, he had already left his music career behind. Dozens of songwriting credits and a solo album had given him a taste of celebrity, but the work playing weddings and fundraising dinners up and down the Eastern Seaboard occupied his nights and weekends. So several years ago, with four children at the time, he walked away from the music scene to pursue life as a family man.
At least three Hudson Valley natives were among the dozens killed in Israel when a massive crowd of holiday worshippers went wild, according to reports.On Friday, April 30, mayhem broke out at a Jewish religious festival that was attended …
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At least three Hudson Valley natives were among the dozens killed in Israel when a massive crowd of holiday worshippers went wild, according to reports.
On Friday, April 30, mayhem broke out at a Jewish religious festival that was attended by tens of thousands of people in Mount Meron, killing upwards of 45 people and hospitalizing more than 100 others.
According to reports, among the dead were Rockland County natives Shragi Gestetner, age 33, formerly of Airmont, Yosef Amram Tauber, age 18, of Monsey, and Eliezer Josef, age 26, of Kiryas Joel, in Orange County.
The stampede happened during the celebrations of Lag BaOmer at Mount Meron, where tens of thousands of people, mostly Orthodox Jews, gather each year to honor Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at his burial ground.
Meron victims: Torah prodigy, singer from Montreal and father of two-week-old baby
Family members frantically attempted to contact their loved ones who were at Meron, not knowing if they were among the dead and injured; relatives of some victims learned of their loss when names of casualties began to appear on WhatsApp
Ynet |
Published: 04.30.21 , 15:20
Simcha Bunim Diskind was considered a brilliant Torah scholar and prodigy in his yeshiva. The 23-year-old member of the Ger Hassidic Dynasty, a married father of two from Beit Shemesh, was among the 45 people killed in a crush late Thursday night at an overcrowded Lag BaOmer festival in northern Israel.
UpdatedFri, Apr 30, 2021 at 3:33 pm ET
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Israeli security officials and rescuers stand around the bodies of victims who died during a Lag Ba Omer celebrations at Mt. Meron in northern Israel, Friday, April 30, 2021. (Ishay Jerusalemite/Behadrei Haredim via AP)
HUDSON VALLEY, NY Two men from Monsey and a Kiryas Joel resident died in Israel in a massive crowd of holiday worshippers at Mount Meron, according to news reports.
The Associated Press reported mayhem broke out early Friday at a Jewish religious festival attended by tens of thousands of people in northern Israel, killing nearly 40 people and leaving some 150 hospitalized, medical officials said.