“Family called to hospital to say goodbye”

A dismal milestone was recorded tonight (Thursday) with the update that 5,001 Israelis died of corona from the outbreak of the plague. The families of five dead out of the thousands tell of them, of them, and describe the last moments of those infected with the virus. Ynet brings the stories of the people behind the numbers.

Quiet, humble and smart and who always talked to everyone at eye level. Such was Gabriel Boaron, his family members say. He worked as a senior foreman in the Ministry of Defense and liked to travel in his spare time. “We were married for 43 years in a happy relationship. We planned our pension, to travel abroad and in Israel,” says his wife Miriam.

About the first days of the illness she says that “after she got sick he felt fine, just a little fever. The family doctor at one point pressed that he should go to the hospital because the fever did not go down. We were told everything was fine and he was released home with oxygen. His condition continued to deteriorate. “Oxygen. I saw him two weeks before he died, on the day of hospitalization. Since then, I only saw him in WhatsApp conversations.” Gabriel left behind a wife, three children and nine grandchildren.

“Pity every person who dies, because it’s not just him, it’s a whole family that gets hurt. There can be no government office that takes care of the bereaved families from the corona. There are families that need emotional support, bureaucratic support and no one to help. After a few weeks Myself how can it be that no one turns and checks what is happening to us, “she asks in frustration.

Fruma Levin, a Holocaust survivor, was supposed to celebrate her 100th birthday in about six months, but fell ill in Corona and died. Her granddaughter, 38-year-old Talia Weiss Cohen, said during the shiva that “we do not digest. Grandma was clear until the last minute. She was widowed at a very young age, lost two daughters who had cancer and also a grandson. She had a difficult life but she was strong And positive and always smiled. ‘

“She was confined to a house and the Ministry of Health had no solution for the vaccine for her,” said the granddaughter. “About a month ago she felt unwell, and we took her to the hospital. She had a virus and she was supposed to be released, but she was put next to a corona patient and she became infected. She was transferred to the Corona ward and within a few days she had a significant deterioration and she faded quickly. She suffered towards the end. They did not invest in her because of her age. They underestimated her. ‘

“Losing a person during this time is difficult,” Weiss Cohen explains. “We could not say goodbye to her properly. We could hardly visit her and certainly not kiss or hug her. She was there alone and died alone. After everything she went through in life and it’s awful. Even “My mother did not have time to say goodbye to her. We are in great pain. She was a very dominant figure. She died without anyone holding her hand.”

“If the Ministry of Health was a house-bound warehouse, it would be after the second dose and even if it was contagious, maybe it was without symptoms,” says the granddaughter. It hurts and angers that people disregard the guidelines. ‘

Holocaust survivor Rika Blitzky is another victim of the corona virus. Natalie Rabinowitz, her granddaughter, said that “her grandmother was a war survivor. Her husband fought in the Red Army and he smuggled her in a tank to Uzbekistan. When she immigrated she was 65 as a pensioner. She did not complain even though she had a hard time. She would talk about her childhood in Ukraine “In recent years, she moved to a nursing home, where she contracted corona.”

“We could not see for almost a year and there was only a telephone contact,” says Rabinowitz. “It was hard because she was older and she was lonely in the room. She did not understand what was happening even though we tried to explain. In the last three days the lung photography has deteriorated and within hours it is over. All this year we said ours it will not happen. I have not seen grandparents for months. It sucks Horrible”.

“The mass funeral that took place this week left me traumatized,” Rabinovich says. ‘His grandmother did not even have a quorum to say Kaddish because people were not allowed to come. Grandma was wrapped in plastic bags on the road so she wouldn’t catch up with others. We did not imagine that this was how her funeral would look like. I’ve been to funerals and I know what it’s supposed to be like. It should be very respectful. It was just disrespectful. “

“At the funeral held by the ultra-Orthodox I did not see a single mobile and it is just a slap in the face. They think in their area it is not approaching? They feel it is their country and we are the tourists here. Why did I prevent all our relatives from coming to the funeral? Why does the law not affect them? “.

Shmuel Vetro passed away on August 29 from corona. Samuel was born in Romania in 1931, survived the camps and the Holocaust in which he lost part of his family and immigrated to Israel with his two brothers. His father was the Gabay of the synagogue called ‘Cave of the Patriarchs’ in Romania and he was buried in the cemetery in Hebron near the Cave of the Patriarchs.

He worked for decades as a truck driver on Tnuva’s milk distribution line, and lived most of his life in Haifa. About a decade ago, he moved to Kiryat Arba to be close to his family. His grandson Yitzhak said: “Grandpa made sure all his life that the family would be united and took care of the children and grandchildren. He feared the corona, but no less the loneliness. He was careful, and we children made sure he and Grandma did not leave home unnecessarily and few meetings.”

“We hear the numbers in the media, and do not notice that behind them are families whose world has been destroyed. Grandpa was healthy and unequivocally would extend many more good years without the damn disease. People do not understand that even if there was a background disease it does not mean a person should die,” says the grandson. .

The grandson says that Vetro was “a strong grandfather. When they took him to the hospital he did not take with him the tefillin that were important to him because he was sure he would return. We see the discussion between the demonstrations and funerals but the point is that everyone must take care of themselves. .

At the beginning of August, he suffered from breathing difficulties, following which he was taken to Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem and was found blue in Corona. He was hospitalized for two weeks, until he died and was buried in Hebron. The funeral was held in reduction and his son and wife who were in solitary confinement received permission from the Ministry of Health to attend it from the vehicle. His family says he was healthy, strong, active and enterprising who did not even need any nursing care at his extreme age and always cared for children and grandchildren. Samuel left behind three children, 21 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

“Everyone called him Benzi, but he was our private Yaakov,” Yigal Ben Zion of Kiryat Shmona paid tribute to his brother Yaakov – Benzi – who died in Corona and is only 54. Benzi was a former military man, and served for years as commander of the city of Kiryat Shmona. In 2013 he ran for mayor and was not elected. “We laughed that he was not a politician, but a human being,” his brother recalled. He served as a council member and continued extensive public activity, mostly voluntarily, and was also chairman of the Eastern Galilee Planning and Building Committee.

“Two weeks before he got sick, we went to Tel Aviv together. All the way he had phone calls from people who needed him. He was constantly giving. I asked him how he manages to live like this,” the brother recalled.

Benzi grew up in a home of seven children. He was the middle child. “He was the center of our house. They said he was in the middle like the sun in a menorah, and really he was the light of us all. His greatest mitzvah was honoring father and mother. No matter what the parents wanted, he was always there to help them,” Yigal said. “When I heard he was sick, I felt like the hero Samson who had his hair removed. He was the source of our strength.”

The stories of the help he extended to many flowed to the family after his death. A woman arrived at 7 a.m. and said she had entered a computer store, and the owner of the place told her

Jacob has ordered two laptops, they are ready for her to take. Someone else called and said that since hearing about his death she had not stopped crying. She has a son on the autistic continuum and Jacob helped her with everything she needed.

Family members do not know how he fell ill, but speculated he met with a man who infected him during meetings of the local committee he headed. “He was very careful about distance and mask but somehow got infected. When he needed to be hospitalized he arrived at Ziv Hospital in Safed, where he was a member of the management. Unfortunately his condition deteriorated. Oxygen at some level he needed more and more intensive breathing assistance.”

After a week and a half of hospitalization they came to the conclusion that he must be connected to Acme. In Ziv there is no Akmo, so they transferred him in a special car to Ichilov Hospital, where he was connected to the device for a month and a half. “The brothers and children made sure to visit him daily, and his daughter and two brothers were at the hospital for the last day.” His daughter sang songs by Shlomo Artzi. When they got home, to Kiryat Shmona, they were called back and separated. “Benzi was remarried, a father of four and a grandfather of four. His youngest grandson was born on the day of the shiva.