Zushy Eliyahu N"Y

On a mild, Los Angeles winter evenining, December, 2006, I arrived at our Sycamore Ave. apartment from work to my (now former) wife and three-year old twins, Leba and Moshe.  Waiting for me that evening was also an envelope, and inside it, the results of a genetic test from the specialty lab we'd sent a drop of our beautiful 23-month-old Zushy's blood to some weeks prior.  I no longer recall what triggered our having his blood sample tested, except for the fact that a close relative had been told she would never, at the tender age of 35, bear children due to completely failed ovaries, what at the time was termed Premature Ovarian Failure.  The details really matter little other than to offer context and flavor to what is, without such, a story too point-blank and heart-aching to simply tell. Yes, our beloved youngest had inherited a syndrome called Fragile X.  Most of us living with our share of the challenges G-d delivers us, can use more laughter, more light-heartedness.  However, as the words, the antiseptic computer type of the genetic test sunk in, it was just that, laughter, which, as I brought my life with Zushy's beautiful soul to mind then, and as I still do this very moment, which was the "behavior" I had become attuned to as he had grown, and which I intuited was not the everyday laughter of the everyday two-year old.  The laughter was an overplus, and had some perhaps nervous or quality of excess which had troubled me.  Laughter, of all things!  May we never complain, and least of all about laughter.

Be that as it may, the diagnosis was confirmed by a Dr. Graham at Cedars Sinai, where we were introduced to the lexicon of the foreign language of genetics, like "genotype" and "phenotype".  Thus began what will be a lifelong relationship with a Zushy I met then, once again, one with a definition beyond the altogether heartwarming definition of perfect and wonderful toddler, now revised to perfect and wonderful toddler whose genetic abnormality would impact his development in every area and set him apart, outside the "mainstream", with an inner life and outer perception of the world, and the world, him, not ususal, exceptional, or what the wizards of euphamism have now made the permanently politically correct adjective to describe our and many children with many shapes and sizes of "differentness":  special. 

Oh, special!  I remember little of the rest of that 2006 December.  In January, in my third year at the position I'd won a couple of months after my pregnant wife and I moved impulsively from Monsey, N.Y., where I had a career as a physician recruitr, to Los Angeles, purportedly to be near the extra hands of her parents and sisters, whom had all moved to the L.A. vicinity years before

TBC

Los Angeles Ner Shoshana Fund

Los Angeles Reception for Ner Shoshana Fund

May 9, 2012

Ner Shoshana Dessert Reception covered by Hamodia.

On Sunday evening May 6, 2012, the Los Angeles community attended a
reception for the Ner Shsoshana Fund of the ETTA Center. The fund was
established in memory of Mrs. Shoshana Breehbaum, Hy"d.

The tragic murder of Shoshana reminds us of that terrible period, over
a decade ago, when Arab suicide bombers managed to enter our cities and
murder innocent men, women and children.

In 2001 there were forthy bombings. Among those bombings was the
attack on August 9, 2012, at the Sbarro pizza restaurant, located at the
corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road in Yerushalayim, one of the
busiest pedestrian crossings in Eretz Yisrael.

It was around 2 P.M., when the restaurant was filled with customers
and pedestrian traffic outside was at its peak, that a suicide bomber
carrying explosives detonated his bomb. This Palestinian terrorits
attack on Sbarro in downtown Yerushalayim resulted in the death of
fifteen Jews and 130 wounded. Hy"d.

Among those murdered on that Sunday afternoon was Shoshana Hayman Greenbaum, Hy"d.

Shoshana, who grew up in Los Angeles and whose parents made Aliyah
shortly after that tragic day, was a teacher for over 12 years in Jewish
day schools. Her love and concern for all her students was manifest in
her teaching style and relationships with her students.

It was her dream that every Jewish child find a place in a Jewish day
school. The Los Angeles ETTA Center, through the Ner Shoshana Fund, has
been providing for children in our our community with special needs to learn within a Jewish environment.

The Fund was started by Eliyahu Dovid and Shifra Hayman as a lasting memory of their daughter.

Another program is the Ner Yaakov Class, in memory of Reb Aharon
Yaakov Kornwasser, z"l, located on the campus of Yeshiva Rav Isaacsohn.
That program provides an academically focused Jewish educational program
for elementary and middle school age boys with learning disabilities.

The reception was held in the gardens of Lorraine and Steve Spira, the
evening's hosts. The evening's emcee was Yanky Lunger, who introduced
Eliyahu Dovid Hayman, father of Shoshana, a"h, followed by Rabbi Asher
Rosenberg, a parent whose child is in the program, and then students
Daniel Bass, Joey Brecher and Asher Muller, who explained the students'
projects. The last to speak was Dr. Michael Held, Executive Director of
the ETTA Center. The evening concluded with the singing of Gadol Aaron
Stern and Yitzy Lunger, with Yanky Lunger, and coordinated by Rabbi
Benzion Litenatsky.

The large turnout and support by the community was well received.
A version of this article appeared in print.