When rabbis start teaching safety and public health in all haredi schools (or better yet, bring in actual experts to teach these subjects and stand there with them as they do it, showing real interest and respect so the kids can see the rabbis care about all this), and when parents are told that they can no longer allow their children to run wild or to have 7-year-olds babysitting toddlers, the number of these tragic incidents will be greatly reduced.
Note that in the Yeshiva World report, which I'm posting in full below, there is no mention at all of parental supervision, and even the haredi community's own responsibility to teach child safety to children in school – which many haredi schools do not do adequately while other haredi schools don't do it all– is not mentioned. Instead, it is the Other, the non-haredi government that is implied to be at fault.
And that, I think, illustrates some of the major problems with the haredi community. Families have many children – so many, it is often impossible for parents to supervise them. Families are also often poor, which further stresses them. Knowledge of child safety issues seems poor while at the same time there is a prevalent attitude that someone else, some Other, is responsible for all the community's problems, be it that widespread (and almost completely self-inflicted) poverty or failed schools or children who do not realize the dangers of playing on a roof. It is never the rabbis who are at fault, never the community leaders, never haredim themselves.
But the truth is the rabbis, community leaders and the haredim who give them near blind obedience created most of these problems and are responsible for them all, at least in part.
When rabbis start teaching safety and public health in all haredi schools (or better yet, bring in actual experts to teach these subjects and stand there with them as they do it, showing real interest and respect so the kids can see the rabbis care about all this), and when parents are told that they can no longer allow their children to run wild or to have 7-year-olds babysitting toddlers, the number of these tragic incidents will be greatly reduced.
None of this should be taken as a rebuke for this poor child's parents. I do not know who they are or the facts surrounding how he ended up on the roof and likely neither do you.
And this is a problem that is far bigger than a few families, and the time to act to stop it is now.
At any rate, Yeshiva World reports:
Ramot Official Explains What Occurred in Tragic Death of 11-Year-Old
Ramot Minhelet local authority official Asher Kuperstock spoke with Kol Chai Radio on Sunday morning, 11 Tammuz, hours after the 11-year-old neighborhood resident was laid to rest. The child fell to his death from the rooftop of a community talmid torah building.
Kuperstock points out for one thing, the community, numbering over 40,000 residents, does not have a local security officer as it should. When asked if this is because City Hall is not as concerned with chareidim, he responded “I do not know. This question has to be directed to City Hall”.
Kuperstock tells he was informed of the disaster on motzei Shabbos and immediately went to the area to see what occurred. He explained the school yard was left open for children to play in accordance to law. He added that upon inspection on motzei Shabbos, the access to the shaft where the child fell was closed as required.
Also speaking to Kol Chai was Ichud Hatzalah EMT Yitzchak Katz, one of the first on the scene. He explains that when he arrived children told him they were playing on the roof and he fell. “From what I saw it was closed as locked as it should have been. It was closed in such a way a regular person could not get in but the children got onto the roof and somehow managed to get into the opening to the shaft”.
Kuperstock added they do their best to keep the children busy with activities that do not endanger them. “We are pained over the loss. We called our volunteer who tries to oversee security and asked him what must be done to avoid the next tragedy. We called local community officials too”.
Related Post:
11-Year-Old Haredi Boy Falls To His Death From Yeshiva Roof.