Fire Escape

In Jerusalem’s Unsdorf neighborhood, a hub for young Anglo families, the row of buildings behind Rechov Sorotzkin — the Sorotzkin B enclave — has its own flavor: Many residents are struggling kollel yungeleit or families who live in material simplicity for Torah. More than half of those displaced by the fire are Americans, many of whom are renters who don’t have homeowners’ insurance, a family support network in Israel, or much experience in navigating small emergencies — let alone major ones like a massive fire that upended so many lives, damaging apartments and destroying dozens of cars and personal storage facilities in the adjoining parking lot. Yet these families have discovered an inner resilience in the face of overwhelming material loss, and a commitment to continue to live in G-d’s courtyard, having felt His embrace as they emerged whole and essentially unscathed when logic would dictate injuries and even deaths.

On that Leil Shimurim of November 23, hundreds of residents of the apartments on Rechov Sorotzkin B were awakened to a nightmare of flames and heavy smoke that prevented most of them from leaving their apartments. By the time they were evacuated up to two hours later, many reported being sure they were going to die, like the helpless victims trapped on the upper floors of the Twin Towers.

But it was a night of miracles: After dozens of dazed parents and little children finally emerged — glasses, hair, and skin covered in soot — all those taken for medical evaluation were released from the hospital after a few hours of observation.

One family, living in an apartment without a porch that would have given them some breathable air, opened their freezer and breathed into that as the thick black smoke entered every corner of their house. In another apartment, the mother was in the hospital after having just given birth, and the father was trapped in the blaze alone with seven small children, who were eventually rescued by firemen with a ladder through their window. Another family, five flights up on Sorotzkin 31B, decided to make a run for the exit down the stairs through the thick smoke, which made seeing each other impossible. By the time they reached the bottom, they realized that one of the children was missing — unable to see in front of him, the little boy had run back inside and spent the next two hours alone in a smoke-filled house, hiding in panic under a blanket while his family waited in terror.