With Yad Batya, Venezia Zakheimis seeks to memorialize her daughter’s joy
Venezia Zakheimis is the founder of Yad Batya l’Kallah, a volunteer-based organization designed to help kallahs reach the chuppah with all of their needs met in a dignified manner
My daughter Batya was a vivacious dynamo, the sort of person who spreads good cheer wherever they go. She’d married young, at 19, was expecting her first child, and was overflowing with gratitude for all the good in her life. And that’s when it ended, in a fatal car accident on the way home from school. At the peak of vitality, Batya remained forever a young bride.
We knew we had to do something in her memory. During her previous year in seminary, Batya was always schlepping her friends away from their notes and studying sessions to take them to dance at mitzvah weddings to be mesameiach the kallahs.
After the accident, my husband and I made a vow to our children. We said we’d continue to be happy, and we would make others happy.
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