Who By Fire

It wasn’t a member of the Argentine Jewish community who said this, regarding the tragic deaths of five members of the Chabbas family consumed by fire last week in Buenos Aires, but the doorman of the building where they lived. And it expressed the sentiments of an entire shattered community, grieving for a family whose entire life was a constant kiddush Hashem.

While the grief and sorrow affected everyone who heard the news and saw the clips of the raging blaze, it hit the Orthodox community in particular — and not only because of the shock and suddenness of it all, but also because the story of the Chabbas family intertwines with local Jewry as a whole.

Rabbi Yitzchak Chabbas, for whom Jews around the world are davening (Yitzchak Reuven ben Camila for a refuah sheleimah), was born in the Barracas district in Buenos Aires. His wife, Sofía Karina a”h, was from Flores, another area with a large frum community. But they established their home in what is considered the main Jewish area in Buenos Aires, the Once neighborhood (although today their original neighborhoods have grown into centers of religious life as well).

“They got married and bought a very small apartment. The debts grew and, while their oldest children were still young, they went to Panama,” Miriam (Chabbas) Sasson, a sister of Reb Yitzchak, tells Mishpacha.