The Jerusalem Angel
Yente Chaya Sarah Ziegleman was only fifteen, but in those short years she has made an indelible imprint on the life of needy people in Jerusalem. It started, they say, when she was nine. Maybe ten. She noticed that the mothers in her community were working so hard every Erev Shabbos cleaning and cooking all day. Even after the Shabbos came in, they still had little respite since their small children demanded constant attention. Little Chaya Sarah Ziegleman had an idea. One Friday evening, after the men went to shul, she went around the neighborhood collecting small children. Soon, a small procession of maybe forty or fifty girls was marching around the neighborhood like a little army led by a Lilliputian general. Chaya Sarah told them some fantastic stories and entertained them for a couple of hours, giving the mothers a little rest before the men came home. That was how it began. A couple of years later she decided that some families she knew had too little to eat and no one knew about it. Merely twelve, she figured that other people not knowing about it was O.K. The “not enough food” part was not. Being a little girl with, obviously, no money, she hit upon a grand idea: She would collect the food. Before long, she started going door-to-door in their own apartment buildings and the Ahavas Chesed concept was born. A very short while after, the grown-ups started to pay attention. It became obvious that young Chaya Sarah Ziegleman’s idea was not only extraordinary in its kindness, but in its practicality as well. Many people who could only afford to spare a Shekel or two to charity could easily part with food items worth ten and twenty times that much. Chaya Sarah Ziegleman saw her modest effort mushroom into one of Israel’s most important chesed institutions, feeding hundreds of needy families in Jerusalem, Ashdod, Bat Yam, and more with a yearly budget of several million Shekels. The streets of Jerusalem were black with men, women, and children. Heartbreaking crying reverberated throughout the funeral procession as Jerusalem, overwhelmed with shock and grief, brought its saintly daughter Chaya Sarah Ziegleman to eternal rest. She always belonged with angels and they probably just couldn’t wait... |
NO ONE IS REALLY SURE WHAT HAPPENED. Either the bus stopped when it wasn’t
supposed to, or else the van driver was being reckless, but the van veered sharply to the
left, overtook the bus and lost control. The blunt front of the van climbed wildly over
the pavement like a roaring whale, and in a swift motion threw the girl standing almost
ten feet into the air and onto the opposing rocks. She was killed instantly and
Jerusalem’s collective heart stopped.