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Bloomberg and Kelly Pay Shivah Call

Community rallies around the mourning Kletzkys

by
Marc Tracy
July 19, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly outside the Kletzkys’ building yesterday.(Eli Wohl/Vos Iz Neias?)
Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly outside the Kletzkys’ building yesterday.(Eli Wohl/Vos Iz Neias?)

A Borough Park apartment building has been visited by thousands of mourners inside the neighborhood and out as the family of Leiby Kletzky, the slain Hasidic eight-year-old boy, sits shivah.

Among those who stopped by yesterday were Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. “This is one of the most sad days in this city. Very tragic,” Bloomberg said afterward. “The commissioner and I expressed our condolences to the parents and grandparents and siblings, and there’s not a lot else we can say. I don’t know why God sometimes does some things, but it is what it is, and I think we all should, before we go to bed, take a look at our children and realize how lucky we are to have them.” An unsubstantiated cellphone picture shows Bloomberg and Kelly, both donning kippot, sitting at a table with Nachmen Kletzky, Leiby’s father.

The community continues to feel as though this death were personal. Said Binyomin Ginsburg, who traveled from Minnesota to pay his respects, “We’re supposed to comfort the mourners, but in a sense, everybody coming is a mourner. We’re all mourning this child.”

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.