Another Holy Jumper
לָמָּה לָנֶצַח תִּשְׁכָּחֵנוּ תַּעַזְבֵנוּ לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים
20-year-old Menachem Mendel Litzman, son of shluhim in South Korea. Emergency services report that Litzman fell to his death from approximately the ninth floor of a construction site on Shazar Boulevard.
“Authorities have confirmed that this was not an accident, as Litzman left a farewell note on his Instagram account addressed to friends, writing, “To all my dear and true friends, I love you, I ask forgiveness, I can no longer cope, I say goodbye with tears in my eyes, and we will meet together with the Mashiach.”
Haredi commentator Nati Miller called for introspection following the death of Menachem Mendel Litzman at the Jerusalem rally, urging the community not to remain silent.
“In the Haredi public, people may avoid saying someone ‘took his own life,’ but we must not stay quiet,” Miller said. “His friends wrote that he died because of social ostracism. There’s a reason he chose to do it during the rally, he wanted everyone to know what he went through. It was his way of awakening us, to notice others, to teach our children to always treat people with respect, even when opinions differ.”
Menachem Mendel was a boy/almost a man who was a human being, not a caricature. He had dreams and needs. He deserves more than a stupid, simplified description on a dumb website. Many “suicides” today are from overdoses, which denotes maybe an accident, a lack of intention. The brotherhood of holy jumpers is a rare, exclusive club. It’s a heroic act. To live is a heroic act, no less.
Menachem Mendel would be an actual holy jumper after Dovke Marossow, the patron saint of the Holy Jumpers, Gershy Gorodetsky, and Yocheved Gourarie. Dovke jumped on Kingston, I think. And that Yid, Moshe Kanovsky, who jumped from the 69th floor of the Empire State Building on April 13, 2007 (it was the next day after Pesach). Gershy just jumped from a platform in front of a train, but Moshe Kanovsky possibly holds the height record. Yocheved jumped from the rooftop cafe next to Union Square Park, so I am not sure about the height either.
Would have to add Mendy Litzman to the list.
We should start writing השם יקום דמו for the jumpers. Often it’s mental. But frequently there is an address to the tormentors. And modern life is intolerable as it is. Add to this the unique pressures of the frum life and the crazy life of a Chabad teenager. Only the less sensitive souls survive.
It’s almost another yahrzeit for Bruce Lokeinsky. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. November cold sets in. It feels especially dark and gloomy. I miss Bruce; he was one of a kind, meshugener. Less than a day before he moved on in the downtown Brooklyn hotel, he spoke about his friend who perished in the Twin Towers. He said, “I, on the other hand, didn’t get that job at Cantor Fitzgerald.”
P.S. Shame on Chabad for running a kosher “bed and breakfast” in South Korea and other such places. You don’t know and don’t take responsibility for the “ostracism” that a growing boy feels in such a place. How cruel to tear a man from the community; it is bad for the community and bad for the man.
בכייה לדורות
The “Jewish community” of South Korea will do just fine. But you, I am not sure.