An Orthodox Jewish teenager was killed Monday when the van he was in overturned on a Maine highway.
Gedalia Rosenblatt, 15, from New York, was killed en route from the Bethel Wilderness Camp in upstate New York to a canoe trip along the Penobscot River when the van he was traveling in plowed into the median, then veered back into the road and down an embankment where it overturned.
The Bangor Daily News reported that 10 other boys, aged 14 to 18, and two camp counselors traveling in the van survived. Several suffered serious injuries.
Members of Bangor’s Jewish community went to the accident scene to help out and counseled the teens at Eastern Maine Medical Center, where the survivors were taken, within an hour of the accident. Synagogue leaders from Beth Abraham, a local Orthodox shul, provided the teens with yarmulkes and teffilin and helped organize kosher food for them.
