Steve “Shlomo” Zakheim, a businessman and Orthodox community activist who was a longtime member of the Flatbush Hatzolah emergency medical service, died of cancer Sept. 5 in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. A resident of Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood, he was 60.
The first paramedic to serve with Hatzolah, according to the theyeshivaworld.com website, Mr. Zakheim was a supporter of Camp Simcha/Chai Lifeline, programs for seriously ill Jewish children, and he was an advocate of Jonathan Pollard, the civilian intelligence analyst who received a life prison sentence in 1987 for passing classified information to Israel.
Mr. Zakheim also arranged for the transportation of seriously ill children to medical care around the world, and established his own foundation patterned after Make-A-Wish.
Mr. Zakheim established the precedent of Hatzolah volunteers receiving paramedic training; he taught community members CPR in his home. His interest in the work of Hatzolah grew out of his work with Metropolitan Ambulance, a business he founded in the 1980s and later merged with Transcare, a national company.
According to the vosizneias.com website, Mr. Zakheim, as a Hatzolah volunteer, was on the scene of the collapse of the Twin Towers in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, evacuating people from an endangered hotel and rescuing an injured firefighter.
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