NEW YORK — An ultra-Orthodox Jewish community carried out the funerals Sunday for seven siblings killed in a house fire.
A hot plate left on for the Sabbath is thought to have sparked the fire. The tragedy had some neighborhood Jews reconsidering the practice of keeping hot plates on for the Sabbath, a common modern method of obeying tradition prohibiting use of fire on the holy day.
The bodies of the children from the Sassoon family, ages 5 to 16, were to be flown to Israel after the funeral for a burial. They died early Saturday when flames engulfed their home in Brooklyn’s Midwood neighborhood. Their mother and another sibling were badly injured.
“They were so pure,” the children’s father, Gabi Sassoon, said during a eulogy. “My wife, she came out fighting.”
