Shirr Teved loved her neighbors cats and dogs — she would feed the strays — but she didn’t have one herself. At age 11, she was popular with her fellow Yeshiva students – they all spoke of her energy and friendliness.
But in the midst of so much positive energy, Teved lived in a difficult home. She had been moved around in foster care at times and in the end, was living with parents who seemed to be having difficulty taking care of themselves.
There was no heat in the Ocean Parkway home in Midwood. They used dangerous electric space heaters to stay warm, a focus of fire marshals on a cause for the fire on Monday night that killed her.
Piles of trash lay in mounds in the driveway, where two cars parked there were loaded with trash bags containing clothing and garbage.
In the midst of it all, doe-eyed Teved stayed strong and inspired other children to love life, her friends say — many remembering her doing a continuous somersaults from Coney Island Boardwalk to the water. This is how they remembered their friend as they walked behind her coffin at Shomrei Haddas Funeral Home in Borough Park on Tuesday night — the last leg of Teved’s short journey in life to be buried in Jerusalem, Israel today where she was born.
About 100 people, many of them children from the girls Yeshiva Ohel Moshe on 16th Avenue, attended the funeral for “God’s little angel” — the ritual Jewish funeral that must occur within 24 hours of death. Teved died on Monday night, trapped in a rear bedroom of her debris strewn home at 761 Ocean Parkway near Foster Avenue in Midwood. A brave firefighter fought his way to her, nearly getting himself killed in the process as their only escape was blocked by a heavy metal gate that could not be opened.
Questions remain as to why the family lived without heat, why ACS was involved with the child, and why she had lived in foster care at times. Some family friends say they tried to help and implored elected officials to get involved, but to no avail.
“Right now, the mother and father are a little lost — the house is locked, they were trying to get the mother back into the home to get some stuff, the body was released only a little while ago,” said Heshey Tischler, a concerned resident and talk radio personality in the community. He said some charity organizations including Masaska and Ohel tried to help the family, but it was too little too late. He said he will run for city council in the next election.
“I tried calling the Councilman (Kalman Yeager), but nobody picks up of the phone call,” Tischler said. “These people needed help, but nobody was there for them. All the local politicians, no where to be found to help”
Tischler said he has been trying to help the family for a while, stating that there was “so much red tape and then foster care.” He complained that mental health assistance in Borough Park and Midwood is “poor at best.”
“There have been 78 suicides in this neighborhood — our politicians are no where to be found — too busy taking pictures at fancy breakfasts, when they should be helping these people,” he said. “They should be at our hospital taking care of the young kids – we have one drug rehab center, only two youth centers for 150,000 families – unacceptable.”
He said ACS was involved trying to get this kid into a proper home, but “there was too much red tape to get this kid into a proper home with proper supervision — sometimes its just too hard.”
“In this case, they didn’t have heat. There’s a billion dollar budget and yet all they really needed was someone to guide them, get them proper medicine. They didn’t have heat, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
After a prayer service, the mourners loaded the tiny coffin into a van and the congregation then followed behind the hearse onto 14th Avenue. The hearse stopped on 14th Avenue and children gathered around the coffin where they cried.
