Rabbi Yossi and Baila Brackman reach out to student community
A Jewish student from the University of Chicago who is also past president of his school’s campus Chabad center is among those missing after a 12-story, 136-unit oceanfront condominium tower partially collapsed early on Thursday morning in Surfside, Fla.
Miami-Dade county police said as many as 99 people who were assumed to be in Champlain Towers South at the time have not yet been found.
Ilan Naibryf and his girlfriend, Deborah Berezdivin, were in the building on Wednesday night, and his family posted a message on social media asking if anyone had heard from them. They are among the more than 150 still missing; four people were confirmed dead as of Friday morning.
“Ilan is a fun guy,” said Rabbi Yossi Brackman, director of Rohr Chabad Center at the University of Chicago and Hyde Park. “He’s upbeat, always smiling. He’s very studious; he’s an innovator who is in the middle of making a startup, hardworking and very friendly. He’s an all-round great guy.”
Brackman and his wife, Baila, first learned that Ilan was among the missing from one of his friends, who contacted them on Thursday. They immediately went to work. Baila Brackman reached out to Ilan’s family and to students who make up their community, gathering together with them on Zoom to recite Psalms and pray for Ilan, Deborah and those who remain unaccounted for.
The rabbi continues to speak with students, including many who are reaching out to him for the first time, and trying to offer some comfort during such uncertainty. He has been encouraging them to pray, for men to put on tefillin and for women to light candles for Shabbat.
“This is a particularly challenging time because there’s no definitive resolution,” he said.
Still, Brackman is telling students “to hope … to hold out for a miracle.”
