The man in the photo showed resourcefulness, jumped from the railing and dredged up one child after another. According to those whom he rescued, he must have saved many children and adults at the height of the calamity. He took a position and grabbed the children who were handed up to him from below. At the same time, he shouted to the crowd behind to stop advancing. As soon as the gates were dismantled, the man in the photo left his spot, not waiting even a moment to receive any credit. This was the report written by one of the eye witnesses and publicized together with the photo which roused so many.
Rabbi Yoel Schlesinger from Beitar was identified as the one immortalized in that picture and he, as so many testified, was the hero of the Har Meron tragedy.
The photo depicts him standing on a wall three meters high. Thousands of people walked beneath along a metal ramp. He assisted them to eject themselves from the mob. Many sought details about him so as to thank him for his rescue efforts.
"I am no hero and I shun putting myself forward and telling what took place," he asserted in an interview with Yated Ne'eman regarding his role as rescuer. "Anyone would have done the same."
When we pressed him, he confided, "I was up above, in the room where I had davened and saw what was happening. The sights were appalling. I threw bottles of water down so that people wouldn't faint. They drank and felt revived. In one instance, someone handed up a child to me and I grabbed him. It was no easy task because the wall was very high."
In the picture we see you standing free, with only your feet anchored in the window.
Schlesinger: "I put my foot inside the room and locked it. I have a big bruise there from the pressure of the door which was on my knee. I bent my whole body down like a snake; my head and hands were thrust below."
Schlesinger continues to describe the scene. "It began when one father threw his streimel up to me but I couldn't reach it. I was sure that I wouldn't be able to grab a child either but with a momentary instinct, I threw myself downwards, grabbed a child but all I held was his hand. Somehow, I was able to swing him up into the room. He cried and I thought that it was good that he cried; at least he was alive. Had I not done so at that very moment, he wouldn't have survived because where he had stood a moment before, the first man fell. He lay there for ten minutes and was covered. Then they attempted to revive him."
When Schlesinger went back out he saw people falling one on top of another. "They all lay there on the ground, no one understanding what was happening. I took small water bottles and sprinkled water on them from above. By then it was so congested that no one could lift a hand."
In conclusion, he stresses, "I am no hero and no angel. Hashem empowered me with the strength to help people. It is a big miracle that only forty-five people died."
"What appears from the rescue teams and people there, if people had not retreated, it could have ended with the death of 1,500 ch"v," he concludes.
