CORONAVIRUS PART VI: This was my first cousin! My incredible, amazing cousin. And he passed away this Shabbat from the coronavirus!...

BS"D

.... I am so, so sad; what an incredible human being, what an incredible Jew. Died of the coronavirus this past Shabbat! ... I am in tears, I have no words, my whole family is grieving, deeply grieving. He was sort of our patriarch, the most admired member of our family, although we do have a lot of relatives we deeply admire, believe me; he is the one we would turn to for advice if ever in doubt. A great man if ever there was one. Baruch Dayan Emet. Why oh why?....Who would have imagined that I would have to write about my precious, beloved cousin regarding this horrible "pandemic"1? May his wife, children, grandchildren, cousins, nephews and nieces, other relatives, friends, community in London, in the UK, in Israel, in the United States, in Switzerland, in Austria, in Chile, in Canada, in France, in Italy, in Lithuania, wherever they might be today, may they, may we find consolation from Hashem.

Here is what was written about him on Arutz7 ; I caught a mistake ( his age), and the article falls really short of the greatness of my cousin Willy of London,  Harvard graduate William G. Stern, Esq.  Reb Zeev Hakohen Stern. He was so good to me in my younger years,  he helped me so much, I even spent three months in their home during my medical student years!  Thank you Willy, thank you, Shoshana: incredible family, incredible wife, incredible deeds, incredible brilliance, incredible generosity, incredible in every way, shape or form.  A superlative person, whose life was cut short by the very virus I have been writing about for weeks. I don't understand why, it is devastating; but I have to post this.

1. brackets will be explained at a later date in several new posts.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Tag.aspx/19807

2 Orthodox Jews die of coronavirus in London; 1 in Paris

"

At least two Orthodox Jews have died in London and another in Paris because of the coronavirus.

Rabbi Ze’ev Willy Stern, a Holocaust survivor, was 86 when he died over the weekend. One of his children is in the hospital and receiving intensive care for complications connected to the virus.

Stern “had for years helped sustain the Jewish community in Kaunas, Lithuania,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, wrote on Facebook Sunday.

Stern’s family said he would be buried Sunday following a funeral but asked in a death notice that no one try to attend or visit them. Before his death, Stern warned “that under no circumstances is anyone to attend” his funeral, said the notice, which offered a number where callers could phone in to listen to eulogies delivered during the funeral......"

המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים

"Hamakom Yenachem OTANU betoch She'ar Avlei Zion Ve Yerushalayim"

And Refuah Shelemah to Moishe and Dovid

May the rest of the family stay healthy, healthy, healthy!

DS


UPDATE:

I just got a message from our family:

Please daven for Willy ZT"L and Shoshana's son, 

MOISHE SHOLEM ELIEZER BEN SHOSHANA ROSA.

He is not doing well, is on a respirator in the hospital and needs our prayers. 

OY! Thank you to all.