WPIX reports:
Yoseph Robinson HY”D turned away from a life touched by crime only to die trying to stop a crime. Today was his funeral.
Under slate grey Brooklyn skies Robinson’s family, friends and members of his community gathered for his funeral, filling to standing room only at the Shomrei Hadas Chapel on 14th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn. Robinson was gunned down last week in an attempted robbery at a Kosher liquor store in Midwood.
The 34-year-old Robinson left behind the dangers of the street and converted to Judaism — praying three times a day, and selling wine in a Kosher liquor store.
The NYPD released surveillance video of the killer. The chilling clip shows the gunman entering the store where Robinson worked and demanding jewelry from the clerk’s girlfriend. The clerk was Joseph Robinson. You see him lean over the counter and try and push the robber away to protect his girlfriend only to be gunned down.
Robinson, who came to the United States from Jamaica when he was twelve-years-old, was shot in the chest and the arm. The vicious attack happened last Thursday. He was pronounced dead at Kings County Hospital.
A witness who heard the shooting saw Robinson’s lady friend run from the store screaming, they shot Yoseph. She said his last words were, ‘tell my daughter that I love her.’
His body will be taken to John F. Kennedy Airport and returned to Jamaica for burial.
(Source: WPIX)
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10 Responses
This was some levaya.
Were we matzliach in saving him from being buried in a christian cemetary, as his next of kin originally wanted??
if he was orthodox why is he being buried in jamaica also is his daghter jewish
Can someone explain whether his body is being buried in a Jewish cemetery? I doubt there is one in Jamaica.
His daughter born before his conversion might not be Jewish, and it does not affect his own Jewish identity (he is entitled to love her too!), but to this back to Jamaica burial is very disturbing.
In any case, Hashem Yinkom Damo !
The Jewish Cemetery on Orange Street, located near the beautiful and century-old Shaarei Shalom Synagogue, contains stones from the early 19th century and is still in use.
http://www.isjm.org/ISJMProjects/JewishCemeteryatHuntsBayJamaica/tabid/90/Default.aspx
To number 4. Believe it or not, there are several Jewish cemetaries in Jamaica. Yidden have been living on the island for close to 400 years.
About 3 years ago I traveled to Puerto Rico on business and I got to discussing Jews on Puerto Rico and the rest of the Carribean. Seems the Carribean islands were a safe haven for Marranos, especially islands such as Barbados and Jamaica that were captured by the British in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Cahabas Shliach told me that if you would open a Jamaican phobe book you will find dozens of listings for Cohen, Levy and Gabai (Gabbay?). There is (at least as of 3 years ago) an active Chabad Shul and a Hillel School. One amusing (or not so amusing depending on how you look at it) story he told me was that a Shliach to one of the Carribean islands found the locals using an orange for the Arba Minnim because they had no esrog and figured it was better than nothing.
In short, there are jews and jewsish cemetaries on the island of Jamaica. Hopefully he will be brought to a jewish cemetary and be zoche to a kevuras yisroel.
I made this comment in a previous article…
from what I understand, it is being arranged that a section on his family plot is being sectioned off to become “it’s own separate cemetary” and that is how it is being considered a Jewish cemetary, as it is kind of separate from the rest of it.
There was really no choice here, his mother is his next of kin and she had the last say, and she insisted on his body coming back to Jamaica, at least she agreed to do this.
He is being buried in Jamaica because he has a biological mother there who loves and mourns for him – is that so hard to understand?
According to some reports (Kol Mevasser) He will be buried in his family’s backyard. A minyan of Chesed Shel Emes volunteers is traveling there to מקדש בית הקברות and give him a קבירת ישרא ל