“HOW DO YOU EULOGIZE A BABY?”: Mother’s Chilling Poem After Jerusalem Daycare Tragedy

 Chani Katz, the mother of 6 month old Ari Katz A”H, one of the babies killed in yesterday’s Israeli daycare tragedy, poured her grief into a chilling poem after the unthinkable happened.

Katz wrote a poem that captures the kind of pain no parent should ever know:

“Tell me… how do you eulogize a baby?
G-d — how do you eulogize a baby?
Do you speak about how much he loved tickles and kisses?
About his little smiles… and the moments he almost cried?
About how playful he was,
Or which pacifier was his favorite?

Do you measure a life in ounces and milestones —
How much he weighed, and when he began to crawl?

And tell me, G-d…
What do pure souls do in the Heaven of Babies?
Do angels paint pictures of laughing mothers?
Do they sit among the tzaddikim in a circle,
tiny hearts once full of life,
sharing stories of the End of Days?

And tell me, G-d…
Aren’t the Heavens too vast up there
for a baby so small —
a child who only knew how to crawl?”

According to reports, the deadly incident struck a privately run, unlicensed daycare operating out of a home in Jerusalem, leaving two infants dead and dozens of children injured. Emergency crews rushed in, treating babies and toddlers on scene and evacuating them to hospitals as investigators worked to determine what caused the tragedy. 

While the cause remains under investigation, reports of a gas leaking from the heating system have been attributed to the deaths.