Deaths go beyond family, strike at a neighborhood's heart
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
By SCOTT FALLON, RUTH PADAWER
STAFF WRITERS
TEANECK TRAGEDY
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4 children die in Teaneck house fire
Deaths go beyond family, strike at a neighborhood's heart
Neighbor turned hero shrugs off rescue of two
House's design may have sped fire and smoke
Firefighters defend their search
Past tragedies
Noah loved taking on the bad guys whenever he and his pals would play superheroes in the back yard.
Ari was the jokester, always keeping his schoolmates laughing with perfect imitations of teachers and students.
And little Adira and Natan could be found running all around the house with their siblings' playmates.
If it seemed as if the Seidenfeld clan opened their home to all the neighborhood kids, it's because they did.
The family has been a mainstay in their West Englewood neighborhood of Teaneck ever since they moved to Rutland Avenue in 1998.
The seven Seidenfeld children - Natan 4, Adira, 5, Noah, 6, Aviva, 7, Zahava, 14, Ari, 15, and Helena, 17 - all attended different schools so scores of friends could be found in their three-story home at any time. And all of them were under the watchful eye of Philyss, the matriarch, whether it was a holiday dinner or a lazy summer afternoon in the back yard.
"The house kind of felt like a dormitory," said Karen Mass, a family friend.
"I would be talking to her, let's say, at her house and then her kids would come in and she would always make time for her kids and include them and hug them," Mass said. "She always had room on her lap, always had room for another kid and hugging another kid."
Life on Rutland had its trying times too, as Philyss went through a difficult divorce, adopted her stepsister's daughter, Adira, and raised Natan, who had Down syndrome.
But the joy and charity the Seidenfelds shared with their community was often returned.
"Everyone in the community tried helping her," said Betty Kay, a family friend. "We helped her through a difficult divorce and through some financial hard times by raising some money."
Philyss grew up in New Orleans, where she and her Orthodox friends went to a public high school. She was an honors student and a cheerleader, all the while maintaining her cultural traditions.
Philyss married her high school sweetheart, Howard Seidenfeld, in 1986.
Children quickly followed. Philyss, a nurse, worked through her fifth pregnancy taking the subway from their small Brooklyn apartment to her job, said her aunt, Deanna Samuels of Louisiana.
When they bought their Teaneck Tudor seven years ago, Philyss was ecstatic.
"She was so excited that after all those years of struggling in that little Brooklyn apartment with so many children, she could finally have space in a house," Samuels said through sobs. "If only she had known ... "
As the demands of motherhood intensified, Philyss left nursing, instead running a side business from her home, placing nannies with area families. But most of all, she focused on her kids.
"She was really, really fantastic," said Ana Martinez of Bergen County Special Child Health Services, who was a service coordinator for the family from the time Natan was a baby until about a year ago.
"I saw her with the little ones and she was really so hands on," she said "And I mean Natan, Down syndrome and all, he just was literally one of the kids and it was just a great place for him to be, a good environment for him to be in. He was very much part of the family, part of all of them."
In November 2002, Philyss filed for divorce, which was granted last year. Philyss and Howard shared legal custody of the children.
Ari attended the Mesivta of North Jersey in Newark. With less than 100 students in the entire school, it was easy for classmates to get to know each other.
Ari spent several weeks recovering from a broken leg suffered from either a Rollerblading mishap or a skateboarding accident. He was in a wheelchair, then in a cast, said schoolmate Michael Berkowitz, 18. Even when it was difficult to negotiate the wheelchair, Ari was upbeat.
"When I talked to a lot of the kids who were trying to find someone to make sense of things, ironically the person who was the ideal role model for dealing with troubled times was Ari himself," said Rabbi Dr. Howard Apfel, a teacher at Ari's school. "He was the kind of kid who no matter what life threw his way, he managed to take it all with that famous smile of his."
Apfel's son rode the school bus home with Ari on Monday afternoon and laughed as the playful boy did an imitation, pitch perfect, of someone the students knew. He then exited the bus, leaving his classmates in stitches. "That was Ari's goodbye,'' Apfel said.
Natan attended Teaneck's early-intervention pre-K class at the Bryant School. About 35 parents of preschoolers and kindergartners met with two grief counselors Tuesday night at Bryant who gave them ideas about how to explain Natan's death to their children.
"What we really wanted to know was how do you tell small children that their classmate is gone forever?" said Superintendent John Czeterko. "It's an awful day, an awful thing to have to do. Anything we can do to help, we will. That's the way our community is: we pull together."
Aviva, who was in critical condition on Tuesday at Hackensack University Medical Center, is known as "Aviva the Diva" at The Whittier Elementary School.
The spunky second-grader has a flair for fashion and a big heart. She likes to wear pink and accessorize with just the right earrings and boots.
If any students were crying or sad, "she would put a caring hand on that child's shoulder," said Elise Bourne-Busby, principal of Whittier.
The school day went on as usual Tuesday, except that students did not play outside for recess, because the house is adjacent to the playground. Investigators milled around the Tudor-style home, which faces the playground and the back of the brick school. Police tape clung to the fence at that rear of the schoolyard.
The oldest of the Seidenfeld children, Helena was due to arrive this morning on a flight from Israel, where she is studying Judaica and volunteering with children.
"She was absolutely wonderful in her volunteer work with young children," said Rabbi Joel Grossman, who interviewed Helena for the Israeli program.
Philyss would constantly call Grossman for updates on Helena. She visited her daughter in Israel this year.
"She said she can't believe how Helena has grown," Grossman said. "She was so happy with how the kids loved her daughter so much."
Late Tuesday, more than 200 members of the community met at Congregation Keter Torah to pray for Philyss and her surviving children.
Amid sniffles, wipes and tears, they read the psalms that Jews chant during times of distress, urging God to intervene and seeking guidance.
"Be not death to me... hear the sound of my pleading when I cry to you for help; when I lift my hands toward your holy sanctuary."
And throughout the day, friends of the Seidenfelds and members of several synagogues dropped off bags of clothing and trays of food at the Teaneck home of Suzanne Stokar, a close family friend who declined to comment.
Summer camp for the surviving children has even been covered, thanks to an anonymous donor, said a woman who answered the door at the Stokar home.
"The whole community is really pulling together,'' she said, declining to give her name. "The door bell is ringing every three minutes.''
As word of the fatalities spread in the early afternoon, friends of the children arrived crying at the scene.
I wanted to come and say a couple of prayers," said Shoshana Krug, 16. "They were amazing kids, just awesome. ... I prayed for God to put them in a good place and for God to make sure he didn't make any mistakes."
Staff Writers Mary Jo Layton, Allison Pries, Brian Aberback, Tom Troncone, Jean Rimbach, Walter Dawkins and Eric Hsu contributed to this article.
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