Hillel players okay after New York accident

Five Hillel Academy Boys High School students were passengers in a vehicular accident last Thursday while in Flatbush, N.Y., to participate in a basketball tournament.

None of the students was seriously injured.

The accident occurred when the teens were being driven back to their hosts’ homes by a designee of Yeshiva of Flatbush, following a basketball game that they won, according to Dan Kraut, CEO of Hillel Academy. Kraut and Rabbi Sam Weinberg, Hillel’s principal and education director, were both in Flatbush with the boys as chaperones for the tournament, which concluded Sunday.

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The vehicle in which the boys were riding clipped another car when taking a left turn too wide, and rolled onto its side, Kraut said.

Hatzolah, a volunteer emergency medical service serving the heavily Jewish neighborhood, appeared on the scene within 35 seconds, “and the students climbed out of the vehicle,” Weinberg wrote in an email to Hillel families on Monday.

“For precautionary reasons the students were taken for observation to Maimonides Hospital, and released a few hours later,” Weinberg wrote. “Due to the incident, we decided to return home ahead of the Shabbaton weekend.”

Prior to the accident, the teens were having a nice time meeting the boys from the three other yeshivas participating in the basketball tournament, according to Kraut.

“We have already begun the process of reviewing our procedures and policies for future events to ensure that our students are always as safe as possible,” Weinberg continued in his email to the Hillel families.

Raymond Harari, head of school at Yeshiva of Flatbush’s Joel Braverman High School, declined to comment on the incident. Rabbi Seth Linfield, executive director of the school, did not return a call from The Chronicle.

—Toby Tabachnick