Search unifies community

When the Nassau County Police Department sent out a Silver Alert on Oct. 7 that reported Lawrence resident Yosef Gerson missing, it sounded like so many of the other alerts that are issued about people who suffer from cognitive disorders, as Gerson does, and must be found because they need their medication.
A brief story was written and uploaded to the Herald’s Five Towns website.
But when not only family and friends, but local groups got involved, the Gerson family’s plight became a civic movement. More than 1,000 people joined an expansive search on Oct. 8 for Gerson, 29, who had gone to visit a homeless friend, Joe Siegell, in Queens, three days earlier. He was last seen at 4 p.m. on Oct. 6 by Siegell, police reported.
Organizations including Achiezer, the Rockaway Nassau Safety Patrol and Hatzalah, and Nassau County and New York City police scoured more than 470 locations on Oct. 9, including nearly 120 hotels and motels; parks in Queens, Manhattan and Long Island; hospitals in the region; and subways and Long Island Rail Road stations. The search went on until Gerson returned home on Oct. 10.
The effort fostered a community spirit, according to Rabbi Boruch Bender, that he had envisioned when he founded Achiezer in 2009. The group, which has offices in Lawrence and Far Rockaway, assists people who are in need of medical, financial or emotional support, using a combination of its own resources and those of other community organizations.

“People were able to see that regardless of your background, affiliation or level of religion, when someone is in need, we come together,” said Bender, adding that the level of community involvement “touched me in a profoundly personal way.” “We are too often focused on our differences,” he said. “This was a stark reminder of the beauty and unity of our community.”
Sholem Klein, a coordinator of the Rockaway Nassau Safety Patrol, based in Far Rockaway, said that the exhaustive search and involvement by many was an “unbelievable experience,” in which people “searched around the clock and missed nights of sleep.”
“It was like their own family member or child was missing,” said Klein, whose group coordinated communications during the search after being called by the Gerson family, reviewed a great deal of security video and distributed fliers through the city and Long Island. “All different ages, men, women, fathers stayed home, mothers searched. You saw this [civic spirit] in Hurricane Sandy — how the community helps each other like one big family. It doesn’t matter: Jew, Catholic, Hispanic, black, everyone came out to help.”
Yeshiva Darchei Torah, in Far Rockaway, held a post-Shabbos prayer gathering for the Gerson family on Oct. 10. The building was filled to capacity, and more people gathered outside.
Alan and Wendy Gerson, Yosef’s parents, listened to the prayers on their home phone and saw the photos friends sent them via cell phones. “We wish we could hug every single person who went on searching, who said prayers, who just texted us to let [us] know that they were concerned,” the Gersons said in a prepared statement. “Each and every one of you treated this crisis like your own, and our family is completely overcome with the depth of your caring.”
At about 10:30 p.m. on Oct. 10, Yosef Gerson returned home safely. The Gersons said he had been expected back, after visiting Siegell, by Oct. 7, but had suffered an emotional crisis and sought time alone to clear his thoughts.
The way community members and organizations mobilized to help the family made Bender optimistic about the future of the Five Towns. “I hope that our community can become even more unified than it already is,” he said.