Category: Articles

Associated Press

LIVES LOST:FOR MAN WITH DOWN SYNDROME,A COLLEGE DREAM By The Associated Press – June 18, 2020 (Link to Original Article) NEW YORK — Right up to the end, the status message on Saadya Ehrenpreis’ WhatsApp profile read: “Having the time of my life.” “And he was,” Ahava Ehrenpreis said of her son, one of more than […]

Bassi Gruen – Mishpacha in Mourning

MISHPACHA IN MOURNING By Bassi Gruen | MAY 10, 2020 | FAMILY FIRST EDITOR’S LETTER | Two weeks ago, Ahava penned these words: “Saadya, you are the most positive person who ever walked the face of this earth” “Your Mishpacha mishpachah.” It’s the way we sign off mazel tov notes and pre-Yom Tov letters to our staff. It may […]

Avi Ganz – The Times of Israel

DEAR SAADYA, by Avi Ganz (Link to Original Post) Tonight, I’m not crying as much. It’s not because I am any less sad. Tears are but one way to help digest that which is perhaps too difficult to digest. Tonight, I am not crying as much because I am enveloped by the collective hug of […]

Dr. Steve Glicksman – The Commentator

ON MY FRIEND AND STUDENT, SAADYA, A”H By: Dr. Steve Glicksman | Opinions  |  May 10, 2020 (Link to Original Article) Soon after we announced the founding of the Makor College Experience, I received a call from the mother of a potential applicant. She informed me that her son had for years dreamed of attending Yeshiva University; he had many […]

The Flatbush Jewish Journal

IT’S SAADY’S TURN – HESPEDIM AND REFLECTIONS It was the wedding of Rabbi Uri Feintuch, Saadya’s rebbe at Makor College Experience at Yeshiva University. The dancing was lively. Suddenly, Saadya appeared. He began to gently push all the guests to the side. After the center of the dance floor was clear and he had the […]

Rabbi Moshe Boylan – FJJ

HABACHUR SAADYA EHRENPREIS Z”L by Rabbi Moshe Boylan The Pasuk tells us Dodi yarad legano… {This is a mashal for a beloved indi- vidual that comes to pick a beautiful flower from a garden.} Chazal darshen that the Beloved is Hashem, and He comes down to Olam Hazeh to remove a special “flower”, a special […]

Sam Sokol – JTA

Saadya Ehrenpreis, 35,Defied ExpectationsWith Determination and Joy BY SAM SOKOL MAY 7, 2020 2:30 PM (Link to Original Post) When Saadya Ehrenpreis was an infant, a doctor told his mother that he would “never walk, talk or amount to anything.” He wound up doing all three. Ehrenpreis was born with Down syndrome, but he was intensely determined. With […]

Letter Excerps

Dear Friends, Today, fact seems so much more unrealistic than fiction.  Saadya a”h personified life and simcha. It seems unfathomable that he is not in this world.  Saadya was happy with life, whatever it handed out to him, but his years in Makor, at Yeshiva University was the fulfillment of a dream.  In fact, when […]