Remembering Ezra

Last Thursday (Nov. 19), Washington University freshman Harry Kosowsky awoke to a call from his mother in Boston, alerting the 19-year-old that his grandfather had passed away after a sudden heart attack.

“You need to be on the first flight home,” Kosowsky’s mother told her son. 

As Kosowsky was getting ready to board the plane, he received a text message telling him that his longtime friend, Ezra Schwartz, 18, was in critical condition. Kosowsky knew Schwartz was doing a gap year in Israel; Kosowsky himself had done one the year before.

“I called my mom to see what was up. She said the news was true, but she hadn’t wanted to overwhelm me,” Kosowsky recalled when we spoke Tuesday. 

By the time Kosowsky’s flight landed in Baltimore, where he had a layover, and he turned on his phone, he had “at least 1,000 messages that Ezra had passed away,” he said. He soon learned of the Palestinian terrorist attack in the West Bank that killed his buddy, along with two others. 

“In Baltimore, at the airport, I just broke down in tears,” said Kosowsky. “This was such a personal tragedy.”

Kosowsky had known Schwartz since the two were little kids. They grew up less than a mile from each other in Sharon, Mass., a suburb of Boston; attended the same Orthodox elementary school, Striar Hebrew Academy, and the same temple, Young Israel of Sharon. Their parents were the closest of friends.

“When we were younger, we’d hang out after temple together on Shabbat and the holidays,” said Kosowsky, who was a grade ahead of Schwartz. “We only had about 10 kids in each (elementary) grade so all of us were pretty close.”

Kosowsky said Schwartz was truly a “kind, gentle person,” filled with good humor and positivity. “He was a mischievous kid, something of a troublemaker, but he did it to make his friends happy and get laughs,” said Kosowsky. “He attracted the widest group of friends.”

Kosowsky remembered the last time the two were together, in mid-August, at a mutual friend’s home. About 10 of them had gathered for their fantasy football draft. At one point, Schwartz and Kosowsky went to the basement to play pingpong and talk.

“I asked him about the program (he was going on in Israel, at Yeshivat Ashreinuh),” said Kosowsky. “Ezra was trying to find his way, to figure out what made him happy. He was changing from this mischievous little kid to a mature, passionate adult.

“He had been a counselor (at Camp Yavneh in New Hampshire) over the summer and he loved it. He was like the best counselor at the camp, and all the kids adored him. He was talking to me about possibly pursuing a career working with kids.”

At the time of his death, Schwartz had been dating Kosowsky’s first cousin, Ilana, for seven months, and the relationship was going very well. She had grown up in nearby Brookline, Mass., and was also on a program in Israel. Kosowsky said Ilana had seen Schwartz the morning he was killed.

“He talked about how happy he was in his relationship with Ilana and how he wanted it to progress,” Kosowsky continued, adding that his cousin “hasn’t lifted her head in five days.” 

“That day we talked, I saw in Ezra what I had seen in myself– he was on a journey to understand what he wanted to do and what made him tick,” said Kosowsky. “That’s the saddest part of all of this. He possessed such depth and thoughtfulness.”

Kosowsky served as a pallbearer at both his grandfather’s funeral last Thursday night (Nov. 19) and Schwartz’s funeral on Sunday, which was attended by roughly 1,500 people and watched online by more than 7,000.

“The one thing I can say about Ezra is that I never saw him down,” said Kosowsky. “He was really coming into his own. He had such a zest for life. That’s what makes this so tragic.” 

 Go Prep go! 

Congratulations to the Torah Prep girls’ robotics team, which will be one of 40 teams competing in the First Lego League (FLL) eastern Missouri championships held Dec. 6 at St. Louis Community College at Florissant. The Torah Prep team was one in an original field of 260 teams in the region to make the December competition. If they beat out the other 39 teams, they will advance to the world championships, which will be held — of all places — in St. Louis in April.