NEW YORK – The two tragedies occurred 1,500 miles

apart and in much different circumstances, but both united a

community in shock, horror and grief.

In New York, the abduction and gruesome murder last week of

8-year-old Leiby Kletzky while walking home from summer day camp in

Borough Park, Brooklyn, left the neighborhood’s tight-knit Hasidic

community reeling from the revelation that the crime was committed

by an apparently observant Jew.

In Houston, catastrophe struck when five members of a Jewish family

driving home from a vacation in Colorado over the July 4 weekend

collided head on with another vehicle.

The parents, Josh and Robin Berry, 41 and 40, were killed

instantly. Two of the children in the back seat, Peter, 9, and

Aaron, 8, suffered severe spinal injuries and are paralyzed from

the waist down. One child, Willa, 6, escaped with broken bones and

was able to speak when paramedics arrived. A woman in the passenger

seat of the other car, Colleen Doyle, also died.

“The tragedy is unprecedented in our synagogue, in our community,”

said Rabbi Brian Strauss of Congregation Beth Yushurun, the

Conservative synagogue where the Berrys were members. “In Houston,

the Berrys were beloved.”

Robin had worked as family life coordinator at Beth Yushurun, and

Josh had participated in men’s club programs. The Berry children

attend Jewish day schools.

In both Houston and New York, the tragedies rippled far beyond the

Jewish community.

In New York, coverage of Leiby’s disappearance – on the first day

his parents let him walk home alone – and murder dominated

headlines for days. This week, the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg,

visited the Kletzky home to pay a shiva call.

In Houston, the Jewish community’s grief was joined by a burst of

activity to make sure the Berry children are well cared for.

Friends established a trust fund for the kids, local businesses

held fundraisers, TV stars have sent their condolences and

professional athletes have stopped by the children’s hospital

beds.

Baseball all-star Hunter Pence of the Houston Astros showed up, and

Wilson Chandler of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets and Kyle Lowry of the

Houston Rockets also came to boost the children’s spirits with a

gift and jokes. Three players from Major League Soccer’s Houston

Dynamo visited, too. An upcoming Dynamo match, already designated

to celebrate Jewish Heritage night, will donate $10 of every ticket

sold to the Berry trust.

“It made me really happy,” Aaron Berry said after the visit by

Chandler and Lowry, the Jewish Herald-Voice of Houston reported. “I

got to meet Kyle Lowry of the Rockets and his friend Wilson from

the Nuggets!”

Reality TV stars Kourtney Kardashian and Brooke Burke expressed

their condolences online, and Kardashian encouraged followers to

donate to the trust fund.

At least $46,000 has been raised through dog washes, lemonade

stands and ice cream sales organized by local children and their

parents, according to Jewish Herald-Voice reporter Michael Duke,

who has been covering the story. That amount does not include

donations to the trust fund, www.facebook.com/BerryChildren or

fundraisers by local businesses.

“The response has given a glimmer of hope,” Strauss said. “If they

walk again, it will be with the help of the community.”

While the community mobilized for the children, friends and family

mourned the Berry parents. More than 1,200 mourners turned out for

their funerals, and area Jews have organized Shabbat candle

lightings in their memory and shifts to say Kaddish and pray for

the surviving children.

In New York, community members also had mobilized to pray for

Leiby, whose disappearance July 11 triggered a frantic two-day

search. Upon hearing the news that the boy had been slain – the

alleged killer, Levi Aron, led police investigators to dismembered

body parts in his freezer and in a trash bin a couple of miles away

– disbelief took hold. Community members struggled to process a

murder apparently committed by a trusted community member.

A Borough Park resident named Ephraim told The New York Jewish Week

that the incident was a “a double murder – one was the child, and

the other is the image of a Jew.”

Aron entered a guilty plea last week to second-degree murder

charges.

At the funeral, which drew thousands of mourners, Leiby’s father,

Nachman Kletzky, said in Yiddish, “At least we had the merit of

having him for nine years.”

The question now facing both communities is what comes next.

In Jewish Brooklyn and beyond, parents debated the appropriate age

to let a child walk around on his own. Orthodox parents talked

about the challenge of imparting to children a healthy suspicion of

strangers, even someone wearing a kippah, without casting a pall of

fear over their kids’ interactions.

In Houston, an uncle of the Berry children, Adam Berry, was

preparing to move Peter and Aaron to Chicago for at least two

months to receive specialized treatment. Another uncle, Matt Berry,

has become their legal guardian.

At the children’s school in Houston, parents and counselors have

been talking to students about the incident.

“When Peter and Aaron do come back, we will treat them as we always

did,” Strauss said. “But kids are having a hard time with it. I

think they’ll have a harder time when they see them for the first

time.”