Firefighters Chaplain there for Victims and Volunteers

Fox Chapel, PA — A routine errand for Rabbi Ely Rosenfeld put him on a path he wasn’t anticipating: working in support of those who deal daily with the unanticipated.

Three months ago, Rabbi Rosenfeld became chaplain to the 35-member Guyasuta Fire Department, the largest of three firefighting units in O’Hara.

As chaplain, he is there to help firefighters come to terms with a difficult, sometimes painful responsibility, and to offer comfort to victims of disaster.

But it isn’t a role he expected to take on.

Rabbi Rosenfeld, 29, and his wife, Shternie, are directors of the Fox Chapel Center for Jewish Life. On the day that Rabbi Rosenfeld, of O’Hara, went to sign the lease on the building for the 5-year-old center on Freeport Road, there was a fire across the road.

“I saw a fireman who looked familiar,” he said. A short time later, he ran into the man in a store and it was, indeed, the parent of one of his religious school students. “I asked him if there was anything I could do to help the department,” Rabbi Rosenfeld said.

It wasn’t long before the department’s board of directors approved Rabbi Rosenfeld to be chaplain.

“I took a tour of the department, got my [firefighter’s] hat and coat, and here I am,” he said.

Fire departments do more than fight fires. They also respond to traffic accidents and other emergency situations.

“They are first responders,” he said. The Guyasuta station responds to about 82 percent of the calls in the township. Rabbi Rosenfeld said the department has a rescue truck equipped to enable firefighters at traffic accidents free people trapped in vehicles.

As the chaplain, Rabbi Rosenfeld has a police radio so he can receive the emergency calls. Since he works full time at the center, he may not always be able to respond.

“But I try to go to every accident or scene that I can,” he said. “Right now I am slowly getting to know all of the firefighters. That is very important to me.”

Rabbi Rosenfeld believes that in his role as chaplain, it is just as important to serve the firefighters as the victims of accidents and fires.

“More often than not, the chaplains have been there for the people in the fire department,” he said. “When firefighters come back from the scene — it can be quite gruesome — they are trying to deal with it. Since they all have day jobs, it may be hard for them to go back to their other jobs, their other roles.”

Recently, Rabbi Rosenfeld went to a scene of an early morning accident involving a teen driver. As it turned out, he knew the young motorist and although the teen wasn’t hurt, Rabbi Rosenfeld believes his presence made a difference.

“At 1 o’clock in the morning, I think it was comforting to have a familiar face on the scene,” he said.

He knows how important that comforting presence can be.

As a child growing up in Squirrel Hill, he came home from school one day to see his own home surrounded by fire trucks. His mother was in the hospital having his sister, and the nanny had left something in the oven that caught fire.

“It was very scary,” said the father of two young children of his own. “They kind of pushed me to the side while everything was going on,” he said. “How comforting it would have been to me to have a familiar face. It would have been tremendous. I hope that I can be comforting for someone else.”