NY - A kindly Jewish man from Brooklyn is downplaying the
notoriety he has received after a picture of him performing a simple Kiddush
Hashem on a Brooklyn-bound Q Train went viral over the past week.
TABLET reports that the photo—-a stunning depiction of
humanitarianism featuring an unidentified young black man sleeping comfortably
against the shoulder of 65 year-old Isaac Theil—-was taken by a fellow
passenger and posted to Reddit last Thursday, where over the course of the last
seven days it has generated one million-plus likes on Facebook and been shared
over 200,000 times.
Theil, who, according to family members and friends, has
always possessed an innate temperament of grace and generosity, said he “never gave
it a second thought,” but that hasn’t stopped those who know him from throwing
a little extra attention his way after he has become an Internet sensation.
Within two days of the photo being posted, Theil arrived at
shul for Shabbat last Saturday only to have his rabbi publicly acknowledge his
Kiddush Hashem with a warm smile and two thumbs up.
“The whole thing was happenstance, and I simply remembered
the times my own head would bop on someone’s shoulder because I was so tired
after a long day,” said Theil.
Theil said, “Maybe the photo wouldn’t have become so popular
if people weren’t seeing a Jewish man with a yarmulke and a black man in a
hood, and because they might not necessarily correlate the two. But there is
only one reason that I didn’t move, and let him continue sleeping, and that has
nothing to do with race.
He was simply a human being who was exhausted, and I
knew it and happened to be there and have a big shoulder to offer him.”
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