לז"נ שלמה בן עמנואל
L'zecher Nishmas Shlomo Ben Emmanuel

Shlomo Hartman, זצ"ל, taught the Rambam students an unforgettable lesson about the human spirit's ability to rise above the challenges to this world.

Shlomo, a young man in his early 30's and a father of small children, was diagnosed with chordoma tumor, a virtually untreatable form of cancer. With the help of Rabbi Zev Meir Friedman, who enlisted the support of Rabbi Feuer of Ezra L'Marpe in Israel as well as the Skverer Rebbe, a team of doctors was located who performed a radical 12-hour surgery on Shlomo in a desperate effort to save his life. Following the surgery, Shlomo was almost crippled by continued pain, but the cancer appeared to have been eliminated. However he passed away a few years later as a result of lingering complications from the disease and the surgery.

Throughout his ordeal, Shlomo had insisted that Hashem had given him a blessed life and sought to demonstrate his hakaras haTov for all the good that had been done for him. Even when bedridden following the surgery, he insisted on davening with a minyan, so Rambam boys were dispatched to his house to make up daily minyanim. And on a bright October day with trees ablaze in color, he dedicated a new Sefer Torah to Rambam, leading a procession of singing and dancing Rambam Rebbeim and students from his home to the school.