NYC’s oldest Hatzalah volunteer, a Holocaust survivor, dies at 88
Yehuda Lindenblatt, who survived the Nazi invasion of Budapest, went on emergency calls until his mid-80s
Luke Tress is The Times of Israel's New York correspondent.
NEW YORK — Yehuda Lindenblatt, a Holocaust survivor and New York City’s oldest volunteer with the Hatzalah emergency services group, died on Tuesday at the age of 88.
Lindenblatt and his brothers, George and Robert, were children in Budapest when the Nazis invaded in 1944. In a 2023 interview with the Claims Conference, they recalled their mother’s warnings as they watched German soldiers marching in the streets through their home’s window.
Their father, Jeno, arranged their escape to the Glass House, a refuge for Jews set up in Budapest with the help of Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, the brothers said in the interview. They survived the war by hiding in a series of safe houses.
“I was so hungry. If you never experienced hunger, you can’t explain to anybody what is this,” Yehuda Lindenblatt said in the interview, conducted while he was undergoing chemotherapy treatment.
The brothers moved to New York after the war, where Yehuda volunteered with Hatzalah, an emergency first responders group.
Rabbi Yehiel Kalish, the CEO of Chevra Hatzalah, said that once someone volunteers with the group, they are always considered a member, but that Lindenblatt was “probably the oldest active volunteer” when he went on his last call with the group in 2023, while in his mid-80s.
Kalish said that when Hatzalah volunteers brought Lindenblatt to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan for treatments they continued to log him on the call, crediting him as a volunteer, even though he was the patient.
“That’s our love language. The Hatzalah member wants to go on calls, that’s what he wants to do, he wants to save people’s lives,” Kalish told The Times of Israel. “So by logging Yehuda onto a call, it’s a show of love.”
In 2022, at a Hatzalah event, Lindenblatt said, “With this organization, I beat Hitler.”
He spoke out against antisemitism in recent years, connecting contemporary anti-Jewish discrimination to his experience in the Holocaust.
“I tell children, ‘the Holocaust never goes away,'” he said in 2023. “People want to kill Jews. I don’t know why.”
“I survived the Holocaust and have to tell the story again and again,” he said.
Budapest-born Holocaust survivor Yehuda Lindenblatt passed away yesterday at the age of 88. He and his brothers Robert and George filmed an emotional #OurHolocaustStory for the Claims Conference on March 19, 2023 – 79 years to the date of the German occupation of Hungary. pic.twitter.com/UGw78knWaZ
— Claims Conference (@ClaimsCon) February 12, 2025
New York City Mayor Eric Adams mourned Lindenblatt in a message posted to social media that showed Adams and Lindenblatt lighting a menorah during Hanukkah last year.
“His legacy of resilience and service will never be forgotten. May his memory be a blessing,” Adams wrote.
Lindenblatt was carried to his funeral on Wednesday by a Hatzalah vehicle in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Flatbush, escorted by family and medics from the group.
