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| Darchei Torah Honoree, Everett Fortune (Mishpacha) |
The short clip that went viral on frum social media last
week depicted a scene as improbable as the story behind it.
Yeshivos are always looking for the surprise honoree to wow
dinner guests, the next level keynote speaker who will keep donors coming back
the following year. His last name aside, Yeshiva Darchei Torah did not honor
Everett Fortune for the number of ads he could attract for the dinner journal.
In fact, Fortune was not even aware he would be honored when he showed up
Sunday night in a red-and-white-striped shirt, black jacket, and dashing
Homburg, he told Mishpacha in an interview.
Everett Fortune is Darchei’s chief of security, a position
he’s held for the past 30 years. He recently recovered from a years-long
illness, and the yeshivah wanted to express its appreciation for his decades of
work.
“He knows every single child, he knows every single parent,”
said Rav Yaakov Bender, the rosh yeshivah, as he introduced Mr. Fortune to the
dais.
Fortune was greeted with an extended standing ovation as he
made his way up, embracing Rav Shlomo Avigdor Altusky, rosh yeshivah of
Darchei’s Beis Medrash Heichal Dovid, and shaking hands along the way.
“I’m about to burst wide open over here,” said Fortune,
tapping his heart as he searched for the right words. “You don’t know, ah,
well…”
The applause resumed as two generations of students
celebrated the man who greeted them as they got off the bus in the morning or
who may have woken them up for Shacharis.
Woken them up for Shacharis?
Yes. Fortune lives near the yeshivah in Far Rockaway and is
available for whatever the school needs, said Rabbi Moshe Benoliel, Darchei’s
director of alumni affairs. Including pulling the hardest duty of all.
“I used to be the vekker,” Fortune said. “I used to go
around to the dorms and get them out of bed. I loved it. I used to turn over
mattresses so they would get out of bed and get to Shacharis on time. That was
one of my most exciting [duties].”
Fortune grew up in Inwood, on Long Island, where he attended
Lawrence High School in the late 1960s. It was there that he got his first
close exposure to Jews.
“I grew up close to the Jewish neighborhood,” he said. “I
learned about Jewish food through my mom, who used to be a cook for a family
named Lichtman in Woodmere. My mom and dad always taught me to be friendly to
everybody, so I was friendly to everybody.”
Darchei opened in 1972 and purchased its current campus in
1990. “Everett was literally the second security guard hired, the first one was
his brother, Elliot,” Rabbi Benoliel said. “Very quickly afterward they hired
Everett. Elliott is retired and Everett is still here.”
The mother of the Fortune brothers passed away in 2004. She
was a regular attendee at the annual Darchei dinners, her son said. Fortune
said she would have had a lot of nachas from the plaque he received from the
yeshivah, along with the warm appreciation.
Hundreds of others also had nachas watching.
“Oh, my gosh, I’ve had parents stopping in middle of the
street, holding up traffic, just telling me how much they loved it and how much
they love me,” Fortune said. “They told me it was a great honor, and you
deserved it. Even the students came up to me, and they said, ‘We love you. You
looked great.’ And they liked my Homburg hat. One mother told me, ‘I saw the
video,’ and she just started crying.”
Over the years, Fortune evolved from being one of two
security guards to overseeing a whole team of security, which includes what
Rabbi Benoliel calls “measures seen and unseen to protect the students 24/7.”
“I just get my energy from these kids,” Fortune said. “I
call them ‘my little kinderlas.’ I love them. The way they greet me when they
get off the bus, it’s a great feeling all the way around. Also with the high
school, with the bochurim.”
Former students who are parents take pride in pointing Fortune
out to their children and saying, “Look, kids, he used to be my security guard
when I was a kid.”
But things were not going so well four years ago. Fortune
was diagnosed in 2016 with stage four colon cancer. He remembers the date of
his diagnosis vividly — it was on his birthday, March 14.
Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender, a son of the rosh yeshivah and
founder of Achiezer, the largest social services organization in Far Rockaway
and the neighboring Five Towns, harnessed his organization on Fortune’s behalf,
finding him a specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital. Fortune underwent multiple
surgeries as the cancer spread to his liver.
“I had so many parents coming to visit me, students daven
for me,” he recalled. “The office staff came and davened for me. It was
unbelievable.”
One incident that “really got to me,” he said, was when a
preschooler approached him during a rare return to the school during his
illness and asked indignantly, “Where. Have. You. Been? I missed you.”
Rav Bender recalled at the dinner how the desk nurse at
Mount Sinai, who was also African American, asked him who Fortune was. There
were so many visitors, she figured he must be important.
“I explained that he is the person who cares most about the
students in our school. He’s the chief of security,” said Rav Bender, his arm
wrapped around Fortune’s shoulders. “She said that in all her years of her
being in the hospital, she never saw as many visitors as she saw for Mr.
Everett Fortune.”
It took a few years, but he got a clean bill of health in
2019. He attributes that to all the tefillos said on his behalf.
“I used to tell the kids, ‘Get upstairs for Shacharis, you
have to daven,’ ” he said. “I went to the classroom, and I explained to
them, ‘You put that tefillin on. It works. Daven! I’m standing in front of you
now because you davened for me. I’m telling you.’ ”
“I have no problem with the kids going to Shacharis now,” he
added with a laugh.
He also ascribes his good health to a small bracelet he
wears on his hand.
“When I was in the hospital doing very bad, one of the
bochurim from the high school put this on my wrist,” Fortune said. “He said,
‘Everett, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m going to put this
bracelet on you — it says Thank You, Hashem.’ I don’t leave home without
it.”
If he had the chance to give his acceptance again, would it
be any different?
“I had no idea that I was going to be honored,” Fortune
said, still awed by the event four days later. “I had no idea whatsoever. I’m
still numb. I’m in awe. I’m like, wow,” he said, breaking off into laughter.
“My legs are still buckling. I’m overwhelmed. I still can’t believe it.
“There’s nothing like the Darchei family over here,” he
added. “There’s just nothing like it.”
