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Great Returns

Retired Egged employee Sossy Karako will halt traffic to return your lost item 

We’ve been a nation of wanderers from the time of the Patriarchs, and we’re still constantly traveling from point A to point B. Plus, we don’t pack light. Add kids and strollers and sheitel boxes to that mix, and something is bound to get left behind. But when it’s tefillin that get lost, a huge scramble ensues. Because in the words of the great Abie Rotenberg, What a situation, where have Shnooky’s tefillin gone? He better find them soon or they might end up in Hong Kong.

Or in the case of Jerusalem travelers, doomed to reside in an Egged lost and found until the coming of Mashiach.

But not as long as Sasson “Sossy” Karako comes to the rescue. An Egged public transportation employee for 47 years, Sasson knows buses. He knows passengers. And he understands what happens when the two mix… and then something gets left behind. That’s why, over the last 12 years, he’s made returning lost items his mission, and has returned over 800 pairs of tefillin, shtreimels, sheitels, black hats, and even a memorable wedding ring.

We meet up in a coffee shop in — where else? — the Central Bus Station. From there, he’ll be going to visit his brother Moshe in Herzog Hospital for geriatric and respiratory care, just like he has every single day for the past three years when complications from Covid set in.

I arrive a few minutes late, and when we finally sit down, he tells me, “In the few minutes I’ve been waiting for you, I’ve received ten phone calls from people who need help in locating things they left on buses.”

We’re All Blind, Until…

He shows me his phone, scrolls through the numbers and messages. Some texts are peppered with pictures, tefillin bags zoomed up on the embroidered names, shtreimel boxes with labels enhanced. I turn a page in my notebook and open my mouth to ask a question, but he holds up a finger for quiet.

Oh. Okay.

He dials a number. “Shalom, this is Sossy. Did you drive the bus from Ashdod to Yerushalayim on Sunday? You did? Great, can you look for a shtreimel box? Yes, like the Ashkenazim wear. Look in the baggage compartment and above the seats. No box? Okay, I’ll call back.”

He hangs up. “A religious Member of Knesset reached out to me when his friend’s son lost his shtreimel. I told him I’ll try to find it as long as I get to borrow it.”

He laughs at his own joke, and I can’t help joining him. The Israeli Egged veteran is stereotypically crusty on the outside, with a warm heart underneath it all topped by a big kippah serugah.

But Sossy’s not finished yet. He calls the shtreimel owner back. “Hi, Nachum? This is Sossy. Where were you sitting on the bus? And where’d you put the shtreimel? And how did you pay the driver? Ah, so it wasn’t Egged. So I called the wrong driver. What’s your Rav Kav (bus card) number? Okay, I’ll call you back.” He jots down the number and hangs up.

Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.

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