Father of 7 children who died in Brooklyn fire buries family in Israel.-PHOTOS

The heartbroken father of the seven Brooklyn children who died tragically in a raging blaze buried them in Israel on Monday after a wrenching final farewell attended by hundreds of mourners.

When his children were tucked into the graves, grief-stricken Gabriel Sassoon knelt before each one, patted down the dirt with his bare hands and placed markers on the mounds bearing their names.

Then Sassoon stood up. And with smudges of dirt clinging to his knees, he began reciting — in a strong and unwavering voice — the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead.

His voice, carried by loud speakers, echoed through the Har HaMenuchot cemetery over the Jerusalem hills to the east while the sun set behind him and gave way to a chilly night.

Later, as Sassoon sat Shiva at a friend’s home, he said he was worried about his wife Gayle. She survived Saturday’s fire by leaping from a second story window but remains in critical condition — and in a medically induced coma — at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.

“I don’t know if she knows what happened,” he told reporters. “That’s the hardest part. The burns are nothing compared to the trauma.”

Sassoon said he has spoken with his last surviving child, 15-year-old Tziporah, who is in critical condition at Staten Island University Hospital North. She too doesn’t know the full extent of the tragedy, he said.

“I told her that her mother is being cared for in another hospital,” he said. “Just find strength to heal herself to get better.”

Asked how he was coping, Sassoon — sitting on a cushion on the floor with his shoes off — said it hasn’t sunk in yet.

“I don’t know if I’m strong,” he said. “Let’s see next week. Take it step by step.”

Sassoon said he would return to New York on Wednesday. “I have to be there for her,” he said of his wife, who grew up in Brooklyn.

The grieving dad, who grew up in Kobe, Japan’s tiny Jewish enclave, said he was overwhelmed and grateful for the support he has gotten from Jews and non-Jews alike.

“I wasn’t only surprised by the greatness of Israel and Jews, but also by Americans and the New York police department,” he said.

 

Sassoon also thanked the FDNY “for the support.”

What happened to his family, Sassoon said, “affected the whole world.”

Earlier, at a memorial in Jerusalem attended by hundreds of weeping mourners, Sassoon struggled to contain his grief.

“Why seven? One is not enough?” he cried out at one point in his eulogy. “Seven roses. So beautiful, so pure.”

As Sassoon poured out his heart, his children lay before him on stretchers — their bodies covered with shrouds. And each time he uttered one of their names, the funeral home was convulsed by sobs.

“I have sacrificed everything,” he said. “Here, in front of you, seven pure sacrificial lambs.”

Seeking solace in his Orthodox Jewish faith, Sassoon said what happened was part of God’s plan. He said his lost children were neither Israeli nor American.

“What are they?” he asked. “They’re angels.”

Sassoon, whose doomed children ranged in age from 5 to 16, had planned to speak about each individually. But he admitted “it’s too hard on me.”

“We lost children,” he said. “But now they're in everyone's heart.”

Then he surrendered his “angels” to the Almighty.

“To you, God, my children,” he said. “To you, God, their dreams. To you, God, my grandchildren.”

And with those words, a fresh wave of grief crashed through the crowded memorial room.

“Each one is a flower in God’s garden,” said David Lau, Israel’s chief rabbi for the Ashkenazi Jews.

Sassoon was at a religious retreat in Manhattan when the fire, caused by an untended hot plate, tore his life apart.

All his children died from smoke inhalation, the medical examiner said. 

It was the deadliest blaze in the city since 2007, when a Bronx fire killed nine immigrants from the African country of Mali. Eight of those victims were children.

Since Saturday’s tragedy, some Orthodox Jews are reconsidering the practice of using hot plates to keep food warm on the Sabbath so they can avoid turning on the stove.

“We’ll have some clear message to the people of the city on what we think about that,” Mayor de Blasio said Monday. “But we first want to really complete the investigation.”

Assemblyman Dov Hikind, the Democrat who represents the neighborhood, issued a warning “not to be fooled by scam artists pretending to raise money on behalf of the Sassoon family.”

“We have been in touch with the Sassoon family's rabbi who made it clear that there is no legitimate fund established for the family at this time,” Hikind said.