By DAVID LAZARUS, Staff Reporter (
CJN)
ONTREAL ? Alexandre Bitton was finally laid to rest and remembered at funeral services at Paperman and Sons last week.
The hearse carrying the body of Haitian earthquake victim Alexander Bitton leaves Paperman and Sons funeral home for burial. The limousine with family members follows
behind.
The 35-minute service for Bitton, the only Jewish Canadian killed in the Jan. 12 Haitian earthquake, took place more than eight weeks after the Hotel Montana in Port-au-Prince collapsed on top of
him and scores of others just after he arrived on a business trip.
Bitton's remains ? the last Canadian's to be recovered from the hotel ? returned March 10 to Montreal, eight days after his body was found. Bitton was interred on the same day as the Canadian
victim found just before him, 78-year-old Roger Gosselin.
Although the remains of the two men were found almost at the same time, Gosselin's body came home March 4 because of delays in getting Bitton's dental record matched, continuing the family's
agony.
Both were on Air Canada Flight 950 to Haiti and had just checked in when the quake struck. Although the two families never met, they reportedly were in regular touch by e-mail as they awaited
news of their family member's fate.
Paperman's main sanctuary steadily filled to capacity with family, friends, Jewish community members and officials and Québécois colleagues who came to pay final respects to the 36-year-old
information technology consultant who left a wife, two-year-old son, parents and siblings to mourn his loss.
The rites, all in French, were traditionally Sephardi, with men and women sitting separately, and several members of the community who were close to the Bitton family recited psalms before
speakers began. Bitton's simple pine coffin was draped with a cloth adorned with a Star of David on top.
Rabbi Chalom Chriqui of Chabad, who knew Bitton personally, remembered him as an ?extremely polite' and intelligent man who was devoted to his family.
?It is kind of a community tragedy,? he said. ?We are here to be with and to support the family and to ease their pain.
?At least we will have the memories, at least he can now be buried.?
Although no family member actually spoke, reference was made to some of the unbearable frustration they had felt in trying have the Canadian government and RCMP keep them informed.
Bitton's parents, Ralph and Jocelyne, showed ?immense courage' in that regard, said Marc Kakon of the Communauté sépharade unifiée du Québec (CSUQ), who also praised ZAKA, an Israel volunteer
recovery team that had been among those trying to find Bitton.
Another man, speaking in the name of Bitton's young son, said: ?I am too young to understand' but I will miss you more than you imagine.
?How will I console my mother' If I was old enough to speak, I would console her.?
Bitton is survived by wife Line, son Joshua, parents Ralph and Jocelyne, and brothers Guillaume Mikhael and Geoffrey Emmanuel.
