Students in Northwestern’s Jewish community learned through a listserv e-mail Thursday that a McCormick sophomore was seriously injured Sunday on Interstate 94, the Edens Expressway, and died Monday.
Chabad House Rabbi Dov Hillel Klein said the police informed him that Yehuda Yudkowsky was identified Thursday. Yudkowsky, a Chicago native, was pronounced dead on Monday at St. Francis Hospital, 355 Ridge Ave., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Details about Yudkowsky’s death remain under investigation by the Skokie Police Department, officials said. The medical examiner’s office said Yudkowsky died from multiple injuries due to a fall from a height. The coroner has ruled his death a suicide.
Funeral services for Yudkowsky will be held today at 12:30 p.m. at Shalom Memorial Park, 1700 W. Rand Rd. in Arlington Heights, Ill. Students are planning to leave from Chabad House at 11:15 a.m. E-mails are requested for those who need a ride, and students can send a message to [email protected].
Klein knew him well because Yudkowsky represented the Chabad House in NU’s Council of Religions and was active in the observant Jewish group called KulaNU. Recipients of Klein’s e-mail were invited to an information session last night at the Chabad House, 2014 Orrington Ave., where representatives from Counseling and Psychological Services were present to help students deal with the sudden news.
“He is going to be so missed,” Klein said.
The rabbi, who traveled with Yudkowsky to Israel on the Birthright Israel program two summers ago, described the biomedical engineering major as smart, kind and witty.
Yudkowsky was also a member of the WildKatz Klezmer Band and played the hammered dulcimer, a xylophone-like instrument with strings played with hammers.
Klein met Yudkowsky when he visited NU as a high school senior. Then a year later in 2002, Yudkowsky was a freshman. After his first year, Yudkowsky took a year off from NU to study in Israel at Yeshiva Sha’alvim before returning this year as a sophomore.
Communication junior Raysh Weiss met Yudkowsky through the Chabad House and said she was always amazed by how many activities he was involved in, including the Chabad House, Mock Trial Team, WNUR-FM (89.3) and the WildKatz band.
“The common link between everyone’s stories tonight was his enthusiasm for everything,” said Weiss, a Daily cartoonist and fellow member of the WildKatz band. “He had a very sanguine disposition so this really was the last thing I was expecting. Just seeing his name in the e-mail, my heart dropped.”
A fervency for new projects and ideas was part of what attracted people to Yudkowsky, Weiss said.
“To think that he did all this in such a little time he lived,” she said. “It’s astounding and I think the entire Northwestern community feels at an extreme loss because he really had such a large sphere of influence. There’s a huge void left now that nobody knows what to do with — the whole thing seems surreal.”
Weiss added that she and Yudkowsky both grew up in Rogers Park, Ill., and went to orthodox high schools.
McCormick junior Eliyahu Neiman met Yudkowsky at Chabad’s Friday night Shabbat dinners, found it easy to relate to him because they were both Orthodox Jews from Chicago.
“He was a great person and always tried to put a smile on other people’s faces,” Neiman said. “I would be surprised if I found out he had any enemies.”
Yudkowsky is survived by his parents, an older brother and a younger sister.
