Penny Schwartz
By Penny Schwartz
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News Italo Servi, 98, Soft-Spoken Heir To Rich Italian Jewish Heritage
(JTA) — When Italo Servi donated an amulet that had been in his family for two centuries to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts five years ago, his children had no idea the object even existed. Servi received the amulet from his mother during a visit home in 1949 while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of…
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News Donald Kraft, 92, Mathematician With Lifelong Zest For Learning
(JTA) — The conversation around Donald Kraft’s Shabbat dinner table was always wide ranging and unpredictable. Some weeks he would marvel at the wonders of a granddaughter’s high school calculator. Other times it might be the latest columns by Mike Royko and Erma Bombeck or the old Israeli oil lamps he collected along with fossils,…
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News Hugh Malcolm Berger, 88, Helped Found Atlanta Home For People With Disabilities
(JTA) — Hugh Malcolm Berger would spend months preparing exquisite desserts for the annual open house at the Atlanta Group Home, a residence for people with developmental disabilities where his daughter, Nanci, has lived since 1984. Berger drew on his Alabama roots for his powdered coconut sugar cookies, but his specialty was Hughie’s Chewies, a…
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News Irena Veisaite, 92, Holocaust Survivor Turned Human Rights Advocate
(JTA) — Even in the most challenging circumstances, Irena Veisaite never missed a chance to foster tolerance and understanding. One of the few Jews to survive the Holocaust in Lithuania, Veisaite’s passion for reconciliation helped defuse a tense moment during an exchange between Poles and Lithuanians at the White Synagogue in Sejney, a Polish town…
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News Hryhoriy Arshynov, Restorer Of Jewish Cemeteries Across Ukraine
(JTA) — Five years ago, a plea to rescue a centuries-old synagogue in Ostroh, Ukraine, struck a chord with Hryhoriy Arshynov, a lifelong Jewish resident of the city four hours west of Kyiv. Damaged during the Holocaust, the magnificent 17th-century Maharsha synagogue was used as a warehouse under Soviet rule and endured decades of neglect….
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News Florence Barat, 90, Was Preparing For Her Second Adult Bat Mitzvah
BOSTON (JTA) – Just a few months after she turned 90 last year, Florence Barat joined a bat mitzvah class with a group of other women at the Jack Satter House, a Jewish senior residence near Boston where she had lived for some two decades. Barat had already had an adult bat mitzvah 30 years…
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News Bradley Fields, 68, Renowned Magician Who Studied Talmud And Taught Math To Kids
(JTA) — Bradley Fields once performed a memorable magic show for the kids at his synagogue in which he levitated the rabbi’s school-aged daughter in the sanctuary. The audience was spellbound. “Everyone was in awe,” said Shmuel Herzfeld, the rabbi at Ohev Sholom in Washington, D.C., where Fields was a regular at the daily prayer…
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News Rabbi Ezekiel Musleah, 92, Captivating Reader Of Torah
(JTA) — When it came to chanting Torah, Rabbi Ezekiel Musleah was in a class by himself. As a child of ten, Musleah lost his mother. Two years later, partly as a way to console himself, Musleah dedicated himself to a meticulous three-year undertaking to learn to chant the entire Torah. There was no turning…
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