Sidney Spiegelman, 1920-2016, 5680-5776

Baruch Dayan Haemet ברוך דיין האמת

My father, Sidney Spiegelman, passed away yesterday after a long active life.

He was born in Brooklyn, NY, to parents born in Nasielsk, Poland and Rogotshov, Belarus.

During World War Two, my father served in the United States Navy and was involved with early radar systems, assembling and running them from the ships in the Pacific Ocean. He was saved from almost certain death when unexpectedly transferred from the USS Indianapolis just weeks before it was torpedoed. He told me that his transfer had been due to the fact that he was a good card player, learned from his father. Apparently there had been informal gambling--playing for money among the crew, and some higher up officers owed him a lot. They had him transferred to avoid payment.

After the war, he married my mother, Shirley Shankman, also of Brooklyn, whom he had met briefly before being drafted. They were married from March, 1948 until her death in June, 2013, sixty-five years. He adored her to the end.

I'll write more in later posts, Gd willing. My father's funeral will be on Friday, before Passover, in New York. Since I can't travel in for it, I'm sitting shiva at home in Shiloh at present until before the Holiday.