My Father, Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 3 Years

Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 1920-2016, United States Navy World War Two

You could say that in my father's death he did me a favor. He passed away just a few days before Passover, just as I was about to really clean and get the house ready for Pesach. It was also a year I had thought would never happen again. We were to host the Passover Seder for two of our (then) unmarried kids. They had requested a "quiet" Seder "without strange strangers."

I'm a terrible housekeeper; the Pesach cleaning is always very stressful for me.  And I had thought that I'd retired from Seder hosting, since our daughter now hosts the big family one every two years, and we've been going to others as guests on the alternate years.

Once I got the news that my father had died, from the complications of "old age," my halachic, Jewish Law status changed. Since I wasn't going to travel to New York for the funeral, which would only be three days later, also leaving no time for more than a bare minimum shiva, Jewish ritual mourning period, of less than an hour, my status as a morner began almost immediately.

As a mourner, I was forbidden to clean, cook etc. My children and husband had to make time to take over all responsibilities for Passover and the Seder. All the food we had already bought for the Seder was sent to my married daughter, who suddenly became the expert in preparing Gefilte Fish. I wasn't supposed to even peek into the kitchen to give orders.

My father with his brother,
my Uncle George, who had
predeceased him.

My father with his brother,
my mother, who had
predeceased him.

My father was blessed with a long life, even though he wasn't all that happy being the very last of his generation. His brother and sister had both died before him, as did my mother. He missed them all.

During World War Two, my father served in the United States Navy, being a pioneer in the use of radar. He discovered that a lot of his training had been riddled with inaccurate presumptions. A gifted "problem solver," his analysis and solutions were crucial to the success of radar in the Pacific against Japan.

After the war, he found my mother, whom he had first met before going overseas, and married her. When they were first married, they lived in Brooklyn, NY, where they had both been born. When I, their firstborn, was an infant we moved to Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, where my brother and sister were born. In late summer, 1962, we moved to Great Neck, NY. My father worked as an accountant, adding CPA to his qualifications. After starting his career in the State Insurance Fund, he began a private practice on the side, eventually only working for himself.

Family, friends and work were my father's life; he had no hobbies.

Later on my father suffered a form of dementia that affected his ability to care for himself, but left him very social and fascinating. At one point, due to my mother's condition, she could no longer care for him, and we brought my father to Israel to live with us. My father enjoyed spending time with his grandchildren, great-grandchildren, niece and other family members. Here in Shiloh, my father made a lot of friends, and we had hoped that my mother would join him in Israel, but it didn't work out. Instead, my sister cleared the house for sale and moved my mother to Arizona, near her. We brought my father to join her. 

That's why they both died in Arizona, but they're buried in New York, in the burial plot of Oakland Jewish Center, of which they were among the founders. Both my parents stayed New Yorkers in their minds and hearts. One of the standard questions asked to check dementia is:

"Where do you live?"

My parents would answer "New York," even after being moved to Arizona. That answer to me was not due to dementia. I have no doubt that they were totally accurate. They were just visiting Arizona until they were to be returned to New York, buried among their old friends. 

לעילוי נשמתו

אלכסנדר זיסקין בן צבי הירש

בן דוד יוסף 

בן אלכסנדר זיסקין

One Year, May His Memory Be A Blessing

Now our family calendar has a new pre-Passover "event" to remember. Last year just a few days before Passover I got the call from my sister in Arizona that our father had just passed away. In a sense it had been expected, but he had always recovered from illness, injury etcetera, so I really thought that he'd pull it off again.

Sidney Spiegelman, 1920-2016

He had outlived my mother and his siblings and the rest of the aunts and uncles of all my first cousins.

My father was the middle of three children, with an older brother and younger sister. He and his siblings were born in Brooklyn, NY to parents who had emigrated from Nasielsk, Poland, and Rogachev, Belarus. He grew up knowing well his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Both sides of his family, with the exception of two maternal aunts, had left Europe well before World War Two.

My father and his siblings all went to college. My father studied to be an accountant, and since the war had already begun in Europe rushed to finish his degree, so he could be an officer in the Navy. He worked with radar on the ships in the Pacific but didn't like to talk about any war experiences. It wasn't until the year he lived with us here and Shiloh and spent time with a neighbor of his generation and similar background, that we heard stories. They, davka, died just a month apart.

After the war, my parents married and my father began working as an accountant for the NY State Insurance Fund. He would audit businesses and didn't have a desk job. That suited him fine, since he worked quickly and managed the quantity of "cases" in less than than week. In his spare time, he began getting private clients and studying for his CPA exams. His aim was to work for himself.  We lived in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, where my younger brother and sister were born, with lots of other young families, at the time.

In the summer of 1962, former neighbors told my parents of a great deal, a small house in Great Neck at a bargain price. They bought it. I was shocked, because I was away in camp at the time and hadn't a clue. Then suddenly, at work my father was to be promoted to a supervisory desk job. This was actually bad news, because he wouldn't have the time and freedom to run his own business. He would have full-time office hours. So, just then, with the expenses of a new home, a couple of years before he had planned and just short of a pension, my father had to leave his government job and really hustle.

He did alright as a CPA, but besides sharing a secretary with another few in a shared office, he didn't form a big company with workers.

I'm not exactly sure when my father sold his practice. After a number of years, as both my parents aged and couldn't take care of themselves, we knew that they'd have to leave their home. Like many, they hated the idea and wouldn't downsize when they were capable of making decisions themselves. Then one time when my mother fell and had to be in rehab for a few weeks, my father ended up with us for almost a year. My mother couldn't take care of herself, certainly not both of them.

Finally, my mother agreed to move to Arizona near my sister, so my sister took care of clearing the house and moving her. My older son and I then took my father to join her. And that's where they spent the rest of their lives together. My sister was nearby, and I visited at least once a year, sometimes more. And my children also visited as much as they could, considering distance and expense.

My mother died almost four years ago, less than three years before my father. They both lived longer than their parents and all siblings.

My children and oldest grandchildren have strong memories of them. And so do my cousins and their children. Basically, that's all we leave in this world, memories.

Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 1920-2016, As An Israeli

My late father and I on the plane to Israel when he made aliyah in 2009

One of the reasons I was glad to be privileged to sit shiva for my my father here in Shiloh is because he lived here with us for close to a year and had many friends.

Around Rosh Hashana of 2009, my mother had fallen badly and needed to be in rehab for a month. My father was in no condition to live on his own, so it was decided that I would bring him on aliyah, which is blogged about quite a bit way back when.

Aliyah To The Land of Israel At 89

It certainly wasn't an easy thing, but with the help and support of my children, husband, cousins and neighbors, I think we gave my father a wonderful experience. His brains cells may not have remembered it for long, but for sure my family here and neighbors certainly do. Many of the neighbors who came these past few days to menachem avel, comfort the mourner told me how much they had liked him and admired him.

Casting A Shadow

We had planned/expected/hoped to have my mother along with him here in Israel within a few months, but it just didn't happen. That's why after less than a year, we packed all but his heavy winter coat and took him to live in Arizona, with my mother and near my sister, who then had responsibility for both my parents.

I Explained That They Were Like Spies

But while my father was here in Shiloh he joined in all of our activities. One was the annual visit of "the spies."

Dementia is a very strange and variable condition. I'll have to blog more about it at a later time, but I must say that although my father hadn't been able to take full responsibility for himself for many years before he came to live with us, his "social genes/brain cells" were unaffected. Many people who got to know him during the time he had lived with us were completely unaware that he suffered from dementia. He could still win playing cards. His game of choice was "Casino," which requires planning and addition. That was a favorite in his family for kids and suited his CPA mind.

Keeping Busy, Arts, Crafts and Exercise

I must say that the father I had live with us was not the same father who had raised me. When I was growing up he was busy and stressed out working, supporting the family. But decades later--remember that I was already a grandmother--I got to meet a really wonderful loving person. I had to stop working that year, and although we really didn't have enough income to live on, it was a year of great value for the entire family and our Shiloh neighborhood.

My Father, Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L

I am sitting shiva for my father until Friday noon. His funeral will be in New York on Friday, but I'm not traveling in for it.

My parents and I over ten years ago or more, maybe even twenty years ago. In a few months it will be three years since my mother, Shirley Spiegelman, passed away.

I was always certain that my father would live forever. He was a powerful person in his way, and he survived war and illnesses, even recently. The doctors were amazed by him. But in the end, he had enough. He never liked being idle. He wasn't a spectator and didn't watch sports at all. I remember that a cousin's husband kept trying to convince him to bring my brother to watch a baseball game with him and his sons. He finally did it once, but that was it. My father liked to be active. Once he and I went with a friend of his and his daughters on a fishing trip. They rented a boat and we caught fish to bring back home to cook. I wouldn't touch the live bait, so he'd put the bait on on the hook, and I fished and even caught some. That was fun.

Sitting in an audience watching wasn't his thing, except if it was to accompany my mother to a play. She loved the theater. I don't know how much he enjoyed watching plays, but he loved my mother and would go wherever she went. During one of my visits to New York without my kids, when my parents were still functioning pretty well, we went to a folk music production on the shore of Steppingstone Park in Great Neck. It was one of those settings in which you sat in your own picnic/beach chairs you had brought along. My father immediately fell asleep and slept through the entire show. Afterwards he complained about the music, but he would not have been happy staying home alone. He liked people and was never put off by strangers.

We have my father's album from the time he was in the US Navy. He was on the western, the Pacific front and went to Japan, Manila and more. He returned home rather cynical about war and fighting. Before being drafted he had rushed himself through City College, NYC, because he knew that war and military service was imminent. He wanted to be an officer in the US Navy, to enlist and be able to choose the basic type of service, rather being drafted and be at the mercy of the military bureaucracy. For that he needed more than the university degree, he needed to find a way to hide the fact that one of his eyes was much weaker than the other. And that, too, he succeeded in doing.

The US Navy trained my father in electrical engineering, and on the ships he had to figure out how to assemble, use and repair radar. "Problem solving" was a specialty. Also when he did his CPA exam as an accountant, the first section he managed to pass was the "problem solving," not the laws and basic calculations. He could figure things out.

Today's the Funeral

Shirley Shankman Spiegelman, 1925-2013
Shifra bat Avraham and Chaya Raisia
Brooklyn, Bayside, Great Neck, all in New York and finally Arizona
last surviving of nine children
wife, mother, aunt, grandmother, great-grandmother and friend to many

Volunteers don't take days off.

My Mother and Her Judaism

Let's start with the official obituary.

Spiegelman, Shirley

Shirley passed away at age 88 Saturday June 15, 2013, in Tempe, AZ. Born in Brooklyn in 1925, she moved from Great Neck, NY, to Arizona in 2010. Devoted to her family and community, Shirley had a lifelong passion for dance, theater and the arts, making the most of the cultural offerings in New York and wherever she traveled. She put her experienced eye and mind to work for many years as a docent at the Nassau County Museum of Art, on Long Island. She was pre-deceased by her parents and eight brothers and sisters.  She is survived by her adoring husband of 65 years, Sidney, her loving children, Vivian, Hal Thomas Spiegelman and Batya Medad, seven grandchildren, four great grandchildren, and many nieces and nephews. All will treasure her spirited love, beauty, warmth, fairness and good cooking. A service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 18th, at Sinai Mortuary, 4538 North 16^th Street, Phoenix, AZ. A graveside ceremony will take place at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday June 19^th at the New Montefiore Cemetery, 1180 Wellwood Avenue, West Babylon, NY.

It definitely mentions a host of hobbies, interests and activities, but it leaves out something that was very crucial to her life, Judaism.

 

Like many of her generation in the United States, my mother's parents, who had emigrated from the Ukraine and White Russia to New York before World War One, were Torah observant, kept Shabbat, kashrut, the Jewish Holidays and more.  My grandfather had been a great lover of chazanut, the "artisitic," operatic singing of Jewish Prayers and she would accompany him on Shabbat to the large synagogues to hear the great cantors of that generation, such as Koussevitzky.

As a teenager, she was friends with the kids in her high school who were in Hashomer Hadati, and renewed friendship with a couple whose elderly mother lived in our building in Bayit V'gan, Jerusalem.

My mother was the eighth out of nine children in a poverty-stricken "his, hers and theirs" family.  By the time she was in her teens, her elder siblings were adults and were no longer religious.  She once told me that it was expected that she would follow their lead and she did.

My father, although always a proud Jew, wasn't from a strictly religious home and didn't believe it was important to keep kashrut, Shabbat and Jewish Holidays.  But as a Jew, it was important to him to be a member of a synagogue.  They were founding members of the Oakland Jewish Center, Bayside, NY and then joined the Great Neck Synagogue when we moved.  My mother was always active in the synagogues' Sisterhood and Hebrew School PTA's.  In Great Neck, where they lived for decades, she took an extremely active role, being President of the Sisterhood for many years, helping to organize the "Kiddush," provide food for mourners and ran the gift shop.

When I announced that I was Orthodox, she joined my father in trying to stop me, but later on, when I began college she agreed that I should have my own kosher dishes, so I could come home for visits and eat.  I remember going off with her to a local "five and dime" and buy a slew of pots, pans and dishes for my personal use.  A couple of years later, after I became engaged they got instructions on how to kasher the house.  That made it possible to socialize with the more religious members of the shul and have us over with the kids.

After my sister and I moved my parents to Arizona, they joined a Conservative shul they had liked to frequent during visits to my sister.   My sister has made an effort to take them there whenever possible.

In the New York neighborhoods of their childhood, Judaism was the dominant religion.  It was the culture and the food.

Jewish Bloggers, the Full Moon and an Important Mitzvah

Havel Havelim, the veteran Jewish blog post round-up is doing an experiment.  Instead of weekly, it now appears monthly, though if there's a blogger who wants to host in-between, that's great, too.  Yocheved Golani is the first hostess of the new Havel Havelim.  Since the Kosher Cooking Carnival is on Rosh Chodesh, the beginning of the Jewish Month, it seemed a good idea for Havel Havelim to be in the middle of the month.  That's when the moon is full.

For more information, please join our HH facebook page, where we sign up to host an edition and keep track of what's happening.  I hope that we'll soon be able to use blog carnival again. I find it very useful for the Kosher Cooking Carnival.

Back to the newest Havel Havelim, I want to point out that my favorite post is on Esser Agaroth.  He wrote about something I had missed.  When the Netanyhu's were in China, Avner Netanyahu asked to put on T'fillin and prayed in the synagogue.  He obviously knew how.

Avner Netanyahu with Rabbi Avraham Greenberg
Ohel Moshe Synagogue, Shanghai, China
אייר תשע"ג/May, 2013

Most of us join in on the sport of complaining about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but we really ought to remember that although he has never made a point of pretending to be more religious than he is, he and Sara are doing their best to raise their sons with Jewish values.  Both of their fathers were cared for, in their final months, in the Prime Minister's Residence.  Kibbud Av 'Em, the great mitzvah of honoring one's father and mother is definitely a mitzvah their sons participated in.

There are some great things in the world of Jewish blogging.  Havel Havelim is a very useful tool to keep us all connected.   Please keep it going and growing.

Thanks again to Yocheved who has certainly done a lot for Havel Havelim.