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“ Never Forget”  

Those Who Brought The Guilty To Be Judged  —  And Family Roots  —

When I Was Old Enough I Learned About My Uncles  —  Some time back I remembered a conversation with my uncle, telling me a story about his triumph over the evils in this world in Europe and then the Pacific, during World War II and the aftermath, the Holocaust.  As a child I saw the tattoos on my older cousins arms like they tag cattle, I never knew how he was involved.   I live in Tampa Bay and we have a Holocaust museam in downtown St. Petersburg…

Quite a secret since obviously there were people who would have killed him.  He died and the family met for the funeral.  I was living in Florida and I flew with my mother to NY for the funeral.  Cars were lined up block after block and the funeral home was packed.  It took up both sides of Queens Boulevard and somehow I knew this was more important than just the loss of a relative.  Many of the owners of the great garment houses in NYC were in attendance…in those days clothes were made in factories here… not elsewhere in the world.  

We knew something different,  when we met a man at his funeral, to whom we were introduced on the receiving line. And I did not have my cameras. I was told leave them home.  I never ever listened to that command ever again… from my mother she took a great moment from me…my cameras were my eyes and I was blindsided…

My uncle began to appear as an important man in the community, only we knew little.  He never mentioned it to family, again for safety.  Maybe that was he reason for no cameras, paranoia of the Holocaust was fresh then and even today we are daily reminded, seventy years later…there are still Nazi’s around…

My uncle Hy owned several businesses in the garment center and quite a unique import business from both the Philippines and Japan.  

In those days most clothing was made in the garment center of Manhattan. He was a world trader.  And a sharp business man.  

My aunt went to Europe to the prestigious fashion shows, saw what she liked, bought some, brought them home, made a few changes and weeks later the knock-offs came to the states faster than the originals but at lower prices for the masses.  It was a 60 million dollar business.  In those days K-Mart was big for the average consumer and they were one of his best customers. Blue lights and all…

Characteristics…In her memoirs, Justice Ruth Ginsburg remarked her mother worked in that garment center.  Our family came from that same area in the Ukraine that her family came from…  On my fathers side he came from an obscure town in Russia ... about the same time she immigrated to the United States.  I was introduced to a distinguished gentleman who came from overseas, traveled from AUSTRIA to offer the eulogy for my uncle.  His eulogy explained things, now I understood,  I soon put it all together…

He spoke of being on this earth is a blessing from God, and one day you will meet God and he will ask of your credentials, the most important question…“ He will ask you what did you do for your fellow man, or your people”.  Then he told me what my Uncle did, and the reason he traveled half way around the world to speak at his funeral. It was a deal they had made years ago…

A very long conversation with the man ensued, I then knew who he was and of his journey, I learned of the role my uncle and his brother in law had played all these years in his support … from the garment center and who had been brought to justice… It changed my whole life… I had an exclusive with  ― Simon Wiesenthal  -  The Nazi Hunter. And  I wasn’t even a reporter yet, but it was a trigger.  There are three kinds of people contact in this world…those you meet and those you remember, the third being those who challenge you and willfully accepting their challenge to do something…

Mr. Simon Wiesenthal From The Eulogy…   “ For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.  Humor is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.  God must have been on leave during the Holocaust.  

When the Germans first came to my city in Galicia, half the population was Jewish: one hundred fifty- thousand Jews. When the Germans were gone, five hundred were alive. ... Many times I was thinking that everything in life has a price, so to stay alive must also have a price.   And my price was always that, if I lived, I must be deputy for many people who are not alive.

The words are we will “ NEVER FORGET”  —Many people believe “Never forget!” was first used this way in referring to the Holocaust. We can't confirm that, but we have found an example of that usage from soon after World War II. As part of Allied de-Nazification efforts, an exhibition entitled “Never Forget” opened on Sept. 14, 1946, in Vienna.

Simon Wiesenthal  — Was an Austrian Nazi hunter and writer…   He was a Jewish Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter… He was born in Buchach, Ukraine on December 31, 1908 and Died On September 20, 2005.  I met him once in Queens New York and we spent a fascinating few hours together …   

• — “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  “ For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing. (Var.)  It was his favorite quote, but it was not his.  This quote can be traced to similar quotes as far back as Talmudic times and later credited to Edmund Burke, who never used it,  including its use by John F Kennedy in a speech in 1961  — Never happened, Burke never said it…
• — Humor is the weapon of unarmed people: it helps people who are oppressed to smile at the situation that pains them.  God must have been on leave during the Holocaust.
• — There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today… they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.
• —  Violence is like a weed - it does not die even in the greatest drought.
• —  Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations.
• —  I know I am not only the bad conscience of the Nazis. I am also the bad conscience of the Jews. Because what I have  taken up as my duty was everybody’s duty and many ignored it.
• —  For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people.
• —  The combination of hatred and technology is the greatest danger threatening mankind.
• —  The end was surely near. The Nazis killed you only when you were naked, because they knew, psychologically, that naked people never resist.
• —  Technology without hatred can be a blessing. Technology with hatred is always a disaster.
• —  We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?
• —  When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, ‘ What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, ‘I didn't forget you.' 
• —  The only value of nearly five decades of my work is a warning to the murderers of tomorrow, that they will never rest.

 —  Should history repeat itself, my example will repeat itself too…and not once, but fifty-fold

Elie Wiesel  — Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. 

• “ I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
• The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
• There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
• Peace is our gift to each other.
• Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.
• God made man because He loves stories.
• Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.
• After all, God is God because he remembers.
• Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
• Some stories are true that never happened.

Anne Frank  —  Annelie’s Marie “Anne” Frank was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish origin.
Born 12 June 1929   Died February or March 1945 in Bergen-Belsen Stalag XI-C of Typhus and Starvation.
One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the publication of The Diary of a Young Girl (originally Het Achterhuis in Dutch; English: The Secret Annex), in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.

• “ If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.” 
• I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
• How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.
• Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
• No one has ever become poor by giving.
• I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.
• Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
• Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.
• Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.
• We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
• Whoever doesn't know it must learn and find by experience that 'a quiet conscience makes one strong!'

― Yehuda Bauer  —  

Born  - April 6, 1926 (age 94)   Prague, Czechoslovakia

Academic background:  Cardiff University and Hebrew University

Thesis:    British Mandate of Palestine

Academic work:  Holocaust Studies

Institutions :   Hebrew University

• “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” 
• “Do not be a perpetrator. Do not be a bystander. Do not be a victim.” 
• “The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn't. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.”
• And Thou shalt never, but never be a bystander.
• The establishment of the state of Israel is not the result of the Holocaust. It is almost a result of the fact that the Holocaust was not totally successful.
• The public still repeats, time after time, the silly story that at Wannsee the extermination of the Jews was arrived at.
• The Holocaust was perpetrated by the Nazis for very specific reasons. They saw in the Jews the ultimate enemy, who was behind all the other enemies they had. And the Jews were in their eyes Satan; coming from a Christian background, although anti-Christian, if somebody was Satan you knew what to do with him. Murder him. Kill him. Annihilate him. Ultimately. 
• Perhaps drive him out first. And then finally when this didn't work kill him. And it wasn't really directed against the Jews of country X but against the concept of the Jew. The Jew. Anywhere. Everywhere. At all times. Forever. And that is unique. That has never happened before but it can happen again. The idea of some powerful force that unless it is totally annihilated there's no chance for your survival. That was the Nazi ideology.
• In the book of which I have spoken before, are the Ten Commandments. Maybe we should add three additional ones: “ ou, your children and your children’s children shall never become perpetrators"; "You, your children and your children's children shall never never allow yourselves to become victims"; and "You, your children and your children's children shall never, but never, be passive onlookers to mass murder, genocide, or (let us hope it may never be repeated) to a Holocaust-like tragedy."

Roza ROBOTA and SAM SPITZER

921, Ciechanów – 5 Jan 1945

HISTORY:   Much of this technical, dates and times information was gleaned from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and most importantly the story came by my personal contact and interview with Sam Spitzer, my nephews grandfather in law and my relatives during a trip to Australia.

The family pictures at the Roza Robota gate were taken with Sam Spitzer and my late brother Cye Jacobson.  Cye's son is married to Sams granddaughter, friends called him "Poppy".  

I had the rare opportunity to spend quality time with Sam Spitzer and learn of this story, his incredible life of survival and involvement.  I realized how really important  their lives had been, unselfishly and totally devoted to saving others during the most of horrific times.

There were things he disclosed in the too few hours we spent together that went beyond any kind of conduct normal humans are capable of.  From the depths of depravity and torture to the courage of those who fought back, it has a scope too wide to imagine.

It was one of the most remarkable conversations I have ever had. I learned things about the resistance movement during WWII that didn't show on the History channel. I also learned more about the camps and the relentless brutality and inhumanity exhibited there.

 

Ms. ROSA ROBOTA
(Referred to, variants of spelling in other sources as Rojza, Rozia, or Rosa), was the leader and one of four women hanged in the Auschwitz concentration camp for their role in the Sonderkommando revolt of 7 October 1944.

Born in Ciechanów, Poland, to a middle-class family, Roza had one brother and one sister. She was a member of Hashomer Hatzair Zionist-socialist youth movement, and joined that movement's underground upon the Nazi occupation. Roza often used her Hebrew name, "Shoshanah."

She was transported to Auschwitz in 1942, and was sent to Auschwitz-II, the adjacent Birkenau labor camp for women, where she was involved in the underground dissemination of news among the prisoners. 

No one else from her family in Europe is known to have survived. She worked in the clothing depot at the Birkenau Effektenlager adjacent to Crematorium III of Birkenau, where the bodies of gas chamber victims were burned. She had been recruited by men of the underground whom she knew from her hometown, to smuggle "schwartzpulver", a rapidly burning compound collected by women in the "Weichsel" munitions factory, transferring it to a Sonderkommando surnamed Wróbel,who was also active in the resistance. 

This "schwartzpulver" was used to manufacture primitive grenades and possibly to help blow up the crematorium during the Sonderkommando revolt. In her work she was assisted by Hadassa Zlotnicka and Asir Godel Zilber, both also from Ciechanów, whom Robota apparently enlisted in the resistance. 

Together with a few other women who worked in the Nazi factory's "pulverraum," they were able to obtain, hide, and turn over to the men of the underground no more than one to three teaspoons of the "schwartzpulver" compound per day, and not every day. The Sonderkommando blew up Crematorium III on 6 October 1944.

Robota and three other women – Ala Gertner, Estusia Wajcblum, and Regina Safirsztajn – were arrested by the Gestapo and tortured in the infamous Bloc 23 but they refused to reveal the names of others who participated in the smuggling operation. 

They were hanged on 5 January 1945 – two women at the morning roll-call assembly, two others in the evening. Robota was 23 years old. According to some eyewitness accounts, she and her comrades shouted "Nekamah" ("Vengeance!"), or "Be Strong" to the assembled inmates before they died. Some say they shouted, "Chazak V'amatz" – "Be strong and have courage", the Biblical phrase that God uses to encourage Joshua after the death of Moses.

The Sonderkommando Revolt caused some 70 fatalities among the SS and kapos, and blew the roof off one crematorium, yet the Nazis knew the advancing Russian Army was very close to liberating the camp. It was clear to the Nazis that all evidence of the war-time atrocities had to be concealed, so the Germans attempted to destroy the other four crematoria themselves.

 

THE ROSA ROBOTA GATE
Roza Robota's memory lives on, in the naming of the Roza Robota Gates at Montefiore Randwick (Sydney, Australia). 

This initiative was made possible by Sam Spitzer, a resistance fighter during World War II and now a resident of Sydney.  He named the gates in honor of his war-time hero, Robota, and his late wife, Margaret. Spitzer’s sister was in Auschwitz with Robota.  At Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, a monument was built to honor Robota and the three other executed women. It stands in a prime location in the garden.

Samuel Spitzer (1922-2009)  “Poppy”
Excerpts from Rabbi Paul Jacobson, my nephew, eulogy for “Poppy”…  I remember pulling up alongside his apartment building.  He greeted me with a warm smile and a very strong handshake, introducing himself saying, “I am called Sam.”  And when I said, “Hello Sam.  My name is Paul, ” Lisa corrected me and said, “No, no, you don’t call him Sam.  You call him Poppy.  All of my friends always call him Poppy.”

I will say only that I learned early on that Poppy was a man of conviction, a crusader for what he thought was just and right.  The events of World War II were not history to Poppy; they were the moments of his life that scarred him, that tried his faith, and brought unspeakable anguish and torment to his soul and spirit. Try as he would throughout his long life, raging against and seeking to correct the injustices of the world, Poppy was never able to find healing for his wounds.

What we know about Poppy is that he was involved in the socialist underground movement, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair.  When the political party was banned, he was thrown in prison for two years.  During his imprisonment, Poppy recounts that he benefited from the mentorship of Stefan Dubchek, Slovakian politician Alexander Dubcek’s father.  

In August 1944, the Slovak national uprising, organized by communists, discovered that he was Jewish and relocated him to a concentration holding camp.   

Before he was sent to the concentration camp, he escaped into the mountains.  Poppy managed to arrange papers identifying him as non-Jewish.  He fought during the final months of World War II until Czechoslovakia was liberated in April 1945.  

An enormous turning point in Sam’s life occurred in 1942 when he was arrested as a political prisoner by the Slovak government of the time. In jail he spent many lengthy spells in solitary confinement as well as being experimented on with radium treatment. 

But what he managed to gain in that time was a development of friendship and mentorship with some of the great political characters of the time. Alexander Dubcheck (former president of Czechoslovakia) and his friendship with Alexander’s father Stefan who was a mentor to him during those 2 years in jail.

On his release from jail it was uncovered that he was Jewish and therefore he was sent straight to the camps in Sered. Amazingly he and some other young men managed to escape. They joined with the partisans up in the mountains where he continued to fight until well after the war ended and word finally came to them that it was over. 

He would often describe to us the fear and loneliness he felt on the mountain, coming across countless frozen bodies of families many he had known in his childhood.  

After immigration to Australia, he was involved in sports, feared by politicians and vested in real estate, he became a very successful businessman. 

If there was a cause he believed in or an injustice he was aware of he was relentless, never ceasing till he found justice. He did not care what others thought of him as he challenged Rabbis, communal leaders and organizations standing up the rights of others, especially those killed in WWII who were no longer here to speak up for themselves.

When he was young, he learned to live in a tough world, it made him tough, 
and he never altered his principles, "Poppy" rest in peace, to this day knowing you were
instrumental in making this world a lot better by your presence, 
I enjoyed our intelligent conversation… It was the best two and half hours of my life...

 

FROM MY NEPHEWS EULOGY FOR “POPPY”…
Paul Jacobson: —  Lisa first introduced me to Poppy a couple of months into our relationship in early 2007 when we met for dinner on a weeknight.  I remember pulling up alongside his apartment building.  He greeted me with a warm smile and a very strong handshake, introducing himself saying, “I am called Sam.”  And when I said, “Hello Sam.  My name is Paul,”  Lisa corrected me and said, “No, no, you don’t call him Sam.  You call him Poppy.  All of my friends always call him Poppy.”

I will say only that I learned early on that Poppy was a man of conviction, a crusader for what he thought was just and right.  The events of World War II were not history to Poppy; they were the moments of his life that scarred him, that tried his faith, and brought unspeakable anguish and torment to his soul and spirit. Try as he would throughout his long life, raging against and seeking to correct the injustices of the world, Poppy was never able to find healing for his wounds. 

He was born on the 3^rd of May 1922 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. He had to work life out for himself in a tough, dog-eat-dog, dangerous world.  He learned his life lessons at a very young age, lessons that would stay with him until the very end.  No matter what came his way, Poppy held fast to his principles.

What we know about Poppy is that he was involved in the socialist underground movement, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair.  When the political party was banned, he was thrown in prison for two years.  During his imprisonment, Poppy recounts that he benefited from the mentorship of Stefan Dubchek, Slovakian politician Alexander Dubchek’s father.  In August 1944, the Slovak national uprising, organized by communists, discovered that he was Jewish and relocated him to a concentration holding camp. 

Before he was sent to the concentration camp, he escaped into the mountains.  Poppy managed to arrange papers identifying him as non-Jewish.  He fought during the final months of World War II until Czechoslovakia was liberated in April 1945.

The span of Sam’s younger years were colorful. His father remarried and two half brothers were born. He spoke of them with love and cared for them both very deeply. He also spoke of all the odd jobs he would take on to earn a few coins to help his father who worked as a tailor often struggling to provide for his family. For many years he worked in his lunch hour at school delivering meals to his teachers disabled brother and in return being given lunch and a small wage.

An enormous turning point in Sam’s life occurred in 1942 when he was arrested as a political prisoner by the Slovak government of the time. In jail he spent many lengthy spells in solitary confinement as well as being experimented on with radium treatment. But what he managed to gain in that time was a development of friendship and mentorship with some great political characters of the time. Many of us gathered today would have seen the photo in his study with Alexander Dubcheck (former president of Czechoslovakia) and heard of his friendship with Alexander’s father Stefan who was a mentor to him during those 2 years in jail. 

On his release from jail it was uncovered that he was Jewish and therefore he was sent straight to the camps in Sered. Amazingly he and some other young men managed to escape. They joined with the partisans up in the mountains where he continued to fight until well after the war ended and word finally came to them that it was over. He would often describe to us the fear and loneliness he felt on the mountain, coming across countless frozen bodies of families many he had known in his childhood. He told us of the tears he cried and the prayers he shouted to an empty mountain, his dead mother and to a g-d he feared had forgotten him.

Sam was not idle in those years, he continued his strong involvement with soccer in Australia, even acting as a selector for the Australian team. He forged many close friendships in the soccer arena and Margaret was also famous for her incredible hospitality and warmth that they shared with many of the young up and coming players. Sam was also there to lend an ear and advise to others in the business world. He always had a solution of how to find loopholes in the local zoning laws for business and developed a relationship of mutual respect and fear with the local politicians of his day.

But as close as Sam was with his family, there are many of us here today who can share stories of their friendships and connections to Sam.  He was a man who was always willing to hear someone’s cause, tell them a tale or two of his own.  But always willing to give advise and help in any way that he could. He was a real crusader. If there was a cause he believed in or an injustice he was aware of he was relentless, never ceasing till he found justice. 

He did not care what others thought of him as he challenged rabbis, communal leaders and organizations standing up the rights of others, especially those killed in WWII who were no longer here to speak up for themselves.  He was young, he learned to live in a tough world and he never altered his principles.

MUSLIMS HATE THE JEWS BUT…

Why the Jewish people continue to be demonized to this day makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Our American leadership needs to embrace the only true ally we have in the middle east which is Israel.

Jewish Boycott  —  A short time ago, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the Muslim World to boycott anything and everything that originates with the Jewish people.  In response, Meyer M. Treinkman, a pharmacist, out of the kindness of his heart, offered to assist them in their boycott as follows: 

Ali Khamenei —  pronounced “ Kaa-Kaa-Me-Me"  علی خامنه‌ای  — Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei (Persian) born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia Marja' and the second and current supreme leader of Iran, in office since 1989. 

He was previously President of Iran from 1981 to 1989. Khamenei is the longest serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest serving Iranian leader of the last century, after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

There have been several attempts on his life, obviously failed,  and we wish the assassins to practice, practice, practice,  get better and better luck next time.  The world will thank you.

So forthcoming is the new doctrine by Kaa-Kaa-Me-Me forbidding anything and everything the Jews have brought into the world…  I agree it’s a great move on his behalf so lets go down the list...

• Any Muslim who has Syphilis must not be cured by Salvarsan discovered by a Jew, Dr. Ehrlich. 
• He should not even try to find out whether he has Syphilis, because the Wasserman Test is the discovery of a Jew. 
• If a Muslim suspects that he has Gonorrhea, he must not seek diagnosis, because he will be using the method of a Jew named Neissner. 
• A Muslim who has heart disease must not use Digitalis, a discovery by a Jew, Ludwig Traube. 
• Should he suffer with a toothache, he must not use Novocaine, a discovery of the Jews, Widal and Weil. 
• If a Muslim has Diabetes, he must not use Insulin, the result of research by Minkowsky, a Jew. 
• If one has a headache, he must shun Pyramidon and Antypyrin, due to the Jews, Spiro and Ellege. 
• Muslims with convulsions must put up with them because it was a Jew,  Oscar Leibreich, who proposed the use of Chloral Hydrate. 
• Muslims must do likewise with their psychic ailments because Freud, father of psychoanalysis, was a Jew. 
• Should a Muslim child get Diphtheria, he must refrain from the Schick" reaction which was invented by the Jew, Bella Schick. 
• Muslims should be ready to die in great numbers and must not permit treatment of ear and brain damage, work of Jewish Nobel Prize winner, Robert Baram. 
• They should continue to die or remain crippled by Infantile Paralysis because the discoverer of the anti-polio vaccine is a Jew, Jonas Salk.
• Muslims must refuse to use Streptomycin and continue to die of Tuberculosis because a Jew, Zalman Waxman, invented the wonder drug against this killing disease.
• Muslim doctors must discard all discoveries and improvements by dermatologist Judas Sehn Benedict and
• Cures by the specialist, Frawnkel, and of many other world renowned Jewish scientists and medical experts. 

In short, good and loyal Muslims properly and fittingly should remain afflicted with Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Heart Disease, Headaches, Typhus, Diabetes, Mental Disorders, Polio Convulsions and Tuberculosis and be proud to obey the Islamic boycott."    Oh, and by the way, don't call for a doctor on your cell phone because the cell phone was invented in Israel by a Jewish engineer. 

NOBEL PRIZE SIDEBAR:  NUMBERS DON'T LIE  —  

A)  As of 2019, twelve Nobel Prize laureates have been Muslims, more than half in the 21st century. Seven of the twelve laureates have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while three have been for the sciences. The recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, Abdus Salam, was a member of the Ahmadi community of Pakistan. Aziz Sancar is the second Turkish Nobel laureate and was awarded the Nobel prize in Chemistry in the field of molecular biology in 2015.

B)  Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 900 individuals, of whom at least 20% were Jews. The number of Jewish people receiving Nobel prizes has been the subject of some attention.  Israeli academics Elay Ben-Gal and Yeshayahu Leibowitz began an encyclopedia of Jewish Nobel laureates, and have interviewed as many as possible about their life and work.

Jews have been recipients of all six awards. The first Jewish recipient, Adolf von Baeyer, was awarded the prize in Chemistry in 1905. Albert A. Michelson, the first American to win the Nobel prize in 1910, was born into a Jewish family, . As of 2020, the most recent unambiguously Jewish recipients are physiology or medicine laureate Harvey J. Alter, literature laureate Louise Glück and economics laureate Paul Milgrom. The 2020 physics laureates Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez are of Jewish heritage by matrilineal and patrilineal descent respectively.

Jewish laureates Elie Wiesel and Imre Kertész survived the extermination camps during the Holocaust, while François Englert survived by being hidden in orphanages and children's homes. Others, such as Walter Kohn, Otto Stern, Albert Einstein, Hans Krebs and Martin Karplus had to flee Nazi Germany to avoid persecution. Still others, including Rita Levi-Montalcini, Herbert Hauptman, Robert Furchgott, Arthur Kornberg, and Jerome Karle experienced significant antisemitism in their careers.
Arthur Ashkin, a 96-year-old American Jew, was, at the time of his award, the oldest person to receive a Nobel Prize.

A Simple Eulogy — Jim and I Were Neighbors and Friends, 

We Had Many Conversations

  —  A Lost Social Pleasure —

Background  —  I am an avid movie fan especially, good movies with a message, and the Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe brought something to bear in both quality and message.   There are tremendous story lines in most Samurai movies.  The first Samurai movies date back to the fifties in black and white and these movies do have a following.  

In the 14th -17th century, Samurai or Bushi were the members of the elite military class and trained to serve the landowners and Lords in feudal Japan.  Their fate was sealed unless they liked being farmers.  

Samurai were supposed to lead their lives according to the ethic code of bushido (“The way of the warrior").  Strongly Confucian  in nature, bushido stressed concepts such as loyalty to one's master, self discipline and respectful, ethical behavior.

In the movie the Samurai leader Katsumoto thanks Tom Cruise, his enemy, whom he captures after he was wounded and then nursed back to health.  He was his captive prisoner after a long battle and during the winter, the two start a conversation  and gradually get to know each other. 

They had more in common than either had thought,  the two mortal enemies after leaving the field of combat find they seek the same things in life even after a years captivity, and they become friends and eventually allies.  Katsumoto thanks Cruise for his “ Interesting Conversations”.                                                                                           

What Has Happened To Our “ Interesting Conversations”  —  We don't talk anymore. We are impersonal, we text, we twit, we communicate in savage tongues and burped words.  We have aliases and fake mail accounts to hide our faces.   Most of which we do is useless or worthless conversation. It reflects in our society, our children's education, and creates false empires.

My close friend and neighbor Jim Wise passed away last year, I volunteered to speak and eulogize him at his funeral and this movie story came to me… I was a nervous and confident at the same time, since Jewish people normally spend little time in Catholic Churches, but 450 weddings I photographed helped,  I knew the celebration of the Mass, and calmed down, I was wonderfully welcomed by Father Pat who didn’t even question what I was about to say and my pulpit is yours…  Did you wish to see my notes… I asked? 

He looked in my eyes, he seemed to know me, “You were Jim’s friend”,  that all I need to know…I wondered if Jim had ever mentioned me.  Toward the end of the proper funeral service, and Mass, the Priest called me to the pulpit.  I took out my notes, laid them on the lectern and never looked at them, the words came easy to me… after, Jim’s wife told me the Priest had on occasion fell asleep during the boring moments, she told me, he never even blinked,  he was Jim’s friend, and a layman in the church, I had a lot riding on simple words…and words have meanings…

 

Eulogy For Jim Wise  —  A Friend —  

TO THE PARISHIONERS AND FRIENDS OF JAMES WISE - St. JEROME’S CATHOLIC CHURCH  2013

It is both with great sadness and celebration that I stand in front of you today in this House of Worship to remember the life of my good friend Jim Wise.  We spent many, many hours together.  I as a Jewish person, I  rarely get to be on the Dias of a Catholic Church, but it has been ordained and I will follow my Lords wishes to express my gratitude for knowing Jim Wise…

I am happy to see so many of Jim’s, friends, neighbors and relatives attending.  And I know that many of you traveled a long way to be here, and I truly believe Jim would be incredibly appreciative to see you.  He is looking down as we speak and... he knows you are here.

Almost nine years ago Jim interviewed me and my late wife Dolly when we applied to live at Country Club Condominiums. A simple one-hour screening interview turned into many hours, and many additional conversations with “the Mayor of Building Three” as he was well known by continued for years. We became friends instantly…

I believe one of the members of the Home Owners Association gave him that nickname after he served almost three terms on the HOA board.  He took an active interest in serving and knew just about everything that was going on at the condos.   He always had a word or something to talk about whether at the communal mailbox, or when he was tinkering in his garage.   When we had problems in the building, he was there, contributing his advise and problem solving.

After I lost my wife, almost six years ago, I still made a full pot of coffee every morning as I had done for decades.  I admit to being a coffee ritual, addict.   And it became a shared ritual, a morning a cup of “Jo” with JIM and continue our conversations on a daily basis. It was the 8:30 O’ clock coffee break, I start my day at 5:30 AM, unofficial but just like the Euro trains, he was always on time.  

Why waste good fresh coffee?  I had plenty and he liked coffee.  He also had a sweet tooth and liked the French Vanilla Bean, two spoons of NesQuick Chocolate and a splash of Irish Mist flavoring. It was his favorite pick-me-up and elixir.  Today they bottle it and sell it with a five-hour guarantee.  It was Jim’s pick me up, he was old school, and in a way like me.

Many days, we had breakfast together.  He was my test bed for cooking, like “Mike-ee” in that commercial, he’d try anything I made.  He liked my cooking and we had a lot of fun and a couple laughs together.  

With the onset of his Macular Degeneration, he was losing his vision, and combined with other pertinent health issues, he began losing his sight more rapidly.    I could see the importance of our time we spent together,  I was his sight keeping him in touch with the world.  His expression, “So what’s the latest news or gossip?”  

I said, “We better go to the paper, ain’t nothing going on here“.  We went through the paper together, I read he listened, and we talked about everything from football to politics, and we both agreed, college football is better and many politicians are closely related to crooks sharing the same DNA.

When he didn’t or couldn’t show, I called to see if he was OK.  He saw his world dimming but he still wanted to know what was going on.  This was his time, he knew it, and then a movie made me think .

I must digress for a moment…  I am going to refer to a movie with a message... A movie starring Tom Cruise (played Captain Algren) and Ben Watanabe (played Katsumoto) was called “The  Last Samurai”  and did well at the box office. It was the story of an American military advisor hired to do away with the Samurai rebels who were resisting the overtaking of Japan by greedy Western influence in the late 1800’s.

Our hero was wounded and captured by the rebel Samurai Warlord. After being held for almost a year, and gradually through “Intelligent Conversations” they shared their thoughts and feelings about life and situations.  They got to know and like, respect and be honest with each other.  Getting to know his captor’s culture, he embraced the Samurai Code.  He had realized the Samurai were the good guys in this story.  It started with simple conversations over a cup of tea and they became friends.   Somehow it connected. 

Where are we today, we do not converse, we technically communicate. Our electronic conversation is cold blooded, limited to texting, voice mails, twits and tweets. Some written by those who are real nit-twits and can’t spell and would be better off speaking to each other. I invented a new word, what do you call it when two nit-twits talk to each other?  Twitillation!

Just look at our position in the world in education, namely Math and Science (education wise) which has sunk to new lows. In fact being 27th and 35th, in the world is nothing to brag about.  It shows in the communication. Some messages I get are so cryptic, you would think they were done on a WWII German Enigma machine that baffled the famed British code-breakers.  I have no clue as to what some things mean or are supposed to mean.

Jim’s Legacy was Intelligent Conversation…he never twitted, tweeted or even got on the computer but he could converse and have an intelligent conversation about what was around him and it grew smaller with his vision loss.

Losing someone you respected is never easy, but when their life is taken away so rapidly, it is that much more difficult. There are many un-filled questions I would throw at him if he were here today. I will miss my friend and I hope that these words will help alleviate some of the grief we are are all feeling today.

If he were here now at this podium, he would tell us to cheer up, smile and remember all of the great memories we can all share with each other, positive thoughts.  Even though Jim may be gone, his memory will live on in some of us. I sincerely appreciated your friendship, Jim, I appreciated the “Intelligent Conversation”.  

Everyone should start their day and share their world with others and a cup of coffee is a really good place to start.  He drank out of this cup in my hand for many years.  This is Jim’s cup, the one he always used.  It says on it “Friends are the flowers of the heart”.   It is now for his beloved Geraldine to have it.

And with that I say sleep well, rest and speak well my friend, I know you are in a good place…and as entertaining as ever… Even when God spoke to Moses, on the mountain, Moses knew he had partaken of a good conversation, now it is your turn Jim, and mention my name to him….

 

I Will Never Forget - My Brothers In Arms And Service To Country

I have devoted and spent a good part, about 35 years of my life, working with charities and groups, building Military Memorials at two bases and three cities.  To  this day I served and I salute those who served and those who paid the ultimate price of Freedom and I have been lucky enough to live, mingle with some very patriotic good people I have had the pleasure of meeting, working with, teaching, training and survived.  

I lost five fellow Brothers in Arms, friends in Vietnam and a few more in our latest excursions of stupidity, I was lucky, these stupid wars that never end in the name of Religion, Greed and Faith, and I will never forget them.  I served after the wars as a board member bring honor to these men and women for thirty five years.

Much tragedy has the COVID-9 running rampage through out Veterans Nursing Homes March 2020 in  ten days 145 of our retirees died from inadequate care and the latent stupidity, attitude, lieing and ignorance, of our leader… and his magic hydrochloroquionone…

Being in the service or elected office requires you to serve with dignity, honor, and truth and to protect our country and the constitution from enemies both here and abroad…

Many of our celebrity politicians do not heed those words and should be dealt with…

God Bless The USA…