Rejuvination
I wanted to share what for me and for many of was an extraordinary experience.
Avital’s late father Chaim Beit Ya’akov (Koplovitz) (d. Seder night, 1968) was the youngest of four brothers and one sister who all made Aliya in or around 1933. The sixth, a sister, perished in the Sho’ah. They managed to bring their parents around two years later. They were all religious Zionists. Chaim himself was a founding member of Kibbutz Tirat Tzvi in Emek Beit She’an. A family research project done by two of Avital’s favorite cousins shows a picture taken in 1927 of her maternal grandmother’s parents 50th wedding anniversary in front of their home in Czechoslovakia. It is a magnificent photograph. They had nine children who in turn had children and grandchildren. All of the flock are in the picture. The accompanying genealogical tree (done around 10 years ago) shows that six of the nine branches were entirely wiped out. Of the three remaining, the continuation of two appears to be dwindling sorely, yet the branch of Avital’s grandmother Chaya and grandfather Yoseph (of whom we could find no family with the possible exception of some distant relations in Australia) continues growing stronger by the year. Yoseph who died in 1951 and Chaya who died in 1941 are buried in Israel, in Kfar Yedidiyah and Chaifa respectfully.
It is now some four years since the last of the brothers, sister and spouses have departed. The so called “central” branch of the family, the three daughters and two sons of Yaakov and Shoshanna who were raised in Kfar Yedidiyah near Netanya arranged a family Shabbat at the Kfar Pines Ulpana campus for all the cousins with their as yet unmarried children together with all of the married children of the Kfar Yedidiyah branch whose grandchildren alone number probably over forty and growing stronger yearly. To have invited all the married children of the other branches with their children would have made the operation logistically impossible.
It was unquestionably one of the more uplifting experiences of my life. The children of the cousins (our generation, the grandchildren of Yoseph and Chaya) are an exemplary cross section of the finest Medinat Yisrael has produced (I’ll try to be modest regarding our own) throughout the entire spectrum: Torah, agriculture, military, business, settlement, education, professional, etc. Needless to say, the oodles and oodles of their children in turn are adorable beyond description. There was a constant background concert of children all ages running, playing chattering.
We had our own minyan for all the tfillot, se’udot meshutafot (common meals) in each one of which Shmulik’s wife Malka, the prime mover, insisted that every family switch places in order to get to know one another more intimately. There’s was also a nostalgia session in which the older cousins told their happy childhood memories of growing up as impoverished moshavnickin, kibbutznikim and city dwellers in the 1940’s and 50’s. They brought their parents to life again in the eyes of the youngsters who sat mesmerized, drinking in all the humorous stories.
Everybody had a small, personal part. I gave a short Dvar Torah in the Se’udah Shlishit in which I mentioned how miraculous the entire event was. Yoseph and Chaya were simple folk, not particularly observant, certainly not successful financially. Had they been there, they undoubtedly would never have believed their own eyes. Maybe that was what brought the miracle about. Just as in the time of the return from Galut Bavel after 70 years, 90% of the Jews elected not to return and only those who “had no better reason to remain” in Bavel made the sacrifice to return, yet it was their descendants and not those of the successful, erudite and observant Jews remaining in Bavel, who rejuvenated the Jewish people. So it is again in our time after 2,000 long years.
2 comments »Beit HaChaim
The funeral was concise and to the point, exactly as Dad, Sabba Eddie would have liked. The Chevrah Kadisha said to schedule the funeral for two afters after the landing time of the plane, the same plane Larry also returned on. They even made it earlier.
The Chevrah Kadishas run their operation like a well oiled machine. From the minute Larry released Sabba’s body from the hospital and went to the funeral home to identify it on Motzei Shabbat (Saturday night), all went like clockwork. The Chevrah Kaddisha performed the tehara (purification in the Mikveh), enshrouding and placing in the coffin on Sunday morning, then brought the coffin to New York where it was handed over to a local Chevrah Kaddisha who took care of getting it on the plane and arranging with the Chevrah Kaddisha in Yerushalayim (Chevrat Yerushalayim) to pick up the coffin at Ben Gurion airport.
Larry, myself and Sabba’s coffin all met at the Beit Levyot (funeral hall) in Yerushaliym. Larry spoke in English. After him, Chaim, who came in uniform from his reserve duty, Prof. Uri Bar Gai, Ruchama and Elon all spoke in Hebrew. The procession then went to the graveyard and the burial was very quick. Afterwards I spoke at the fresh grave. We then spent time together, family and friends at the graveyard. Sabba Eddie’s soul undoubtedly got a lot of nachass from his descendants being together.
We are placing the eulogies here on the blog.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.
Edward B. Bergman 5683-5767
With sorrow we announce the passing of our father, husband, brother and grandfather, Edward B. Bergman, Today Yud Teth Tammuz 5767 (July 5).
We are making arrangements for his burial here in Eretz Yisrael, tentatively on Monday.
Dad was born in Philadelphia in 1923, first of two sons to Gerson and Leah Bergman, both of whom were pharmacists in Philadelphia at the time.
Dad, “Sabba Eddie” as we called him here, Ed as everyone in the States called him, was a precocious child, skipped a grade, graduated from Overbrook High and got his degree from Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1943. he was then drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps, trained as a meteorologist and was sent to England until the war’s end. Following the war, he was a vice consul at the American consulate in Liverpool. Around the time of my birth in 1948, he started Law School at Yale, completed in 1951 and was called up by the U.S. air force and was stationed in Prestwick, Scotland for a year. Larry was born at the end of that year in the U.S. naval hospital in Philadelphia.
Dad was a staunch Zionist from his early years. In fact, he met my mother, Sylvia Sable at the United Jewish Congress office in Philadelphia and started becoming traditional during the war years. He was among the first parents to enroll his children in the fledgling Solomon Schecter Conservative Jewish Day school in Philadelphia, a very non-conventional step in the years before Jewish day school education became wide spread. Dad was an active and strong supporter of Israel throughout the years, president of his Bnei Brith chapter the year before I made Aliya in 1970. He was a successful attorney specializing in labor relations.
Dad was proud that both of his boys made aliya and came to visit nearly every year until his health deteriorated four years ago and had serious plans to make aliyah himself one day and said so on our last phone conversation. Unfortunately Gilda, his second wife (he divorced our mother in 1979) wanted to stay in the States and was not in favor of the idea. We were ready to facilitate his coming to nursing care here in Israel. Gilda was a devoted wife of over thirty years. Her grandchildren, Tyler and Trevor called Dad “Sabba” just like Dad’s own natural grandchildren in Israel did. To Dad’s grandchildren here, Gilda was an inseparable part of him, accompanying him on nearly all of his visits to Israel and being another caring grandmother. Dad was known for his healthy sense of humor and had many many friends wherever he lived, in Philadelphia, in Atlantic City and Ocean City NJ and in his last years in Boston where he passed away.
We’ll surely have plenty to say at the shiva, but one story I want to relate shows how devoted Dad was to Israel. I came to Israel in the summer of 1970 and Dad came for a visit several months later. I told him that I had volunteered for combat service in the IDF and wanted him to meet the representative of the Jewish Agency who handled the Machal program for boys like myself doing volunteer service and with no family members in Israel. The Jewish Agency man gave Dad a clear description of what his son was going in for – grueling combat service in the paratroopers, with the ensuing danger. There would be no way for me to quit in the middle of the service were I to change my mind. The Agency man asked Dad, with some obvious concern that at this point Dad would react like a normal American Jewish father, taking me by the hand and saying (as Dad often did) “Let’s get the hell out of here”. Dad’s reply surprised the guy. “I have a question” he said. “Go ahead” answered the Jewish Agency rep. “I have a second son who is 18”, said Dad, “Do you have room for them both on the program?”. It was many years until I myself became a father to combat soldiers in battle and fully realized how much strength and determination that statement took.
Dad, Yissachar Dov Ber ben Leah and Gershon is survived by his two sons, Larry and myself, his second wife, Gilda, his younger brother, David Bergman in Philadelphia, 10 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren all in Israel and all of whom he was infinitely proud. Upon seeing them, Dad would rub his eyes in disbelief and say: “I don’t know what happened, but I must have done something right by mistake somewhere along the way”. Details of the shiva will be forthcoming.
Yehi Zichro Baruch.
Yitzhak and Avital Bar Geva & family
Larry and Ruhama Bergman and family [Larry went to the States until Sunday (we think) to help with the arrangements of bring Dad “home”]
