2015 Bulletin Board

15-09 Remembering Benzion:

Many years have passed since the premature death of a Melbourne Betari, Benzion Eisikovich. His sister Varda gives us some background about Benzion.
"Benzion was in Israel with his wife and five children. It was while he was in Israel that it was detected that he had brain tumour. He died September 15,1993 at the age of 53 in Melbourne after approx. 24 years (of) suffering from (the) repeated growth of the brain tumour. He left behind three sons and two daughters."
Thank you, Varda, for providing this information which may have been unknown for many of us.

15-08 Article by John Goldlust:

'A Case Study in Cultural Amnesia' was recently researched and published by John. Its full title:
"A Different Silence: The Survival Of More Than 200,000 Polish Jews In The Soviet Union During World War II As A Case Study In Cultural Amnesia"
can be downloaded from here: A Different Silence.pdf.

(The article is a .pdf file and you will need Adobe Acrobat to read it.)

15-07 Survivors' Get Together in Israel:

Peter Keeda writes: "At one of our regular survivors’ dinners In April 2014, it was decided that we would have a dinner in Israel in April 2015. The usual format is men-only but for this special occasion spouses were also invited. We did not regret it … The wheels were set in motion and, lo and behold, on 18 April 2015 there was a gathering in Tel Aviv at Fitzroy (in the Gordon Hotel) for a sumptuous evening meal overlooking the Tel Aviv shoreline. Read the entire article Survivors Get Together in Israel.

(The article is a .pdf file and you will need Adobe Acrobat to read it.)

15-05 Some photos from Jessie:

Jessie Palumbo (Rosmarin) recently visited Oz. She has posted some of her photos here. During her time there she attended John Goldlust's 70th birthday celebration. Happy birthday, John.

15-04 Aussie Betar Get-Together:

Twenty old mates from Down Under gathered at the Goldstein's beautiful & spacious home for a delicious lunch, conviviality & a wonderful afternoon. Solly entertained us with his more than proficient playing of music by the maestros on his beautiful grand piano. And we enjoyed being together & seeing old mates immensely. Everyone looked happy & well, which was good to see. After a scrumptious Arvo-tea, we made our farewells & Miriam promised she'd have the next "Get- Together" in August!!"

From Miriam: "Great to be with you all guys, hope we'll have a "get-together" at my home in August, sometime between 15th to 25th, I'll be in touch on my return to Israel. Bye for now & have a happy & healthy two months, love Miriam."
See Miriam Briggs' photo album: Aussie Betar Get-Together at the home of Rosalie & Solly Goldstein in Hod HaSharon--23/5/2015.

15-06 Photos requested:

Mervyn Doobov is requesting help from anyone who has specific photos of his late wife Sue (Gans). Here is an extract:
"My late wife, whose name was then Suzanne Gans, attended the Machon in 1961, in the South Machzor (she was from Brisbane, Australia). She was in Israel from February 1961 to end-September (as she had to return home to her dying father).
I would like to find some photos of her during that period as I am putting together some papers for our children and grand-children about that part of her life. I have only one such picture (a not very good one).
[Another Machonik of the time was Maisie from South Africa - her family name may have been Lofter].
- Mervyn Doobov."

15-02 Rodney Gouttman book:

Rodney recently published a new book entitled: ‘In Their Merit – Australian Jewry and WWI’ which delves deep into Australian Jewry’s role during World War I. See the review and purchasing options here.

15-10 Remembering Jules Wynhausen:

Jules passed away six years ago. Very much missed. The photo is from a Betar show we put about 50 years ago. left-to-right: David Golomb, Eve Harkaway, Jules Wynhausen and Mick Sernik.

-Peter Keeda.

15-11 More photos added to our memories:

Thanks to Miriam and Henry Briggs, Keith Masnick, Liz Kornhaber, Noni Gordon and Flapper Bomzon and others for their contributions to The Past in the past few weeks. Their entries appear in the respective years and the photos taken in the seventies and forward all appear in 1966 & ON.

15-15 Gad Pedhazur passes away:

Gad Pedhazur passed away in Miami on July 29, 2015. He had been reportedly suffering from Alzheimers for the past few years. His wife Geula lived in the same senior living establishment although she was too frail to attend to Gad's needs. Gad had a distinguished career and was loved by many of us in Betar. His remarkable biography was written and submitted to this site by Shimshon Feder only 2 weeks before he succumbed. The bio can be seen here. Condolences continue to come in and are shown here. Our condolences to his wife Geula, Liora his daughter and son Hadar and families.
Baruch Dayan Haemet!

Larry Sitsky received this honour for 'his significant and enduring contribution to Australian music', at the 2015 Art Music Awards ceremony at Sydney's City Recital Hall on Tuesday 11 August. Article continues here.
Thanks to Vernon Kronenberg for the heads up.

15-03 Bob Sitsky book:

Bob and Larry Sitsky were born and grew up in Tientsin, China. Bob's book details his family's travels and history which he published specifically for his and Larry's grandchildren and the generations that follow. Included is their history with Betar and there are many photos both of their family and the Betar membership.
He has made his work available at no charge to those interested. Use the link to download the complete text: Growing Up in Tientsin, Complete Text (28.8 MB).

[From Bob: "You may prefer to use this link: Growing up in Tientsin.
This link is to JewishGen -the Jewish-Genealogy/Harbin website which covers Jews who lived in the north of China. I have written the book primarily for the family – it was never my intention to make $ out of it. I only have printed 50 hard copies – mainly for the family + those people who lived in Tientsin. So I only have a few copies left for people to buy – the cost is $40 plus postage (which would be around $30 to USA or Europe).]

When Esther Lewis and brother Aaron Ninedek's mother died in 1990, they found a bundle of letters written to their mother in Yiddish. They were all from when she arrived in Australia in the early 1930s up until before the war.

Many years later Aaron mentioned them to Esther. She was very interested and they asked Theo Balberyszski to translate a few of them. They were fascinated. They could hardly ask Theo to translate more as there were a lot of them, so they decided to do it themselves. It took them six months. It was worth every second.

They found out about their family in Poland, especially their father’s family about which they knew nothing. None of them were heard from again after the war. Esther wrote the story of what they did, a shorter version of which was printed in the Australian Jewish News. This is the fuller, much better version and can be seen here.

"It is with a heavy heart and great sadness we have said our goodbyes to my dearest husband who passed away early this morning at 2.36am with all of his family by his side. A big thank you to my all of my children, friends and family who stood by me at such difficult times. My darling biggest love of my life, may you rest in peace. Love Esther" (Elbaz) [Brian's wife, November 15, 2015, from Facebook.]
Eulogy and condolences here.

If you were hanging around in the late '40s and '50s, you may remember the folks in the photos. Jack & Rosette dug deep and we posted 20 photos from the old days. See 1948 #9; 1951 #6-9; 1952 #8-9; 1953 #24-27; 1955 #60-65; 1956 #51-53. Some photos were dated by the originators and Aaron Ninedek gave further input, guaranteed to be correct within 10 years.