On My Mother's Yartzeit

As per Jewish custom, I have a 24 hour light burning in her memory.

I have no set custom as to what to do on these memorial days for her. When my husband has them for his parents, he brings herring and maybe schnapps to synagogue in the morning to make a "Lechaim," in their memory. But even though I do pray the morning (and also afternoon) prayers, I do it all quietly alone at home or wherever I happen to be.

I don't really do anything special to commemorate my mother, and I'm still in the first year of mourning for my father, who passed away just a few days before Passover.

In a sense my whole life is a reflection on my parents, for good and for bad. We all are the results of how we are raised and what we make of it.

Even though both of my parents ended up extremely dependent in the period before they died, I still think of them as a generation of giants. There's nothing I can do or accomplish that can compete with the powers they had. We were taught to treat them with awe and respect. And from what I understand, their parent, too treated them that way. They were the "American generation," the first in their families to be born and raised in America. They paved the way. They were also very strong and influential grandparents, in a way I can never be. And in a sense I wouldn't want to be, since I had to stand aside when my parents (and in-laws, too) visited and were with my children.

My mother always encouraged my love for dance, and there was a summer, when I was twenty, when we actually worked together teaching an exercise class for women. Other women in a nearby community had requested that she give a summer class. I had just taken two years of "Dance Movement" lessons with an excellent, innovative instructor, Allan Wayne, in Manhattan, so she told them that she needed me to demonstrate the movements.

Basically, the truth is that I was the teacher. My mother would point to me and tell the women in the class to "follow" what I was doing.

And in many ways, after the original shock of hearing that I was going to live a Torah aka Orthodox Jewish Life and then move to Israel, she became quite supportive. And as the Great Neck Synagogue became more of an Orthodox community, she enthusiastically joined in the various chesed activities like comforting and bringing food to mourners besides running the Sisterhood Gift Shop and more.

My mother loved and participated in all of the arts, was a paid member of lots of museums, a docent in the nearby Nassau County Museum, performed and was stage manager in the Fresh Meadows and later the Great Neck Community Theater, loved dance and shows etc. She also tried her hand at painting. And she absolutely adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

לעילוי נשמתה

שפרה בת אברהם וחיה ריזיה

Together Again

Sorry that the quality of this photo is so awful, but if I can find a better copy to use I will. 

My Uncle George, My Father and My Aunt Boche

My father and his siblings were very close and very different. My father was the last of the three to pass away. My father was the middle child, only 19 months younger than his brother, and their little sister was about six years or so younger than him.

They were all talented and intelligent. My aunt made a career of art, starting in textile design and then children's book illustrations. After that she lectured on how to publish a book among other things. My father got his degree in Accounting and afterwards, when I was a child he became a CPA. He built a private practice and was adored and respected by his clients. My uncle had inherited my grandfather's factory which produced raincoats, but gave it up and got a civil servants job.

All of them lived long lives. My uncle died just short of his 90th birthday; my aunt was in her eighties when she died. And my father was close to 96. They were all amazing in their ways, strong and determined and THE AMERICAN GENERATION, born in New York to parents who came from Neshelsk, Poland and Rogotshov, Belarus. They adored and enjoyed their grandchildren. And my father and uncle were privileged to also live long enough to know their older great-grandchildren.

I bless all of their descendants, those already alive and those to be born, wishing that they enjoy such wonderful closeness with their siblings.

Modern Condolence Calls, Not F2F

My Mother, Shirley Spiegelman, Z"L, 1925-2013
A great beauty to the end...

My mother, and her younger sister were "shiva champs," both having sat shiva nine times for parents and siblings before their own deaths.
My mother,who suffered from senility in her final years, was not capable of a shiva for her younger sister a few months before her own death, which would have made her grand total for sitting shiva ten. As you can imagine, Jewish Mourning, the "shiva" was part of my earliest childhood, especially since both my maternal grandparents and my oldest uncle passed away in less than a year, before I had turned four. A couple of other of her siblings died before I got married and moved to Israel.

In those days, if you couldn't pay a shiva call in person, or like when my mother's mother died just hours before the Passover Seder, 1952, cancelling shiva*, which caused a terrible difficulty among the mourners as one of my older cousins remembers vividly to this day, you sent a condolence card. I remember seeing them around and even sending some when circumstances necessitated.

You must remember that even non-local phone calls were very expensive until a couple of decades ago, and email/internet/whatsapp could barely be thought of even as science fiction. Does anyone remember the telegram?

My father, Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 1920-2016
holding the invitation to the wedding of his grandson
which my parents couldn't attend. My mother actually
passed away just a couple of months before the wedding.

It's not even a week since my father died, and I've already sat shiva here in Shiloh, gotten up (before he was even buried,) celebrated the Passover Seder and even had my first "outing" with a cousin and our husbands.

Besides the surprising amount of people who managed to make the time to visit/comfort לנחם me here in Shiloh during my almost three day (Erev/Eve of Passover) shiva, dozens, or a hundred or more people either phoned or sent a wide variety of modern messages.

The beauty of the modern age, and easy communication is that not only family and friends can "comfort" the mourner and show respect, but even strangers who are inspired by the story, or as in my case those who only know me on the internet, facebook or read my blogs. And speaking of my blogs, last night dear friends, extended family (cousins of my father's cousins) called me up and told me that they had only heard of my father's passing from my Arutz 7 blog post. Unlike when my in-laws died, I didn't even think of putting ads/announcements in the Jerusalem Post and Torah Tidbits.  There were so many other things/logistics to think about.

According to Jewish Law, the mourning and comforting periods for a parent last a year, so no doubt I'll be blogging more about the topic and about my parents. And it's never too late to express one's condolences לנחם linachem.

Honestly, I have found comfort in the calls and notes. Thanks.

*When the burial is just before a Jewish Holiday, the shiva is reduced to barely an hour (maximum it could be a few hours until just after noon/half-day), and not continued/resumed afterwards.

Re: My Father's Father's Family "Three Minutes in Poland"

While I was sitting shiva for my father on the Eve of Passover, my friend dropped a bag next to my chair:

"There's a book and coffee."

Later that day, during a lull in the shiva, when nobody was there to comfort, I opened the bag and found  "Three Minutes in Poland." Now that I'm "up from shiva" I'm reading it. It's the amazing saga of Glenn Kurtz, who tells how he discovered and researched the short film his grandfather took in pre-World War Two Poland.

I plan on reviewing it after I finish reading it.

Now why is it so exciting and so fitting as reading material during the mourning period for my father? It was even one of the props/tools/visual aids I had at my service when sitting shiva along with pictures.

So many of my neighbors are immigrants or children of immigrants, including Holocaust survivors, so a common and favorite question one asks a person sitting shiva for a parent is about the family background:

From where was your father/mother or his/her parents?

When someone is a good few generations in Israel it's rare. With the help of this book I was able to talk about my father's father's family, their European background and their way of thinking. "Three Minutes in Poland" is about the Jewish community of Nasielsk, where my paternal grandfather's family had lived until well before the Holocaust.  Unlike many Jewish families from Europe, it seems that the Spiegelman clan, my father's father's family, were not optimistic about life in Europe. They were ambitious businessman and decided that their futures would be better in America.

Not just my grandfather and some of his siblings left Nasielsk, but his parents, aunts, uncles and cousins were also in the states. Most arrived before or after World War One. My father was raised in a large clan including both sets of grandparents, because even my grandmother's parents and most of her siblings had left Rogotshov, Belarus prior to World War Two. Not that long ago I was contacted by descendants of cousins of my father's mother, and we are now in touch pretty much daily on facebook.

All of this is rather amazing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm very glad to have an amazingly suitable book to read after sitting shiva. Here's a video about Nasielsk, Poland, 1938, and the author of the book:

Reflecting on Sitting Shiva for My Father

My Father, Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 1920-2016
Photo I took just a few months ago, during my last visit with him.

Looking at this picture of my father, you wouldn't think that he had been "evaluated" as suffering from severe dementia. Dementia is such a strange condition. I don't think you can accurately call it a "disease."

During the almost three days I had to sit shiva for him, I tried to describe him as accurately as possible, the father he was to me when he was young, the man many of my neighbors knew when he lived with us, and the person he became afterwards when in Arizona.

Shiva is a wonderful thing and so helpful for the mourner. I'm sorry that my brother and sister didn't have the experience I did. That's for a few reasons.

The first is that my father's death was less than a week before Passover, so I couldn't attend. Because I stayed home in Israel I sat shiva pretty much from when I got notice until just before the holiday started. Actually I had ended the shiva even before he was buried. My brother and sister had no real time for a shiva, not even a short one, like I observed. And another reason is that they aren't involved members of a Jewish community.

"Shiva" the mourning period is a complex time according to Jewish Law. "Shiva" comes from the word sheva, seven and is that because under normal conditions, for seven days after a person is buried, the close family members, children, siblings and spouse, are supposed to take a break from their normal routines and responsibilities. The community and family members not required to "sit shiva" are to take over and take care of the mourner. Food and household chores are to be done by them, so the mourner can concentrate on being together, when applicable, and telling those coming to comfort לנחם linachem about the person who had passed away.

Those coming to comfort are to remember not to bring up other topics unless the mourner specifically asks. Generally, one isn't supposed to speak unless the mourner initiates conversation. But it's acceptable to ask about the dead family member, like:

• How old was he/she?
• What did he/she do?
• Where was he/she born?
• How old?

Yes, questions that will facilitate talk by the mourner. Most of the time, the people who came to comfort really kept the conversation on proper target, and I did find it very comforting. But I must admit that the rare times when visitors were too busy trying to "entertain" with their own news got not only me, but others in the room annoyed and upset. Sometimes I could get it back on track by starting to distribute pictures of my father, especially from his service in the U.S. Navy during World War Two. People usually got the hint and started asking good questions. 

Sitting shiva on my own was particularly exhausting. It also meant that when someone called me own the phone as a "shiva call" I had to speak even when the room was full. Those calls were important, as important as those who had been able to come to the house. Everyone understood that. 

Neighbors brought food for me to eat while I was sitting shiva. Normally, in previous times when my husband sat for his parents and I sat for my mother, the kids and I took care of all the meals. But this time, since it was just before Passover, and the cleaning and Passover cleaning had to continue, as I sat, though not by me, my children were very busy in the house. I didn't want to ask them to also make me food. My Israeli children, the grandchildren and my husband got the house all ready for Passover. At most I gave some instructions, especially about where things were or where they should be put.

If it had been possible, my children would have gotten a lot out of being part of the talk during the shiva. They would have found it a comfort, as I had.

I had really been hoping that my father would somehow have died during a time in the year when my sister could have come home to Shiloh with me and we could have sat together here for a few days. Many of my neighbors knew him and have very fond memories. 

Now it's already Passover, post-seder. One of my daughters did all of the cooking for us, though she wasn't with us for the seder. We were with two other children here at home. They did their best to make me a comfortable as possible. 

Yes, life must go on...

BDE, 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.

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.