Public Employee Press

“Never give up hope”

Holocaust survivor Esther Jungreis addresses Jewish Heritage Committee dinner at DC 37

Participants at DC 37’s 13th Annual Jewish Heritage Month Celebration on June 28 listened silently, almost reverentially, as keynote speaker Esther Jungreis offered some of the wisdom she had gained in surviving the Nazi death camps.

Hope is “the most important aspect of our Jewish heritage,” said Rabbi Dr. Alvin Kass in his invocation. Many Jews became activists and leaders in the U.S. labor movement “in the hope of building a better world,” said Kass, a member of DC 37’s Local 299 and the Senior Jewish Chaplain of the city Police Dept.

Executive Director Lillian Roberts attended but was called away on union business before the formal program began, and DC 37 Treasurer Maf Misbah Uddin addressed the group. “This union and this city have come a long way based on the contributions of Jewish members and leaders,” said Uddin, who is president of Local 1407.

Dr. Leonard Davidman, president of Psychologists Local 1189 and the new chair of the Jewish Heritage Committee, emceed and presented a beautiful kiddush (sanctifying) cup to outgoing chair Larry Glickson before the hundreds of members and retirees who attended. In addition to the speakers, the event included a kosher meal from Brooklyn’s Essex-on-Coney, the comedy of Stewie Stone and klezmer music by Howard LeShaw and the Golden Land Orchestra.

Television producer Alan Oirich told of what he sees as the Jewish roots of comic book superheroes such as Superman, who like Moses was sent away to survive as his people faced catastrophe, and who in his earliest comics wore biblical-looking sandals.

David Napell of the organization Mazon, The Jewish Response to Hunger, explained that a small amount of money could alleviate hunger worldwide. The Jewish Heritage Committee regularly contributes to Mazon, which raises money from Jews and assists Jewish and non-Jewish groups.

Rebbetzin Jungreis, a best-selling author, survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where the Nazis killed as many as 18,000 Jews and Poles in one month. Rebbetzin is a Yiddish title of respect and endearment for a rabbi’s wife.

In a voice somewhere between a sob and a wail, she explained that after she was freed from the camp in 1945, she thanked God for giving her the wisdom of the rooster. The rooster, she said, can tell night from day and good from evil, unlike the Nazi officers with college degrees who ran the camp. The rooster also has the strength to know that “no matter how dense the darkness, the morning will come — to understand that we must never give up hope.”

— Bill Schleicher