by Sam Lehman-Wilzig
Jenny Weinreb, Wilzig, Lieberman. Those were her family names. But if I were to list all the adjectives describing whom David and I called “Mom”, we’d be here all day. So here are just a few one-(or two) word descriptions:
Considerate & Caring
Classy – even “Royal” (metaphorically)
Multi-Talented & Multi-Lingual
Deeply Religious
Familial
עזר כנגדו (Twice): Helpmate/Soulmate
Almost 20 years ago, we published a book on her life called “Jenny’s Journey”. Most of you read that book, and I am not going to repeat that story – we’d be here all WEEK! But that’s precisely the point: our mother lived (and lived through) not one but several “lives”:
First, as a child growing up in Germany within a large, loving family of nine children.
Second, World War 2 where she escaped by herself to Portugal (on a German boat!), in Lisbon as a teenager working with her mother ”Oma”, together establishing the only kosher “Pension” (today that’s called a B&B) for Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis.
Third, jumping the ocean to a British refugee camp in Jamaica where in only 6 months she learned English and became the British officer’s secretary!
Fourth, on to Cuba where she met Arthur, got married, and conceived me. I should also mention that after an internship as a diamond polisher, she became the first woman diamond CUTTER in the trade – a very responsible position.
Fifth: not seeing a Jewish future in Cuba for her soon-to-be-born son, the new couple migrated to New York where I was born, as was David a few years later.
Sixth, after spending over a decade as a housewife bringing us up, Mom learned dress patternmaking from her talented sister Aunt Martha – and within little time “graduated” to assistant designer, working with some of the top people in the field.
Seventh, after recovering from the trauma of our father’s untimely death, Mom (only 44 years young at the time) married Izzy Lieberman, who came with his two children Rochelle and Stephy. This entailed another “migration” – from Washington Heights to Flatbush – which Mom managed quite successfully, becoming a pillar (eventually honored with Izzy) at the Young Israel of Flatbush.
Eighth, in retirement they underwent annual double migrations as “snowbirds” from Brooklyn to Miami Beach in Autumn & Winter – and back to Brooklyn for the Spring & Summer.
Finally, ninth (like a cat with nine lives), her last years were spent at home in Flatbush with Izzy (who did a great job of keeping her on track despite her illness), and then alone after Izzy’s passing. Well, not quite “alone”: she had Barbara as her very dedicated live-in aide 4 days a week, and other aides for the other 3 days, including Ruth these past few months; Mom had David who devotedly visited her at least once a week not only to take care of all her material needs – food supplies and daily medications (a military operation!) – but also as a comforting, family connection to the outside world; and I called her from Israel several days each week – with semi-annual visits from the Promised Land to the Goldene Medinah.
As I said, several “lives” – not just one. But this brief “itinerary” doesn’t really do justice to the sort of person Jenny really was. Mom was all “Jewish values” across the board. First, very strong family ties: growing up, a week did not go by without us spending time with Martha and Pinkas in Washington Heights, or at Oma’s in Far Rockaway (for kids like David and me, the monthly “shlep”) – or with Mom’s other surviving siblings Eva (on shabbat), or Leslie and Benno with their spouses in Queens or Sundays at the beach.
And neither was Sophie in England out of the picture: the most memorable summer of my life was traveling with Mom and David by ocean liner to England to spend almost the entire summer of 1959 with Aunt Sophie and her seven children. I said “almost” – because even then, we took a 2-week “detour” to Switzerland to visit Mom’s cousin Zische Neuwrith and his family.
Nor was Arthur’s family forgotten, despite brother Freddie living quite far away in San Francisco and their sister in Germany. Our apartment was always open for Dad’s family’s infrequent, but much looked forward to, visits.
In short, “the extended family” was not the only pillar in Mom’s life – but it certainly was one of the two central ones.
The second core of Mom’s life was Judaism. Shul every shabbat was a given. My father Arthur came from a secular background in Germany (today Poland) but as a condition of their marriage, Mom insisted that her home would be strictly kosher and shabbat observant – and so it was, with my father going along in every detail. An interesting fact that I only came to know about later in life: upon arrival in the U.S., like many immigrants my parents at first struggled economically. To stay afloat, Arthur had to keep his lingerie store open on Saturdays. But when I turned three (the age in the Jewish tradition when khinukh/“education” begins), Mom made Dad close the store on shabbat so that I would not be confused with contradictory signals regarding Orthodox Jewish practice. And so he did – and eventually became a Board Member/Trustee at our shul!
Here, though, I should mention a sort of paradox symbolized by Mom marrying our father Arthur. As I just noted, Mom was deeply religious in the traditional sense – but she was also open and flexible enough to accept others who were either less so, or differently so. For example, after an initial rough patch with my soon-to-be wife Tami who comes from a Conservative background, Mom came to understand that Tami is no less “religious” in the spiritual sense, and in most ways in the day-to-day Jewish practice sense as well.
What do I mean by “rough patch”? Mom made Tami’s wedding dress – a sleeveless halter-top gown with a wrap-around jacket on top of it that was sashed in the back in a beautiful bow. But Mom was worried that Tami would take off the wrap-around jacket after the chuppah ceremony; so unbeknownst to Tami, in the bridal room Mom sewed and attached the jacket’s bow to the gown (in the back where Tami couldn’t see it)! Tami, of course, had no intention of removing the jacket at the wedding – so we only discovered the “operation” after returning home, when she couldn’t get out of the dress! I leave to your imagination how that played out on our post-wedding night!! And yet, just a few years later there were a few incidents (not to be detailed here), where as a result of her or Izzy’s oversight regarding the shabbat clock, Mom wouldn’t let Tami transgress the shabbat but turned on the clock by herself.
Her devotion to David and myself was total. In so many different ways she seemed to know what correct parenting was all about: giving us the freedom needed to grow up but also teaching us responsibility (I can still perfectly picture our apartment building basement in Washington Heights, given how often I was sent down to get the laundry); encouraging us in school; ensuring that we have as much culture at home as possible, given our household’s limited budget: a monthly classical record subscription, buying as many reading books as we wanted, and of course ensuring that we received a great Jewish and secular education – again, despite the heavy financial burden.
Once we joined the Lieberman tribe, parenting became trickier, of course, but as far as I can tell, here too Mom managed this highwire act with great success – treating Rochelle and Stephy as her own, and ditto regarding all the grandchildren. I should also mention that she was married to my father Arthur 23 years, and to Izzy a bit more than double that amount of time! I can state first-hand: Mom was equally devoted to both – not merely עזר כנגדו but actually עזר כנגדם!
As her son, I am naturally biased about Mom – but through the years when I heard again and again from family and her friends their unsolicited portrayals of Mom as “our Queen”, “we love her”, “what a classy lady!” and the like, I can only “objectively” agree with every such description. Indeed, Tami laughs at the fact that I am the only adult son she has ever heard of who carries a picture of his “bombshell” mother in his wallet!
Everything I have described here – all the while Mom carried a few traumas inside of her with great nobility: at the start, the very hard adolescence she went through; the last three decades with her Lewi Body illness (a sort of “cousin” of Parkinson’s and “distant relative” of Alzheimer’s). Never complained – just kept on truckin’ (as we used to say back in the 1960s).
In sum, Jenny was a model for all who knew her – by that, I don’t mean her figure (although she probably could have modeled in different circumstances), but as the exemplary archetype of what a Jewish daughter, mother, wife, and family materfamilias should be. Jenny will undoubtedly remain in all our hearts and memories for as long as we live.
יהי זכרה ברוך – Let her memory be blessed