Mildred Sbar

Malkah bat Mordecai v’Esther

Born: March 10, 1914 – Died: February 12, 2004

 

Eulogy delivered at her funeral, Sunday February, 15th, by Rabbi Steven Lindemann of Temple Beth Sholom, Cherry Hill, NJ

 

 

          At this season of the year, we are reading the Book of Exodus—the story of B’nai Yisrael Leaving Egypt.  But of course, the Exodus does not make much sense if there is no place to go—for the B’nai Yisrael it was the land of the Promise, Canaan, ultimately Israel.

 

            Mildred’s life journey did indeed take her to Israel, as you have heard. But it is important to see the full breath of that journey.  It really began with her parents.  Mildred was one of six children: Emanuel, Joseph, Mildred, Albert, Zelda, and Florence, all born in Camden.  Max and Esther had come there from Russia and Poland as part of the great Exodus that brought 2¼ million Jews from Eastern Europe to the US in the early part of the last century.  Max and Esther ran a mom and pop dry goods store, and every one of their children had some education beyond high school.  That is a remarkable story of achievement, which is part of American Jewish history.

 

            Mildred studied at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science (PC&S).  Eventually, she took a job as a technician in the lab at Sinai Hospital.  However, her first love was really reading and books and she wanted to be a librarian.  But that was not a job at which you could make much of a living back then.  Still, Mildred loved books and reading.  She read all of the classics and she read history—she plowed through Churchill’s 6 volumes on WWII for example, and later she encouraged her nephews and nieces to read.  Neil says she knew just which books to pick out for him—from Treasure Island to Two Years Before the Mast.  Mildred knew literature well.  She also studied at Gratz College, where she learned Hebrew and Judaica. 

 

            Mildred was also devoted to family.  When her parents needed her to help out in the store, she left Sinai Hospital and went to work with them.  But ultimately, her life journey would take her to Israel.

 

            Their parents were Zionists, so Mildred and Al became part of Gordonia—which was a Zionist group based on the philosophy of A.D. Gordon.  It was labor Zionism with an emphasis on self-realization through settlement of the land.  Groups of youth would be prepared to go to the Land of Israel by spending summers and weekends working and learning on farms.  The preparation was called hakhsharah.  Mildred did hers on a farm in northern NJ.  Now, not everyone who was part of this movement actually went to Israel.  A garin (literally a seed group) would be formed and prepare itself.  But it was really only the boldest and most committed who actually went to Israel - made Aliyah.  Mildred was one of them.  She went as a young woman in her 20’s some years before WWII—by boat, freighter actually, to Kfar Blum which was one of the kibbutzim built by these groups.  Kfar Blum is in the north of Israel, north of the Hullah swamp area, where malaria was the big health hazard that claimed the lives of many who made Aliyah to build the land.  The greater danger in Kfar Blum, however, was from the Syrians, who held the Golan Heights from which they could easily shell the settlements below as the halutzim worked the land.  Mildred would write home—long, beautifully descriptive passages with the flare for colorful writing that she developed from all of her reading.

 

            Now, that would have been enough of an achievement to make her life quite remarkable.  Yet, Mildred did much more.  During WW II she joined the British army and rose from the rank of private to lieutenant.  She was stationed in Alexandria, Egypt. After the war she returned to Kfar Blum, and in Israel’s war of Independence, Mildred went back into the army and became a Lt. Colonel—this was the 3rd highest rank a woman could achieve.  Eventually, Mildred even spent some time at the Embassy in the US.  She knew many of the founders of the State of Israel personally, and yesterday I saw a picture of Mildred standing next to Golda Meir.  What an extraordinary saga, what an extraordinary life journey—and yet, she never spoke much about all she had seen or done.  Oh, there is a story about the time that Kfar Blum was under siege and they had to eat water buffalo to survive and she did mention the Syrians shooting at them, but she didn’t tell war tales or stories of personal bravery.  Yet, clearly she was a very strong, determined, courageous woman.

 

 

           

 

And she was also devoted to her family.  Because as much as Israel meant to her, as much as she must have sacrificed personally to be among the builders and founders of Israel, she gave it up for her family.  When their oldest brother died, it left a terrible void in their mother’s life, so Al asked Mildred to come back home, thinking it would help their mother.  Mildred left Israel

and returned to her family.  She went to work with Al in the toy business and eventually became the vice president of the company, taking a special role in developing the crafts part of the business.  She did sales; she did everything.  Her life revolved around work and family.  She went everywhere with Al and Thelma, sharing their love of music, concerts, opera, theater. Mildred was part of every family gathering:  And though she never married, she was the aunt that all the nieces and nephews remember.

Al and Thelma have been getting their whole family together for years, with special trips—out west or a cruise, and Mildred was, of course, a part of the group, so her life touched not only Neil, Marc, and Reesa, and their spouses, Lois, Helene and Joe, but also the next generation of great nieces and nephews and even the great-greats—counting spouses, the whole crew is well over 20.  And of course, that’s just Al and Thelma’s family—there are also the Zelda, Florence and all of their families and those of brothers Emanuel and Joseph.  So there are many who will remember.

 

           

           

 

           

 

Mildred will also be remembered by Temple Beth Sholom.  She was a member and attended along with Al and Thelma.  She was once honored by the Temple at a Bonds Dinner.  But most of all, she will be remembered through the Bronze Sculpture, which hangs on the wall in the synagogue lobby—the first thing you see when you enter the building.  It is a depiction of young people dancing a hora—filled with all the energy of young pioneers celebrating together.  The faces are turned toward one another and arms are draped around shoulders.  Surely it evoked for Mildred all of the hevra that she experienced building the Kibbutz and fighting for the existence of the State of Israel.  

 

We put an inscription over the sculpture that is a verse from one of the songs from the period of Aliyah that the piece represents. 

So, the chain continues—in the memories of family, in the annals of the history of Israel, in the story of the Jewish people. Mildred is a part of all that.  Exodus, Journey, Poem--