Category Archives: Social functions

Birthday and Anniversary

Carl Schiffman - Bob Adler

Carl Schiffman – Bob Adler

Last month, Bob Adler celebrated his 94th birthday by leading almost the entire Shabbos morning service, including the Preliminary, Shachris, and Mussaf services. May we all be so fortunate to live to such an age and be so capable. Bob also volunteers one day a week at St. Clair Hospital and another day each week at a nursing home near the Galleria.

Bob is a long time fixture at the Carnegie Shul.  Although he’s been to a lot of shuls in the Pittsburgh area, he likes Carnegie the best. Bob first came to America in the 1930s; his parents sent him to live with relatives in NYC because things were getting worse in his native Germany. He would never see his parents again. He spent most of his adult years in NYC with his dear wife Ethel; may her memory be for a blessing. There, he became a big NY Rangers hockey fan. Eventually, he and Ethel retired to Pittsburgh to be closer to his daughter Ronni, her husband Carl, and their kids. We are very fortunate to have him.

This coming Saturday, Carl Schiffman will celebrate the 50th anniversary of his bar mitzvah. Carl will lead most of the morning services just as his father-in-law did last month. And he will hope to do as well as his mentor. For those who don’t know Carl, he and Ronni are attorneys and have a practice in Pittsburgh near Mercy Hospital.  Carl’s peers have voted him one of Pittsburgh’s “super lawyers”. But sometimes I think he finds his antique cars more interesting. We’re all looking forward to a joyous Shabbos morning.

Last week I sent out an email message informing everyone about some problems that we are having with this blog. It appears that not everyone is receiving the notices; and at this point we haven’t solved it. About 30 people out of 78 subscribers responded that they received that recent message. The messages may be going into be people’s junk mail folders or there may be a problem with the mail server. We will continue to investigate.

be well.

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Jewish War Veterans

On Sunday, a small group of Jewish military veterans gathered in our Social Hall for meeting and eating.  They are members of Post #785, The Sandford Baer Post of the South Hills.  The guest speaker was Clarence “Code” Gomberg of Post #499.  Code (pronounced Cody) is active in state and national JWV affairs and gave an update.

“As with all veterans groups, our numbers get smaller each year because most of the members are WWII vets.  In recent years, the American Legion closed 12 posts in Allegheny County.  While the JWV is obviously much smaller than the Legion and VFW, it is important that we maintain the 5 posts we have in Allegheny County without further closures and mergers.  We must find a way to connect with Jewish veterans when they separate from the service.  When I came out of the service after WWII, I was directed to a JWV officer to find out what help or services I could receive.  That doesn’t happen now and we need to change that.  Also, we need to find a way to bring in our Vietnam era and Gulf War era veterans, although there simply aren’t that many of them”.

The group posed for a picture and then shared in a meal of salmon cakes and vegetables.  A shul member donated a cake for the luncheon and in the icing it read “Thank You  JWV #785”.   There were many compliments on the Social Hall renovations.  And I suggested to Code that we could offer the Post a permanent home here in Carnegie.  By having a resident location we would be able to recruit more successfully and find those Jewish veterans in the South Hills and West Hills areas.  There are certainly more veterans in our local South Hills congregations, even some in our own congregation, who don’t know about the JWV.  His response was, “it certainly would be helpful.  Let’s consider that option.”

Pictured left to right seated: Geri Gomberg, Roseann Tisherman, Isadore Horowitz, Leslie Clifford.  Standing: Richard D’Loss, Albert Brunwasser, Martin Shor, Morton Lowe, Clarence Gomberg, Harris Tisherman.  click on photo for enlargement

See also this story on WQED about Code.

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