Demolition Stirs Memories
08/15/2025 09:51:38 AM
Aug15
Members Recall 70 years of Prayers, Good Times in the Brandriss Center
by Aaron Leibel
When workmen begin to demolish the “old building” later this month as part of the deal to build senior housing on our parking lot, more than bricks, concrete, wood and glass will be in play. For the demolition will also stimulate memories of synagogue life in the 70-year-old Rabbi Joseph M. Brandriss Education Center.
Longtime member Joan Eisenberg recalls a time when that building was Har Tzeon’s all-purpose place, home to daily, Shabbat and holiday services, weddings, b’nai mitzvah and even USY community-wide dances.
After the ceremony for the simcha, people often would go to the lobby for hors d’oeuvres while tables were set up for the main meal, the former Sisterhood vice president recalls. The lack of permanent seating facilitated the building’s versatility, she notes.
Husband and former president Bill, who began attending Har Tzeon after meeting Joan, was most impressed by the shul’s sense of community.
Sharon Cohany, a former Sisterhood president, recalled her bat mitzvah and the tutoring by Rabbi Brandriss and Cantor Olkon. Kids in HTAA attended Sunday school and Hebrew school twice a week. Most of the mothers didn’t work back then and so were available for chauffeur duty, she says.
Others may recall fondly when the High Holidays meant seating in the main sanctuary, the main building’s social hall and the Brandriss Center. For those without tickets, it was SRO. Or the seudot shlishit on Shabbat afternoons, with their good-natured banter and feeling of camaraderie.
My memories of Har-Tzeon-Agudath Achim’s “old building” center on the three remarkable men with whom I shared a table during the weekday morning prayer services during the 2010s.
On my far left was Baltimore-born Gil Waganheim. Gil spent World War II in the 11th Armored Division of General George Patton’s iconic Third Army. He and his unit fought in the Battle of the Bulge and took part in the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp. Gil said he would never forget the “horrific” conditions the inmates were forced to endure.
After the war, he studied accounting and worked for 30 years in that profession for Giant Foods, before retiring.
A widower, Gil spent the last years of his life in Florida with his two sons and their families.
From Gil, I learned the importance of maintaining one’s composure. Perhaps, his wartime experiences taught him that it was foolish and self-defeating to be rattled by life’s ups and downs, He was a pillar of tranquility.
Sitting between Gil and me was Martin Finkelstein. Born in Sopnica, Poland, Martin was serving in the Polish Army when the Germans invaded in 1939. His unit was captured and put on a train to Germany, where he and his fellow soldiers were slated to become slave laborers.
During the train ride, one of the Polish soldiers told Martin not to worry, that no-one would tell the Nazis he was Jewish. Meant to reassure him, those words convinced Martin that if he got to Germany, he was doomed. So when the train stopped, he somehow managed to get off, and, miraculously dodging bullets fired by his Nazi pursuers, escaped, returning to his home.
He survived the war as a slave laborer in several camps before being liberated by the Red Army. The Nazis had murdered his parents and two sisters, but three other sisters survived. One went to live in New York, while the other two went to Israel. Martin and his future wife Helen came to live in America.
Here, he worked as a printer for the Jewish Publication Society and the Government Printing Office before his retirement in 1984. He passed away at the age of 106.
From Martin, I learned how important it is to live according to Jewish law and custom. Obeying the mitzvot, Jewish law, was uppermost in importance for him.
On my right sat Harvey Goldfarb, one of the most amazing people I have met. Born in Radom, Poland, he was 13 at the time of the Nazi conquest of his country. For the next six years, he was imprisoned in a ghetto and then became a slave laborer in concentration camps.
Under different circumstances, I’m convinced he would have become a great attorney or author, for he was was very eloquent and a marvelous storyteller. His stories taught listeners much about life.
He related that his father wanted to move him from a Jewish to a public school. The public school principal refused to permit the transfer, supposedly because Harvey would not attend school on Shabbat. The unspoken reason may have been anti-Semitism. In any case, that problem disappeared after his dad, a tailor, made suits for the principal and his sons.
Harvey told of using the residual heat in the ghetto bakery to bake cheese cakes overnight, which he sold the following morning to hungry workers. The money he made was crucial in keeping him alive.
Harvey’s most amazing story is how, after the Nazi guards had fled, he lured French soldiers to his camp, bringing with them vital food and medications for his fellow prisoners. He persuaded them to follow him by using the one French word he knew — mademoiselle.
The Nazis murdered his whole family — parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins —with the exception of one cousin.
He and his wife Rae raised two children, with Harvey working as an appliance salesman for Sears.
Harvey, who died in 2021, taught me the importance of being proactive and not accepting the dictates of fate. “Don’t go quietly into that dark night,” might have been his lodestar.
As I said, three formidable men who, each in his own way, fought the good fight.
— Aaron Leibel
When workmen begin to demolish the “old building” later this month as part of the deal to build senior housing on our parking lot, more than bricks, concrete, wood and glass will be in play. For the demolition will also stimulate memories of synagogue life in the 70-year-old Rabbi Joseph M. Brandriss Education Center.
Longtime member Joan Eisenberg recalls a time when that building was Har Tzeon’s all-purpose place, home to daily, Shabbat and holiday services, weddings, b’nai mitzvah and even USY community-wide dances.
After the ceremony for the simcha, people often would go to the lobby for hors d’oeuvres while tables were set up for the main meal, the former Sisterhood vice president recalls. The lack of permanent seating facilitated the building’s versatility, she notes.
Husband and former president Bill, who began attending Har Tzeon after meeting Joan, was most impressed by the shul’s sense of community.
Sharon Cohany, a former Sisterhood president, recalled her bat mitzvah and the tutoring by Rabbi Brandriss and Cantor Olkon. Kids in HTAA attended Sunday school and Hebrew school twice a week. Most of the mothers didn’t work back then and so were available for chauffeur duty, she says.
Others may recall fondly when the High Holidays meant seating in the main sanctuary, the main building’s social hall and the Brandriss Center. For those without tickets, it was SRO. Or the seudot shlishit on Shabbat afternoons, with their good-natured banter and feeling of camaraderie.
My memories of Har-Tzeon-Agudath Achim’s “old building” center on the three remarkable men with whom I shared a table during the weekday morning prayer services during the 2010s.
On my far left was Baltimore-born Gil Waganheim. Gil spent World War II in the 11th Armored Division of General George Patton’s iconic Third Army. He and his unit fought in the Battle of the Bulge and took part in the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp. Gil said he would never forget the “horrific” conditions the inmates were forced to endure.
After the war, he studied accounting and worked for 30 years in that profession for Giant Foods, before retiring.
A widower, Gil spent the last years of his life in Florida with his two sons and their families.
From Gil, I learned the importance of maintaining one’s composure. Perhaps, his wartime experiences taught him that it was foolish and self-defeating to be rattled by life’s ups and downs, He was a pillar of tranquility.
Sitting between Gil and me was Martin Finkelstein. Born in Sopnica, Poland, Martin was serving in the Polish Army when the Germans invaded in 1939. His unit was captured and put on a train to Germany, where he and his fellow soldiers were slated to become slave laborers.
During the train ride, one of the Polish soldiers told Martin not to worry, that no-one would tell the Nazis he was Jewish. Meant to reassure him, those words convinced Martin that if he got to Germany, he was doomed. So when the train stopped, he somehow managed to get off, and, miraculously dodging bullets fired by his Nazi pursuers, escaped, returning to his home.
He survived the war as a slave laborer in several camps before being liberated by the Red Army. The Nazis had murdered his parents and two sisters, but three other sisters survived. One went to live in New York, while the other two went to Israel. Martin and his future wife Helen came to live in America.
Here, he worked as a printer for the Jewish Publication Society and the Government Printing Office before his retirement in 1984. He passed away at the age of 106.
From Martin, I learned how important it is to live according to Jewish law and custom. Obeying the mitzvot, Jewish law, was uppermost in importance for him.
On my right sat Harvey Goldfarb, one of the most amazing people I have met. Born in Radom, Poland, he was 13 at the time of the Nazi conquest of his country. For the next six years, he was imprisoned in a ghetto and then became a slave laborer in concentration camps.
Under different circumstances, I’m convinced he would have become a great attorney or author, for he was was very eloquent and a marvelous storyteller. His stories taught listeners much about life.
He related that his father wanted to move him from a Jewish to a public school. The public school principal refused to permit the transfer, supposedly because Harvey would not attend school on Shabbat. The unspoken reason may have been anti-Semitism. In any case, that problem disappeared after his dad, a tailor, made suits for the principal and his sons.
Harvey told of using the residual heat in the ghetto bakery to bake cheese cakes overnight, which he sold the following morning to hungry workers. The money he made was crucial in keeping him alive.
Harvey’s most amazing story is how, after the Nazi guards had fled, he lured French soldiers to his camp, bringing with them vital food and medications for his fellow prisoners. He persuaded them to follow him by using the one French word he knew — mademoiselle.
The Nazis murdered his whole family — parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins —with the exception of one cousin.
He and his wife Rae raised two children, with Harvey working as an appliance salesman for Sears.
Harvey, who died in 2021, taught me the importance of being proactive and not accepting the dictates of fate. “Don’t go quietly into that dark night,” might have been his lodestar.
As I said, three formidable men who, each in his own way, fought the good fight.
— Aaron Leibel
Sat, September 13 2025 20 Elul 5785