Hella Rosenbloom Weitzman

I was sorry to hear about your mother's passing away. She was a very good friend of my parents. Please accept my condolences.

My sincere sorrow on the passing of Hela. A great Lady. Hela was a very good friend of my parents, Alex Z'L and rosa Imber, they lived in the same building and had a great friendship for many years. I also got to know Hela...a truly wonderful lady.

Hela went by many names in her life: Chaya, Helen, Hela, Pivnik, Rosenbloom, Weitzman, Doda Henna… for me, she was always Safta. My guess is that she was always a Safta. Safta was born in Lodz, Poland in 1924. Her parents were Avrum and Ethel. I am only now uncovering facts about her past that have long been dormant. Like many of her peers, Safta rarely spoke of her life before or during the Holocaust. Much of what we have are brief glimpses into the enormous obstacles she was forced to overcome to survive. Fleeing Poland when she was 15, feeling betrayed by her birthplace. Finding refuge and respite from welcoming Russians in Siberia with her sister Paula. Her blues eyes, which gave her and all of her offspring, a chance to survive. It would be easy to label Safta as a survivor. I don’t think this word does her justice. Safta was not one to simply survive. Wherever she would go – Siberia, Israel, San Francisco, Toronto – wherever she would go, Safta would thrive. She was a formidable women. While living in Siberia, Safta met Simcha Rosenblum. By all accounts, Simcha was a sweet, beautiful, quiet soul. The poor guy didn’t stand a chance. They married and she gave birth to Arieh in the middle of the war. This was Safta’s first middle finger to the soldiers who drove her from her home and family. Her new family made it past the war and found their way to Israel. They opened up a butcher shop, bought an apartment in Tel Aviv, and Safta gave birth to her second son, Haim. Safta cared so much for her boys, more than anything in the world. She gave everything she had to give them a good, safe life. She did her best to shield them from the horrors of her past. It’s easy to forget that Safta took on the enormous responsibility of parenthood though she had spent the majority of her life without parents of her own. Still, her family meant everything to her and she would display that care in keeping Arieh and Haim safe, up until they were 60. When her boys moved to Canada, a place nearly as cold as Siberia, Safta and Saba Simcha made the move too. Nothing was going to keep her from being their Ema, even when her grandchildren were born. Safta and Saba Simcha moved into an apartment on Antibes, just down the hall from Munisch and Fela Weitzman. Simcha and Munish were best friends, and Safta would tell me stories of how much Fela would help her and Simcha. When Saba Simcha and Fela both had passed away, Safta and Munish married in what seemed like a marriage of convenience. Over the next 30 years, it was anything but. Munish worshipped Safta and was in awe of her strength. He always said he had the last word in their arguments, which were always, ‘OK Safta’. The two of them grew old together in that apartment in Antibes. Together, they continued to thrive. I remember spending Shabbat dinners at their apartment in Antibes. Munisch’s bristly moustache scratching one side of my cheek and Safta’s red lipstick leaving a mark on the other. I would run into their little study, beeline towards the mini-fridge, and pull out 4 ice cold Canada Dry’s and one seltzer water for Munisch. The whole apartment smelled like a shtetl – the smell of garlic and onions overpowering everything. Frying schnitzel. Drumsticks. Chicken bones. Kreplach. Kneidelach. Gefilte fish. Koopeetke. Kaved Katzootz. Bitches - which to be clear, was the Polish word for Lima beans. I cannot tell you how much joy that brought to 10 year old me. Safta stepping out of the kitchen with bowls of soup, shouting, ‘who wants bitches’? After dinner I would scamper off to their candy bowl, fishing out Werthers Originals, Starburst, and Moritz Ice Squares. I’d run off to watch TV while the rest of the family finished the meal. I bring this up because it was something I always respected about Safta. She was cool. She would be cool in any era. She was sure of herself and confident. Me running to the other room to watch TV didn’t offend her. She never made it about her. She valued independence. And damn it was so nice to see her smile. She had a smile that would light up a room, breaking across her typically stoic face. Her laughter brought out smiles from the rest of us, and would pop up in the most unexpected places. She would laugh at the face of her great-grand child covered in spaghetti and tomato sauce. She would laugh at inappropriate jokes never meant for her ears. She would always laugh when she remembered the story of me nearly heading off to school having forgotten my shoes. Even on the last day she was with us, she laughed her ass off at the story and told us she would never forget it. Safta wasn’t perfect. She was always full of these funny contradictions. She fled the Nazis when she was 15 to save her own life, yet she would be worried about Aba going to the movies in Sunny Isles, Florida… at age 50. Safta was brutally honest. And sometimes, it was brutal. Tall, short, underweight, overweight, white, black – whatever she saw, she was going to say it. And she was unapologetic. She was literally, without apology. To her she wasn’t wrong. One classic Saftaism - ‘I wish I could be wrong’. But Safta didn’t need to be perfect. Safta needed to be strong. She needed to be relentless. Unwavering. So she was. Safta was the most adaptable person I’d ever known. She adapted to the ghetto, to the freezing cold of Siberia, to the sweltering heat of Israel, to butchering animals, to selling bagels. She adapted to Polish, Russian, Hebrew, and then English. She adapted to life without Saba Simcha and to life without Munish. She adapted to the fractured relationships in her family and to the confusion and anxiety that comes with dementia. Fixed atop the adaptability was Safta’s defining trait – generosity. Safta would always share a story from the holocaust. Safta and a Christian girl around her age waited hours and hours in line for a loaf of bread. The girl knew Safta was Jewish. She saw Safta receive a loaf, but she herself was denied. Safta knew the girl could have taken Safta’s bread. All she had to do was tell them Safta was Jewish. The girl didn’t say a word. Later that day, Safta returned to the girl and gave her half of the loaf. Safta felt it was the right thing to do That generosity popped up in a thousand ways over her life. So much of who we are and what we have, is a direct result from her tireless work. She worked herself to the bone for her children, and her children’s children. She would always come to Shabbat dinners with challa and cash, ready to sneak coins into each of our pockets, as if we were the only ones getting this type of special treatment. I would drop her back off at her apartment after Shabbat dinner and she would, unfailingly, slip me a 20. A cab ride would have been cheaper. Whenever someone commented on Safta’s giving spirit, she would say ‘it’s so much better to give than to take’. She was afraid of being unable to give. She was afraid of having to rely on others, even her own children. She had spent most of her life as an independent woman, standing on her own two feet. What incredible inspiration she could be for the women of the world. And she had lessons to teach. Safta always had a stash of sayings about living a good life. I’ll do my best to translate some of those lessons to English. - Children don’t need democracy, they need a dictatorship - Better the kids cry than the parent cries - If liking sweet wine makes someone stupid, then I guess I’m stupid! - It’s too dry - It’s too salty - It’s not salty enough - Zai Guzent – stay healthy - Walk, Walk, and walk again - A son is a son until he meets a wife, a daughter is for life The last 4 years of Safta’s life were hard. Though they weren’t without bright lights. Dementia may have robbed Safta of her memories but it didn’t rob her of her values. And it certainly didn’t rob her of her strength. She would still wrap her hand around your arm and pull you in close as she told you a secret. She would lift her great-grandchildren with little effort. If she saw you leaving the house with wet hair in the cold? You were done. She still slipped us cash when she saw us, sometimes forgetting that she had already given us that night. She would still be focused on her health – walking, eating right, and applying a million eye drops a day. She would still laugh at the story of me and no shoes. She was still feisty and she still stood on her own two feet, in her own apartment. At 93 years old, Safta felt her age and was ready to go. She was afraid but also ready. She just wanted to be able to go in her sleep, without any pain. I am so grateful that we could fulfill that wish for her. I am so happy that for the last year and a half, she had more than a caregiver in Sabitra – she had a companion. I am so happy she was able to see her sons shake hands and share words after years of radio silence. Her final thoughts and final words were always about her family. She accomplished her goal – to provide us with a life that was better than the one she had. And she did it looking cool, wearing her red lipstick up until the end. Safta – you did it. You did it for all of us. For Haim and Rutie, for Esther and Arieh, Oren and Bonnie, Tal and Aurelia, Maya, Ronit, Mitch, Mika, Morielle, Ilanit, Yonatan, Lily, Aya, Lyla, Kobi, Jack, and me. Some of your great-grandchildren are old enough to remember you for life. That is a special legacy. Together, let us raise a glass of some sweet, stupid wine for Safta. Let us celebrate her strength and her smile. Let’s not forget that when life brings us down, we must continue to walk, walk, and walk again.