|
As members of the
Horowitz Families Association in Israel, who live under the continuous
threat of terrorism, we wish to express our heartfelt sympathy to our
American friends and the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks in
the USA
Annual Hanuccah Meeting of
the Horowitz Families Association and the Conference "Horowitz and Chelouche
family members in the early days of Tel-Aviv" will take place at the
conference hall of the Bible Museum in Tel-Aviv (16 Rothschild Boulevard) on
Tuesday, December 11th, 2001, the second day of Hanuccah, at 17:00. To see
its agenda,
click here.
Since one of the purposes of the Horowitz
Families Association is to document the history of Horowitz families in
general (including branches spelling Hurwitz, Ish-Hurwitz, Gurevitch, etc),
and the contribution of outstanding Horowitz individuals to their community,
we intend to gather and to publish relevant information on these subjects.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Chaim Horovitz, member of the Board of
the Association, has taken charge of the library and the archives of our
society. He is presently cataloguing the existing material in the library,
and the results will be published in due time on the website. In order to
enlarge the scope of the documentation, we appeal to our Members and Friends
to send us relevant testimonies about historical and familial events and
personal biographies. We shall welcome materials related to the Horowitz
heritage. For further details, please contact our website or directly Dr.
Chaim Horovitz, on his e-mail:c-horov@zahav.net.il.
|
In Memoriam
LEAH AGROSKIN (nee Gurevich) 1923-2001
We regretfully announce the death of our
member and dear friend, Leah Agroskin (nee Gurevich), on July 7, 2001 at
the Jerusalem Shaarei Zedek hospital.
Lea was born in Moscow in 1923 into the
family of an acclaimed Russian Soviet drama and film writer, Itzhak
Gurevich (penname Natan Zarkhi). Her formative years were marked by the
dramatic events of early Soviet history - the Stalinist purges of the
1930s - 1950s and the outbreak of World War II. She never joined any
communist organizations, and her family home in Moscow served as a
meeting place for liberal Jewish artists and intellectuals - from Moscow
actors of the nascent Hebrew-language Habima Theater to Yiddish poets
and actors associated with the Moscow Yiddish theater and cultural
institutions. She graduated from high school on June 22, 1941 - the day
Germany invaded the Soviet Union. During the war years, she worked on
the construction of Moscow city defense lines and subsequently, at a
defense industry plant in the Urals. After returning to Moscow in 1944,
she received an advanced degree in English-language teaching and was
later appointed Assistant Professor of English at Irkutsk University in
Siberia. In 1949, she returned to Moscow and married a reputable
otorhinolaryngologist, Dr. Shmuel Agroskin, whose patients included
members of the Soviet political elite. During the so-called Doctors'
Plot (1952-53) Lea and her family lived under constant threat of arrest.
In 1957, she resumed her professional teaching career. Until her
emigration to Israel in 1977, she taught English at Moscow University
and at the Naval Department, where she earned the reputation of a most
popular and well-loved teacher. In 1977, Lea and her 73-year old husband
gave up their successful careers and comfortable lives to make Aliya to
Israel. She settled in Jerusalem and lived there until her death on July
7, 2001. She worked as an editor and proofreader of Russian-English
translations, while continuing to serve as an informal educator and
English teacher to neighbors and friends in her community. Lea learned
Hebrew and felt a close emotional connection to Israel, its history,
values and people. She helped dozens of new immigrants, relatives and
friends to establish themselves in their new homeland. Lea was a
beautiful, delicate woman, a refined, cultivated lover of poetry,
classical music and the arts, as well as an excellent story-teller. At
the same time, she was a generous person who extended her kind and
helping hand to people in her community in Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem,
irrespective of ethnic origin or level of religious observance. A woman
of extraordinary memory at 78, Lea kept alive the stories and memories
of her branch of the Gurevich family currently residing in Israel, as
well as Riga, Latvia and St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia. She is
deeply missed by her daughter and son-in-law, Natalie and Steven Hassman,
as well as by her extended family in Israel, the US, England, Latvia and
Russia.
May her memory be a
blessing! |
|
