Our Past, Our Community JEWISH HISTORY IN NORTHEAST FLORIDA AND BEYOND Photos courtesy of the archives at Congregation Ahavath Chesed-The Temple
KOL YISRAEL AREIVIM ZEH BAZEH By Guy I. Benrubi, MD
of 1947. At the time, her father Mort Adell was the “man from Joint”—JDC, who was sent to Salonika in Greece to For the entirety of my life I have been imbued with the see if he could organize the remnants of the Jewish concept of Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Bazeh. The reason is community. The prewar Jewish population of Salonika not hard to understand. My parents, who were Holocaust numbered 60,000, while the 1947 population was barely survivors were able to avoid starvation in post war Greece 2,000 survivors. Two of those were my parents Isidore and because of the intervention of the JDC. As a child of eight, I Mathilda Benrubi. remember being taken by my parents to a suburb of Athens From Jean’s letter to her father January 30, 1947: where they joined agents of JDC and JAFI to help process One of the questions that someone asked yesterday was how he Jewish refugees who had could get some optical been shipped there from instruments from the states. Nasser’s Egypt. As my This man, Mr. Benrubi by parents were fluent in name, has just returned to his Greek, English, French, and optical business after having Ladino, they were been in a displaced persons invaluable to the effort. A camp, after the war. When he year and a half later, it was returned he found his shop my family’s turn, as we taken over by Greeks, and the immigrated to the U.S. and equipment and stock all gone. landed on a Westside New He had a heck of a lot of York City pier on a very trouble in getting these back, cold January day of 1958. because the government talks Our apprehension and a lot about their concern for disorientation were the Jews and actually does assuaged by the presence of nothing for their welfare. a tall and confident man This Mr. Benrubi and his who had a badge on his wife are about Mort and my lapel that said “HIAS” ages, and have not one living Over the years with my relative out of the 35 or more Collection of letters written in 1947. multiple roles in the they previously had. They Jacksonville Federation, I have recounted many of these seem to be a very nice couple, and if he had these instruments he stories during missions, caucuses, and allocations meetings. would really be able to rehabilitate himself. He has borrowed Recently I received from a friend a packet of letters which some money set up by the Loan Kassa of AJDC (Joint) here to had been written by her parents during the first six months
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KOL YISRAEL, continued pg. 19
