Presented by Dorothy Suzi Osher in memory of Alfred Osher.
Watch videos of the induction ceremonies and see the list of current members at the links below.
Those inducted into the Hall of Fame reflect the Jewish value of making the world a better place through outstanding accomplishments and/or humanitarian and/or philanthropic endeavors.
Albert “Jim” Abrahamson, became the first Jewish student accepted to Bowdoin College in 1923 following his graduation from Portland High School. His intellect was such that Bowdoin President K.C.M. Sills spotted his application and offered sufficient scholarship aid which, together with part-time work, enabled Jim to attend the College and to graduate in 1926 at the top of his class.
After receiving his Master of Economics from Columbia in 1927, he returned to Bowdoin College becoming the institution’s first Jewish Faculty member at the age of twenty-two. He served the College for fifty years, becoming the Dean of Faculty from 1950 to 1961.
Serving was a way of life for this native Portlander, the youngest of five children who emigrated from the Ukraine with their parents Rose and Lazarus and settled on Munjoy Hill. These roots and family values shaped Jim’s view of people and the world no matter where he traveled, and the powerful people he worked with. Several faculty members recalled that when Jim knew that a student was having financial difficulties, funds from an “anonymous donor” would suddenly be made available to dispense to the needy student. Jim had a big heart and, according to Professor Bill Shipman, Jim had subsidized the law school education of several students as well.
Jim’s talents did not go unnoticed. Even though a Republican, in 1934 he was invited to join the Roosevelt administration as Staff Economist for the Cabinet Committee on Price Policy. Jim thrived on being a member of FDR’s “brains trust”.
In 1935, W.P.A. National Administrator Harry Hopkins installed Jim as State Administrator, prompting howls of protest from both sides. Republicans distrusted his connections to the Roosevelt administration, while Democrats thought he was a radical Republican with “socialist tendencies.” It took a little time, but Jim’s firm and non-partisan hand put 11,000 Mainers back to work on projects all over the State. He managed a $7 million annual budget ($128 million in today’s dollars), obtained relief aid following the devastating spring floods of 1936, and gradually he won the skeptics over before he was thirty years old!
Jim became Executive Director of the Jewish Occupational Council in New York in 1939-40 and Executive Director of the National Refugee Service in New York from 1941-43. Jim gave a series of speeches encouraging the incorporation of refugees into the American war effort, since refugees were clear about what they were fleeing from and what they were fleeing to.
He enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army in 1943 and was quickly assigned to the Office of Strategic Services in Washington. The year 1944 saw him as the Assistant Executive Director of the U.S. War Refugee Board. While the Board did not have a long life, it was instrumental in redirecting some strategic bombing in Europe and getting food and medical supplies to the concentration camps.
Jim became increasingly interested in Israel, not only because of his secular religious beliefs, but also his passion for refugees and underdogs. In 1954, he was Economic Consultant to the Israel Study Mission sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal.
Jim’s health began to deteriorate in the early 1970’s forcing him to retire in 1976. He retained his characteristic clarity of mind and compassion for others until his death in 1988. The Albert Abrahamson Reading Room was dedicated in 1984 in appreciation for all that Jim had done for Bowdoin College over the years.
Jim’s Legacy may be summed up by Professor William Shipman, “While we think of him now as having made great contributions to his College, he might equally well be remembered as one of Bowdoin’s better contributions to the 20th century.”
Linda and Joel Abromson were married in 1959 and were together pretty much non-stop until Joel’s untimely death in 2002. They had three children, Lori, Leslie and Eric. While Linda and Joel had many similar interests and endeavors as a team, they also had their own specific areas of focus in regard to community service and Tikkun Olam.
Joel Abromson (1938-2002) was a Republican State Senator representing Falmouth, Long Island and part of Portland (District 27). He sponsored legislation to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. When he died, the Maine Lesbian Gay Political Alliance called Abromson a "champion and a true friend".
Joel found energy and inspiration in his connection to Jewish life and was very active in leadership roles including as President of the Jewish Federation of Southern Maine; Chairman of Combined Jewish Appeal, Portland, Maine; National Chairman of the Young Leadership Cabinet, United Jewish Appeal. Outside the Jewish community, he also served as Trustee and Corporator of Maine Medical Center; Trustee and President of Spurwink School, Corporator and President of Boys and Girls Club Greater Portland; and President of the Bowdoin College Alumni Council. He was a successful businessman and always supported community fundraising efforts. Joel and Linda’s friends seeded the Joel and Linda Abromson Award, an award given by the JCA of Southern Maine to fund projects that afford adult applicants the opportunity to explore Jewish life in a unique and creative way.
Linda Elowitch Abromson (1939-2017) started her professional career as a middle school math teacher and then spent the next several years raising their three children.
In 1974, Linda began what would become an illustrious political career, serving on the Portland School Committee for six years (two as Chairman) and 12 years on the Portland City Council, including a term as Mayor in 1982-83. After stepping down from elected office, Linda served for nine years on the Maine Human Rights Commission, a position she was passionate about.
In 1973, Linda and Joel participated in the first mission of American Jews to Poland to witness first-hand the remnants of the atrocities committed by the Nazis in Europe. That trip changed their lives, and Linda became a passionate speaker to adults and school children all over the country about the Holocaust, always reminding her audiences that we must "Never Forget."
Linda was an ardent fundraiser for the Jewish Federation and served on the Boards of the National Council of Jewish Women, Temple Beth El, United Way, the Portland Public Library, and the Maine Medical Center.
In recognition of the tremendous positive impact Joel and Linda have had on the Greater Portland community, in 2003 the 33,000-square-foot “Joel and Linda Abromson Center” was constructed on the campus of USM, including the 520-seat Hannaford Lecture Hall. The State of Maine is lucky to have had the Abromsons’ friendship and example.
The Adelman family has contributed to civic and Jewish life in Aroostook County for three generations. Hiram, an immigrant from the Ukraine, opened a dry goods store in Mars Hill in 1903. In 1908, he married Katherine Goldsmith from Old Town. They had five children: Gertrude, Elizabeth, Yale, Neil and Milton. Their store and farm flourished and became a family enterprise, with Yale returning home from the University of Alabama to run the farms, Elizabeth and her husband Jack coming back from New York to manage the store, and Milton returning home after the navy and college to assist with the farm.
During the 1930s, Hiram helped initiate a committee in order to establish an organized Jewish community in Aroostook County and neighboring New Brunswick, Canada. In 1948, Hiram and Katie donated a Torah and presented it to the B’nai B’rith that met over the H.B. Green store in Presque Isle.
When Hiram passed away in 1951, his legacy garnered the support of the northern Maine Jewish community, particularly in helping to establish a synagogue. In October 1953 the newly built Aroostook Hebrew Community Center in Presque Isle was dedicated.
Upon his death, his children and their spouses continued his legacies. Yale, Jack and Milton were active in Rotary, the Masons and B’nai B’rith. Yale was a leader of the local mental health association, the founder of the Aroostook Health Center, a Vice President of the Camp Lown Association and a University of Maine Presque Isle trustee. Milton was a board member and then Chair of the Aroostook Medical Center in Presque Isle.
Mary and Elizabeth served as Officers of the Aroostook Hebrew Community Center. Gloria, an active and supportive member of the synagogue, served as the first director of nurses at Fort Fairfield Hospital and then the administrator of The Aroostook Health Center nursing home. Mary, Elizabeth and Gloria all served on various committees of the school board and also focused on local organizations that assisted those in need.
Today in Mars Hill are the Hiram Adelman Memorial Fire station, plaques at the town’s pool and activity center indicating Adelman support, land donated to the town by the Adelman family for a small park, the Gloria Adelman wing of the Aroostook Health Center, and high school scholarships awarded in memory of Yale and Mary Adelman.
The work and lives of the Adelman family reflect the pioneer spirit and dedication to the community through which Jewish men and women became the anchors of life in rural Maine.
Harold Alfond was born in Swampscott, Massachusetts in 1914. He credited much of his life success to lessons learned as an outstanding high school athlete. He went to work after high school at a shoe manufacturing business in Kennebunk, Maine.
In 1940 he and his father purchased an abandoned factory in Norridgewock and launched a shoe company. Harold sold the company during World War II but stayed on as president for 25 years.
In 1958 Harold started the Dexter Shoe Company in Dexter, Maine. He was the recipient of the Ted Williams Distinguished American Award and the national Alexis de Tocqueville Society Award from United Way.
Dorothy Bibby Alfond was born in 1916 in Waterville where her father started Levine's Store for Men and Boys. She married Harold in 1943. Bibby became a pillar of the community, serving on many boards for institutions that benefitted from her wise counsel and financial generosity.
Harold and Bibby were unstinting philanthropists in Maine, making large donations for athletics, health care, and education. Over 600 students have received Alfond scholarships since 1950.
Buildings which bear the Alfond name include the athletic center and senior residential complex at Colby College; the sports stadium at the University of New England (UNE); the recreation center, middle school, and family cottages at Good Will-Hinckley School; the baseball diamond at Husson University; the athletic center at Thomas College; the campus of the Maine Children's Home for Little Wanderers; the student center and artificial athletic turf field at Maine Maritime Academy; the athletic center at Kents Hill School; and the youth recreation center and municipal pool in Waterville. Additional major grants were given to the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine and the Two Ten International Foundation which supports displaced shoe industry employees.
Born and raised in Boston, MA to Russian immigrants, Dr. Albert Aranson received his education at Boston Latin School before matriculating at Harvard University where he graduated cum laude in 1935 with a BS degree in Biochemistry. While at Harvard, he played football and wrestled, winning the 1935 intercollegiate heavyweight wrestling championship of New England. Having decided to attend medical school over the rabbinate and biblical archeology, he endured three attempts to be accepted because of the Jewish admissions quotas at the time, finally receiving his MD degree at Boston University School of Medicine. Despite anti-Semitism levied by the faculty there, he graduated cum laude at the top of his class in 1941. He completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Boston City Hospital from 1941-1944.
During World War II, Dr. Aranson served as a lieutenant in the Sixth Marine Division in the Pacific arena as a medical officer and assistant surgeon. After WWII, he trained in Pulmonary Medicine at the Cushing VA Medical Center in Framingham, MA, and in bronchoesophagology at the renowned Jackson Clinic at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. In 1947, Dr. Aranson became the first Chief of Pulmonary Medicine directly out of fellowship at Cushing, a promotion almost unheard of in those days. There, he pioneered the use of streptomycin, the first medication developed to treat tuberculosis (TB).
Dr. Aranson married the former Golde Leah Rodman in 1942, and in 1948 the couple moved to Portland, Maine, where they raised 4 accomplished sons.
Dr. Aranson’s medical career in Maine spanned 45 years. From 1948-1967, he was in private practice in Internal Medicine and Pulmonology. During this period, he established the State’s first Respiratory Therapy departments, pulmonary function laboratories, and intensive care units at the Maine Medical Center (MMC) and Mercy Hospital, and the first TB clinic and Division of Pulmonary Medicine at MMC. In 1962, Dr. Aranson was appointed Chief of Medicine at MMC. In 1967, he gave up his private practice to become that hospital’s first full-time Chief of Medicine, a position he held for 20 years. That era witnessed one of the most dramatic growth periods of the State’s largest general hospital. In 1968, Dr. Aranson took on the tobacco lobby by having cigarette machines banned at MMC.
In 1969, Dr. Aranson became Director of Medical Education at MMC. In that capacity, he was instrumental in establishing Maine’s “Medical School Without Walls,” a compact with Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of Vermont College of Medicine, to facilitate acceptance of Maine students to medical school. Dr. Aranson was a Professor of Medicine at both medical schools. With selfless dedication to patient care and legendary teaching, Dr. Aranson trained hundreds of students of nursing, medicine, and respiratory therapy, many of whom chose to settle in Maine because of his encouragement.
Dr. Aranson held numerous leadership positions in major local, state, and national medical organizations, including as president of the Maine Thoracic Society, founder and president of the Maine Chapter of the American Society of Internal Medicine, and Governor of the State of Maine for the American College of Physicians and the American College of Chest Physicians. Dr. Aranson was a fellow in both colleges. His memberships also included the American Thoracic Society and the American Physicians Fellowship for Medicine in Israel, among several others.
Dr. Aranson was the recipient of many prominent awards during his career, including the Laureate Award from the Maine Chapter of the American College of Physicians, the Koch Award from the Maine Bureau of Health’s Division of Disease Control, the Roselle W. Huddilston Award from the American Lung Association of Maine, and the Legends Award from the American Association for Respiratory Care.
Aside from his medical career, Dr. Aranson was an eclectic individual with many hobbies, interests, and talents, including sailing, horticulture, and cooking. Neighbors and friends knew him not only as a medical doctor, but as a doctor of house repairs, often calling upon him to diagnose and fix plumbing, heating, and electrical problems. He built his first color television set and even designed his own house of 47 years. Dr. Aranson was an avid reader who considered books sacred tools of learning, which were seldom found far from his side. He espoused that reading and a good education were paramount to making something of oneself. He was a scholar of biblical exegesis and archeology, theology, and anthropology, and was fascinated by the history of scientific discoveries.
Dr. Aranson was a member of the Jewish Federation and Temple Beth El, where he served as its vice president and president, chairman of its Jewish Education Committee, and adult advisor to the United Synagogue Youth.
David Astor (1919- 2011) was the son of the late Max and Sonja (Novick) Astor. He grew up on Munjoy Hill where he met his wife Esta Venner. Dave was a graduate of Portland High School and of the University of Maine in Orono. He will be remembered for his philosophy, 'life is a continuing adventure', which he embraced through his high school days, throughout college, and into his time in the Marine Corps. After being stationed in Quantico, VA., David served in the Pacific theater of war and was discharged in 1945 after receiving many citations and commendations. Following the war David worked with his father at the Kaiser Frazer dealership. He was then asked by WGME to develop a television show. Dave produced one of Maine's best loved homegrown TV shows “The Dave Astor Show: For Teenagers Only” which first aired in 1956. The show inspired countless young people to pursue careers in music by featuring live performances from local high school kids dancing, lip synching, and singing. He will be remembered for saying, “Students could receive a C on their report card and still play their varsity sports - but only kids with the Honor Roll were allowed on my show.” The show remained on the air for over 16 years on both WGME 13 and WCSH 6. David was also one of the founders of Center Day Camp in North Windham, Maine; directed many plays at the Portland Players; was a Board Member at Cedars; was a member of the Portland Rotary for many years; was a lifelong member at Temple Beth El; and served on various committees at the Jewish Community Center.
Louis Bernstein, a graduate of Bowdoin College and Peabody Law School, served five years as judge in district court, five years in superior court, and one year on the Maine Supreme Court. Louis served as corporator of the Portland Savings Bank. Bowdoin College bestowed an honorary Doctor of Law Degree on him in 1973.
He had a love of Judaism that inspired him to serve as secretary for United Hebrew Charities of Maine which oversaw the Hebrew Free Loan Society that gave interest free loans to the poor to start businesses or pay for medicine and food. He was a charter member of Jewish War Veterans, and prior to World War II he helped create the Jewish Federation for Displaced Persons in Europe and was one of the first to lead a bond drive for Israel. In 1937 Louis was the moving force in creating the Jewish Community Center, and became its first president.
Louis served on the Executive Committee of Social Agencies and was the first Jew named general chairman of the Portland Community Chest in 1952. He was elected to the Portland School Board and the City Council. He also headed the Civilian Defense Program and conducted classes for the American Red Cross. Selma and Louis started a scholarship fund at Bowdoin College that remains active today.
Israel was the first Portland Jew to graduate from Harvard undergraduate and Harvard Law School. He became a prime mover in the development of new civil rules adopted by Maine's judiciary system. Israel was also the driving force behind the founding of Casco Bank and Trust Company, of which he became a director.
He had an appreciation of camping and helped young boys benefit from a summer camp experience. He was also a big supporter of Boy Scouts, receiving the cherished Silver Beaver award for Distinguished Service to Boyhood.
Israel was a great volunteer in the Maine Jewish community, founding and serving as president of the Portland Jewish Federation, chairing the United Jewish Appeal Campaign for six years, and founding and serving as first president of the Jewish Historical Society of the Maine Jewish Council.
His wife, Rebecca Thurman Bernstein was born in Boston. One of 10 women in a class of 113, she received her LL.B from Boston University Law School in 1917, graduating magna cum laude, and received her LL.M., also from Boston University, in 1918. She was a member of the Massachusetts and Maine bars.
In 1968, Rebecca was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanities Award by the Israel Bond organization. She was cited in the November 19, 1968, Portland Press Herald for “her outstanding contributions over many years to the human values of the people of Portland.” Concern for the human condition was the focus of Bernstein’s long and productive life.
She was admired and respected by the greater community as well as the Jewish community. She belonged to the National Council of Jewish Women and served as president of the Portland and New England Sections and also on the national board. She served as vice president of the Jewish Federation, and as a life director of Portland’s Jewish Community Center.
Health and social issues that affected all citizens were her prime concern. She served as a director of the Community Chest, the precursor of the United Fund. She was a life board member of Child and Family Services and a member of the women’s board of Portland’s largest hospital, Maine Medical Center.
Sumner followed in his father's footsteps by graduating from Harvard undergrad which he entered at age 16, and Harvard Law. He volunteered greatly in the Maine Jewish community, helping establish a cemetery for Conservative Jews with non-Jewish spouses. He helped his father break the bar against Jews in the Rotary Club and joined Brotherhood Lodge because Jews were not admitted to the Masons. He presented anti-bigotry materials to teachers in public schools. He helped Rabbi Sky of Portland’s Temple Beth El march in Selma for civil rights by selling Israel Development Bonds.
Sumner won election to the Portland City Council and the Board of Directors of the Portland Savings Bank. He raised funds for the Community Chest (later known as the United Fund), the YMCA, the Republican Party, and served as director of the Boy Scouts. In addition, he became chairman of the Maine Board of Bar Examiners.
Sumner served on the national board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that lobbied the US government on behalf of Israel.
Roz graduated from Radcliffe College where she was an economics major and participated in Zionist activities. Ultimately she attended and graduated from the University of Maine School of Law.
Roz became the first woman to serve on Bowdoin College's Board of Overseers and did so for over twenty years. During this time she helped eliminate fraternities at Bowdoin.
Roz served as president of the National Council of Jewish Women, was a founder of the Head Start program in Portland, a member of the University of Southern Maine Board of Visitors, a member of the Maine Health Care Finance Commission, a trustee of the Maine Medical Center, and a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, to name just a few of her volunteer positions. She also played an instrumental role in the construction of Reiche School in Portland.
About 38 years after coming to Portland, she graduated from the University of Maine School of Law in 1986.
Leah Binder graduated from Waynflete and went on to earn a BA from Brandeis and two Masters from the University of Pennsylvania, one from the Annenberg School of Communication and the other from the Fels Institute of Government. She was grateful to the National Council of Jewish Women for a scholarship that supported her educational journey. Today Leah is among the most prominent national leaders in the movement to improve hospital care in the United States, serving as president and CEO of The Leapfrog Group, a national non-profit watchdog that advocates for more hospital transparency and major improvements in patient safety and wellbeing. Under her leadership Leapfrog launched the Hospital Safety Grade -the A, B, C, D or F assigned every six months to hospitals based on infections, injuries, and medical and medication errors (www.hospitalsafetygrade.org). Leah is a regular contributor to Forbes.com and other national publications. She was named on Becker’s list of the 50 most powerful people in healthcare and is consistently cited by Modern Healthcare among the 100 most influential people and top 25 women in healthcare.
Before joining Leapfrog in 2008, Leah spent eight years as vice president at the award-winning Franklin Community Health Network in Farmington, now part of MaineHealth. Previously, she was a senior policy advisor for the New York City Mayor’s Office, and she started her career at the National League for Nursing, where she handled policy and communications for more than six years.
Leah was born and raised in Portland with her brothers Abraham and Aaron. Her father Henry Binder (1942-1984) was principal of Falmouth elementary and middle schools, and her mother Dauna Binder (1940-2024) an elementary school teacher. The family joined the first Havorah formed by Rabbi Harry Sky in the late 1970s. For decades Cantor Kurt Messerschmidt would greet Leah as “my little Esther” recalling her 15 minutes of stardom in the Temple Beth El Purim musical. She married another lifelong Mainer, Sam Elowitch, in 1997, and they have two sons, Henry, 26, and Kacey, 18. The family resides in the Washington D.C. area.
Dr. Joel Warren Bloom was born in 1916 in New York City and later lived in Newton, Massachusetts and in Otisfield, Maine. From 1947 through 1996 he was Director of Camp Powhatan for Boys on Pleasant Lake in Otisfield. As a child, beginning in 1921, he spent summers as a camper at Powhatan, which was founded that year by his father, Ira “Chief ” Bloom, a teacher in the New York City school system. Dr. Bloom graduated from the University of Arizona and earned a master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University before serving in the Navy in World War II as a PT Boat officer.
In 1951, Dr. Bloom earned his doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University, writing his dissertation on interest-motivated camping, which posits that campers most benefit from selecting activities rather than being assigned them. His ideas challenged existing camping dogma, and he soon became a leading voice in progressive summer camping. Dr. Bloom also promoted racial and socioeconomic diversity in camping. He started a scholarship fund which brought campers from diverse backgrounds to Powhatan and in 1971 he helped Governor Ken Curtis start the Susan Curtis Foundation to provide camping to disadvantaged Maine children.
In 1993, he assisted in starting Seeds of Peace, a summer camp to empower young leaders from conflict regions around the world with leadership skills to advance reconciliation and coexistence. Seeds of Peace has for many years operated where Powhatan was located in Otisfield.
Dr. Bloom served as President of the New England Camping Association and of the Maine Camp Directors Association and as Vice President of the American Camping Association. He also served for many years as President of the Pleasant Lake & Parker Pond Association, spearheading efforts to eradicate variable watermilfoil from Maine lakes.
Dr. Bloom’s view of camping may be summarized in his own words: “At camp, our major concern is the camper. Whatever affects him is important to all of us. What happens to a growing child at camp not only influences him at the moment, but also may affect his future, and because children are our nation’s greatest asset, our country’s future.”
Raised on Portland’s Munjoy Hill in an Orthodox Jewish family, David has served the greater Portland area, the State of Maine, and the Jewish community in leadership capacities in numerous public, political, cultural, social service, business, and religious organizations. His commitment to giving back to the community was modeled by his parents, Saul and Hazel Brenerman, who were actively involved in numerous community organizations.
As a youngster, David attended Portland Hebrew Day School (now Levey Day School), which provided him the foundation for his religious and secular education. At Portland High School, among his numerous activities, David was co-editor of the yearbook (The Totem) and, at graduation, received the prestigious Brown Medal, awarded to the highest ranking five boys and five girls. In his senior year, David assumed the first leadership role of his life as president of Center Youth at the Jewish Community Center. David graduated from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he was a starting pitcher on the varsity baseball team, as well as three-year sports editor of the weekly Clark newspaper, The Scarlet. After Clark, David received his master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Maine.
David is one of a handful of distinguished Portlanders to have served as a state legislator and mayor of Maine’s largest city. Elected to the Maine House of Representatives at age 25, David served on the budget-writing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs, the Taxation Committee, and Health and Institutional Services Committee during his three terms. David’s most significant legislative achievement was co-authoring the legislation that ultimately eliminated mandatory retirement in the workplace. This issue hit home when his dad’s employer forced him to retire from his sales position upon his 65th birthday, though Saul was the top salesman in his department. Once mandatory retirement in the private sector was abolished, David proudly watched as his father returned to the job he enjoyed.
From 1982 to 1985, David continued his public service as a member of the Portland City Council, and then was elected by the Council to be mayor of Portland, one of the youngest mayors in Portland history. As mayor, he established a Sister City with Shinagawa, Japan. Hundreds of Portland residents have benefited from this program through cultural, educational, sports and business exchanges. David led the city during construction of Portland Ice Arena, ground breaking of One City Center, and the first renovation of Hadlock Field, all significant landmarks in Portland and Maine life.
Thirty years later, David continued his commitment to the community by returning to the City Council, chairing the Council’s Economic Development Committee during a period of extraordinary growth in Portland, including Bayside redevelopment and waterfront investment. A first generation American, David spearheaded the establishment of the City Office of Economic Opportunity, to help Portland’s new immigrants integrate into Portland’s economy. For his accomplishments on economic development issues and his lifetime of public service, the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce awarded David its 2019 Award for Leadership in the Public Sector.
Following the guidance of a Clark professor to “find something you love to do, and find someone to pay you to do it,” David found his perfect jobs, first as Executive Director of the Maine Democratic Party and then as a government relations executive at Unum where he directed the company’s external response to legislative, regulatory, and political issues in Maine and Massachusetts, the home states of two of Unum’s largest subsidiaries. In addition, he chaired two national insurance trade association committees on long-term care issues, highlighted by testifying at congressional committee hearings at the U.S. Capitol. After retiring from Unum as Vice President, Government Relations, he started his own government affairs consulting business.
David has served in leadership positions in many community organizations. • Maine State Chamber of Commerce: Past board chair, one of the few Jews to ever lead the state chamber. • Portland Public Library Trustees: Past board chair and 25-year trustee. Co-chaired Library’s successful capital campaign to renovate the library. • Boys and Girls Club of Southern Maine: Current board and executive committee member. Creative Portland (Portland’s official Arts Agency): Two-term board President and current board executive committee. • Clark University: Current member Clark Alumni Council; past member Athletic Hall of Fame Selection Committee. • Portland High School Renovation Committee: Committee Vice-chair and leader of the successful $20 million Referendum Campaign. • United Way: Past board Vice President. • Committee to bring the Portland Sea Dogs to Portland. Jewish Organizations • Former Board VP, Jewish Home for the Aged (now Cedars). • Long-time VP of Athletics at the Jewish Community Center. • Player and coach of JCC softball team. • Past board VP, Temple Beth El. • Past Board of the former Jewish Federation (now JCA).
Judge Morton Brody *(2018)
Morton Aaron Brody was born in Auburn, Maine and graduated from Edward Little High School, Bates College, and the University of Chicago Law School. He began his legal career in Washington, D.C. and returned to Maine in 1961. In 1980, Governor Joseph Brennan appointed him as a Justice of the Maine Superior Court; he thereafter served as Chief Justice of the Maine Superior Court from 1985 to 1990. In 1991, Governor John McKernan appointed Morton Brody to be an Associate Justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. President George H.W. Bush nominated Morton Brody to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Maine; he served with distinction until his untimely death on March 25, 2000.
Along with his wife and life partner Judy, Judge Brody was committed to his Judaism and his beloved State of Maine. He was an incredibly dedicated father to his three children Ronald, Elizabeth and John and would have enjoyed more time with his nine grandchildren.
He served on the Board of Directors of the Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville and on the Boards of Trustees and Overseers for Bates College. He served the City of Waterville as City Solicitor and was Waterville’s Distinguished Citizen of the Year in 1981. He was a Member and President of the Waterville Area Boys and Girls Club, Member of the Board of Trustees of Mid-Maine Medical Center, Member of the Board of Directors at the Bank of Maine.
Judge Brody was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to the First Circuit Gender, Race and Ethnic Bias Task Force. He was Chairman of the Civil Justice Advisory Committee and Advisory Rule Subcommittee and was a Member of the Federal Bench/Bar Liaison Committee. He was an active member of the Judicial Council of the First Circuit Committee on Criminal Law and of the First Circuit Judicial Council.
Colby College, where Judge Brody was an Adjunct Professor, annually presents The Judge Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award to a United States federal or state judge who embodies the qualities of integrity, compassion, humanity, and judicial craftsmanship. Judge Brody’s commitment to excellence and integrity commanded the loyalty and respect of his associates, and he developed many warm relationships with colleagues, neighbors, and associates throughout his career.
Morton Aaron Brody was born in Auburn, Maine and graduated from Edward Little High School, Bates College, and the University of Chicago Law School. He began his legal career in Washington, D.C. and returned to Maine in 1961. In 1980, Governor Joseph Brennan appointed him as a Justice of the Maine Superior Court; he thereafter served as Chief Justice of the Maine Superior Court from 1985 to 1990. In 1991, Governor John McKernan appointed Morton Brody to be an Associate Justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. President George H.W. Bush nominated Morton Brody to serve on the United States District Court for the District of Maine; he served with distinction until his untimely death on March 25, 2000.
Along with his wife and life partner Judy, Judge Brody was committed to his Judaism and his beloved State of Maine. He was an incredibly dedicated father to his three children Ronald, Elizabeth and John and would have enjoyed more time with his nine grandchildren.
He served on the Board of Directors of the Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville and on the Boards of Trustees and Overseers for Bates College. He served the City of Waterville as City Solicitor and was Waterville’s Distinguished Citizen of the Year in 1981. He was a Member and President of the Waterville Area Boys and Girls Club, Member of the Board of Trustees of Mid-Maine Medical Center, Member of the Board of Directors at the Bank of Maine.
Judge Brody was appointed by Chief Justice Rehnquist to the First Circuit Gender, Race and Ethnic Bias Task Force. He was Chairman of the Civil Justice Advisory Committee and Advisory Rule Subcommittee and was a Member of the Federal Bench/Bar Liaison Committee. He was an active member of the Judicial Council of the First Circuit Committee on Criminal Law and of the First Circuit Judicial Council.
Colby College, where Judge Brody was an Adjunct Professor, annually presents The Judge Morton A. Brody Distinguished Judicial Service Award to a United States federal or state judge who embodies the qualities of integrity, compassion, humanity, and judicial craftsmanship. Judge Brody’s commitment to excellence and integrity commanded the loyalty and respect of his associates, and he developed many warm relationships with colleagues, neighbors, and associates throughout his career.
Sam L. Cohen (1915-2003) was most often described by those who knew him as a mench. He grew up during the depression in a close-knit Jewish community in Biddeford, where lifelong friendships were formed with the Oshers, Nathansons, and many other families. As part of a thriving, loving family, when Sam’s father passed away, Sam took on the role of provider to the family and his six siblings. With charisma and business acumen he made a great success of the family business, York Bottling Co., with his brother Bernard. Sam continued his success in the commercial real estate development business in Maine and investment in the founding of Golden West Savings and Loan.
Described as loving practical jokes and possessing a keen interest in politics and the law, friends and family also characterized Sam as being a thoughtful observer with strong opinions. Echoing these sentiments, former Senator George Mitchell remarked of Sam, “He was a good friend and a wise counselor who gave frank advice – he would give you the truth with the bark off, as they say. And he had a great sense of humor, so you got good advice and great jokes at the same time.”
Sam was instrumental in maintaining the well-being of Congregation Etz Chaim in Biddeford and was a fixture there behind the scenes, making sure everything was taken care of during holidays and Sabbaths as well as doing Bar Mitzvah tutoring when needed. As president of the congregation he was instrumental in keeping it going and in its rebirth.
Sam lived Tzedakah, gave willingly and before being asked. "If he got up in the morning and went to bed that night and felt he didn't help someone, he didn't sleep," explained Lester Cohen, his brother. Every year at Christmastime he would consult with Catholic priests and other ministers in the area as to who might need Thanksgiving dinners or Christmas dinners. Sam established the swimming pool at the Biddeford YMCA and physical therapy center at The Cedars in honor of his parents, Julius and Celia Cohen, and contributed to Gary’s House in honor of his brother Bernard. Sam was dedicated to helping children with cancer and founded the Sammy Fund at the Maine Children’s Cancer Center. His generosity was felt throughout the state.
Sam’s legacy continues with The Sam L. Cohen Foundation, a philanthropic foundation established by him, supporting nonprofit organizations. The Foundation strives to ensure that all people have the opportunity to develop their potential and provide healthy, productive futures for themselves, their families, and their communities. The Foundation concentrates its efforts in southern Maine and supports a wide variety of organizations that: provide access to educational opportunities, promote culture and the arts, contribute to civic improvement and community well being, increase access to health care, or preserve Jewish traditions, culture, and community. Since Sam’s passing, the Foundation has awarded over $23 million to over 450 nonprofit organizations.
Dr. Lawrence Mark Cutler was the fifth of six children – five sons and one daughter – born to Edwin and Rachel Cutler. Edwin Cutler was a native of Russia who arrived in Bangor in the late 1880’s, moved to Old Town in 1891, and became a successful and respected merchant.
Dr. Cutler graduated from the University of Maine and Tufts Medical School, served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in the South Pacific in World War II, and for almost 50 years practiced internal medicine in Bangor. In 1934 he became the first Jewish member of the medical staff at what is now known as Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, where he served as chief of the medical service for more than 20 years.
A major figure in education in Maine, Dr. Cutler served on the Bangor School Board for ten years, including several as chair, and on the University of Maine Board of Trustees for 20 years, including 12 as president of the Board. He was Chair of the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Education and a delegate to the White House Conference on Education. In 1974 Colby College awarded him an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. The University’s Orono campus health center was named in his honor in 1976. Lawrence Cutler died in Bangor in 1984 at the age of 77.
Catherine Epstein Cutler (“Kay”) was the daughter of Harry and Ida (Goldsmith) Epstein. Harry Epstein immigrated to Maine in 1886 from a shtetl near Vilna Gubernia. He arrived in North America alone as a penniless 12-year old. For the first several years of his life in Maine he was a peddler, walking back and forth from Bangor to Calais. He later married Ida Goldsmith from Old Town and became a respected wholesaler for the National Confectionery Company in Bangor. Even though he lost his business in the Great Depression, all three of Harry and Ida Epstein’s daughters were able to earn college and graduate degrees during the 1930’s. Kay attended Bangor public schools (her cousin, fellow inductee, and lifelong friend Sidney Epstein was a classmate) and Wellesley College, where she earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in economics. She and Lawrence married in 1939, and she spent the war years in Washington as an economist for the War Labor Board. After the war, they returned to Bangor where she was a tireless advocate for family and child services, mental healthcare reform and opportunities for women in Maine for more than 40 years, founding or holding leadership positions in virtually every major social services organization in eastern Maine. She led the postwar effort to move responsibility for mental health services from the Bureau of Prisons to a separate agency; and after she and Lawrence helped found the Eastern Maine Guidance Center, she led the merger of the Guidance Center with Family and Child Services of Bangor to create what is today Community Health and Counseling Services. She campaigned for expanded opportunities for women, and with federal grant assistance in 1965 founded the Women’s Information and Advisory Service, which provided career counseling to more than 1,500 eastern Maine women who wanted to begin or resume careers in the workforce. As one of her final contributions, and the one of which she was most proud, she directed the development of Spruce Run, an agency serving women and children affected by domestic violence.
In 1986, Kay was one of the first three women awarded the Mary Ann Hartman Award by the University of Maine to “Maine women of exceptional achievement,” and the Cutler Institute for Health and Social Policy at the University of Southern Maine bears her name. She died in Portland in 2003 at the age of 89.
Julius “Yudy” Elowitch was the fourth of six children of Lillian and Samuel Elowitch. He graduated from Portland High School in 1931 where he was an honor student, president of his class, and co-captain of the baseball and football teams. Yudy spent a few months at the University of Florida on an athletic scholarship. When his father died, he came home to help raise the younger children. Together with his brothers Maurice and Abraham, he started Yudy’s Tire Company and developed the adhesive sealant known as Permathane.
He married Frances Posternak on December 28th, 1934. Frances was a steadfast community volunteer, a wonderful gardener and amazing cook. Frances and Yudy had two children, Linda and Rob, and made their spouses Joel and Annette a welcomed part of the family.
Yudy loved Maine and Maine’s Jewish community and donated his time and talent in the arts, in sports, and in public service. He volunteered as President of the Jewish Community Center and as Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal annual federated campaign; he sang for many years with the Temple Beth El choir; and he performed with the Little Theater Group at the Jewish Community Center. He and Frances served on the Board at the Portland Symphony Orchestra and on the Committee of 100 at the Portland Museum of Art; he sang with the Portland Men’s Chorus; and in 1971, he founded the Fitzpatrick Award for the outstanding High School Football player in the State of Maine, for which he was honored with induction into the National Collegiate Football Hall of Fame in 1996 as a distinguished American. In 1983, he was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame.
Frances Elowitch served on the Board of National Council of Jewish Women; Hadassah; was a founder of Temple Beth El; was a Lion of Judah at the Jewish Federation of Southern Maine; has gardens in her name at The Cedars; and, with her husband, was a major donor to both the Abromson Center of the University of Southern Maine and the Payson Wing of the Portland Museum of Art.
Born on July 28, 1913 at home in Bangor to Russian immigrant parents, Sid described himself as a ‘third generation’ Mainer; his grandparents (and great uncles) had joined in the great Jewish exodus from White Russia (now Belarus) at the turn of the last century. His parents and grandparents were part of the thriving Jewish community in Bangor. His grandfather was one of the early founders of Congregation Beth Israel, and his father, a local businessman, held endeavors from a bottling plant in Milo to the Graphic Theater Circuit, which operated movie theaters in Bangor and many small towns in Maine in the era of silent pictures and vaudeville.
Graduating from Bangor High School in 1931, where he played basketball, Sid attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, spent summers working in the movie theaters, and in 1935, Sid returned full time to the theater business, managing and opening theaters in Dover-Foxcroft, Dexter, and throughout eastern Maine.
With the WWII draft approaching, Sid tried to enlist in the US Navy, but recruiters were not accepting Jews. Undaunted, he joined the Marines in 1942, and was assigned to Philadelphia, where his business background landed him in materials management. It was there that he met Helen Brill and after a wartime romance, they married in 1946 and moved back to Bangor.
In the 1950’s, with the advent of television, Sid thought it best to plan for a day when no one would attend the movies. He expanded into commercial real estate development and while this eventually became the chief focus of his work, he remained intimately involved with the movie theater business. For decades moviegoers got to know him as he sold tickets, directed traffic at the Bangor Drive In and maintained order at the children’s matinees.
Over the years, Sid’s real estate endeavors expanded from post offices and government office buildings to developing (and redeveloping) many of the retail, office and industrial properties that became part of the local fabric of life in Bangor and surrounding towns. Sid had a passionate interest in his tenants, particularly the small local businesses he believed were such an integral part of the local community. His support was crucial to the success of many Bangor businesses, local contractors and service organizations.
Sid was a fixture and a sought-after advisor in the Bangor business community for decades. He was a director of Northeast Bank (formerly Eastern Trust), president of the Jewish Community Center and lifelong member of Congregation Beth Israel, where he and Helen built the Epstein Room in 1991. Sid was a quiet philanthropist and, for this and his dedication to the community, Sid and Helen were presented with a Key to Bangor. Sid remained active in the community and his business until his late 90’s.
The theater business started by Sid’s father celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2016 and his commercial real estate development business started in the 50’s continued on as Epstein Properties, operated by his daughter, Carol Epstein.
Jerry Fineberg was a Real Estate developer, hotelier, philanthropist, and collector of art. Jerry was born in Portland, ME in 1934, second of three sons to David and Esther Fineberg. He grew up a stone’s throw from the museum in India Street’s little Italy neighborhood and later Munjoy Hill. Along with his parents and two brothers, Jerry attended Etz Chaim Synagogue long before a museum was even considered. He shared time between his homes in West Palm Beach, FL and Boston. Jerry passed away on December 17th, 2022. After college, Jerry founded The Fineberg Companies in Boston in 1960, a real estate management and development company, owning and managing hundreds of apartments, mostly in New England.
The son of Russian immigrants, Jerry came from very modest means. When he started his own company, Jerry was determined to become successful and worked hard to build a thriving business. After several years he began to see his company succeed and began to accumulate some wealth. Not content to simply build a financial portfolio, Jerry began to collect art. Jerry was named by Art News as one of the top 200 art collectors in the world. He became involved with and was named to the Board of Directors of ICA Boston (Institute of Contemporary Art) which was a sister organization to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in NYC. Jerry and his wife Sandra later donated the Sandra and Gerald Fineberg Art Wall which has invited a series of leading contemporary artists to propose and realize monumental, site-specific works. These presentations not only greet the visitor as they arrive, but are also visible to passersby, providing a dynamic, evolving entry point to the Museum.
Wherever he went, Jerry liked to be a part of the art world. He regularly contributed to the MFA in Boston and was associated with the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. He became chair of the board of directors of the renowned Rose Art Museum at Brandeis College where the Gerald S. and Sandra Fineberg, Lower Rose Galleries were named in honor of him and his wife.
Another of Jerry’s passions was the Price Center in Newton, MA, an organization that works to empower individuals with intellectual and developmental differences to thrive in living, social and work communities. In 1977, They began with fivepeople and now serve 180 people with a wide range of diagnoses. They provide day programs and residential services to the adults they serve, one of whom is Jerry’s son Adam, who has attended The Price Center since 1987. Jerry was honored in 2016 when the Fineberg Building was dedicated in his honor because of his tireless support and fundraising on behalf of The Price Center.
Jerry also continued to support medical facilities and research. His donations to facilities such as RDK Melanoma Fund, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Fund, and Boston Children’s Hospital continue to benefit those communities. Other facilities to which Jerry contributed on a regular basis are too numerous to list. Among them are organizations such as Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston, the Boston Foundation, Ferd & Gladys Alpert Jewish Family Service of Palm Beach County, Promise Fund of West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Opera, and the Palm Beach New Balance Foundation.
Closer to home, Jerry wanted to honor his family and his roots in Portland. He contacted the Maine Jewish Museum in 2015 to inquire what was needed and how he might become involved. At that time, they were planning to expand their social hall room but had not yet secured funding. After some discussion, Jerry committed to making a large financial contribution to help build the room and the adjacent kitchen. The MJM continues to benefit from his generosity as they use the Fineberg Family Community Room daily as a premier venue for displaying art and hosting events.
Jerry Fineberg was really a local Portland boy who made good, but he always remembered where he came from, and he understood the responsibility of success. He gave financially in big ways but more importantly he gave from his heart in a thousand small ways without fanfare or recognition.
Rabbi Tuvia Ben-Shmuel-Yosef also known as Donald Cotesworth Gellers was born in New York City on May 2, 1936, the son of Elsie Glasser and Samuel J. Weitzen. Samuel was a physician who had emigrated to the U.S. from a Sephardic Jewish community in southern Poland where his father, grandfather, and a brother were rabbis. Gellers enrolled at Columbia to study international law and interned at the United Nations. There, however, he said he learned that what one of his professors had said was true: “A diplomat is an honest man who is sent abroad to lie for his country.” “That’s not why I had ever wanted to be a lawyer,” he recalled. “I was motivated by a love of justice. So, I needed to find something else.” That something turned out to be Eastport, Maine, where Gellers and his first wife moved in 1963, inspired by its remote location, stupendous beauty, and apparently welcoming people. She was an artist, and he intended to become a small-town lawyer, believing you could have much more impact in a small community than in a large metropolis. “We ended up in this wild pocket of rural America, and I thought I would have a bucolic existence.”
Then George Francis, governor of the Passamaquoddy reservation at Pleasant Point, walked into his office. Nothing for Gellers, the tribe, or Maine would ever be the same. For six years from May 1964, Gellers represented the tribe in matters large and small. He got charges dropped against peaceful protesters in a land dispute at the Indian Township reservation and compelled state officials to repair leaking reservation sewage systems, Princeton barbers to cut Indians’ hair, and legislators to repeal laws prohibiting tribal members from hunting on their own land. He and Indian leaders lobbied the state to create a new Indian Affairs Department, which was headed by a young anthropologist and, later, by a past and future Passamaquoddy chief. Gellers represented several Indians who were involved in a late night melee with a state policeman and who, in the early hours of the morning, had been dragged from their beds and allegedly beaten by a posse of law enforcement officials, who forced their way into Indian homes and threatened residents.
On March 8, 1968, he went to Boston to file the $150 million land claims suit he had been working on for the tribe for the past few years, one aiming to hold Maine accountable for the illegal plundering of the Passamaquoddy’s trust fund and for allowing the seizure of thousands of acres of land. When he returned home to Eastport, the police were waiting for him, in disguise. Maine Attorney General James Erwin prosecuted Gellers under an older felony statute, and he was sentenced to two to four years in prison. Gellers said that when he came to Maine he was not particularly religious – “there wasn’t much kosher food in Eastport,” he pointed out – but through his trials and tribulations he rediscovered his Jewish identity. In 1971, his legal recourses exhausted, he decided to emigrate to Israel and said he met with the state prosecutor, Dick Cohen, to inform him. Cohen had no objection. Although he kept them abreast of his whereabouts for years thereafter, Maine authorities never sought to apprehend Gellers, who hadn’t served his jail term.
In Israel, Gellers adopted his Hebrew birth name, Tuvia BenShmuel-Yosef, lived on a kibbutz and fought and was wounded in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. He also applied to the Israeli bar, submitting full documentation of his conviction in Maine. In the early 1980s, he returned to the U.S. and New York City, although he had always intended to return to Israel. “Perhaps he wanted to see if he could pursue to some degree the wrongs that were done, to clear his name, but he never intended to stay here,” his brother, Paul Gellers, said. “His goal and his hope was always to return to Israel, to live there and, if it were possible, to be buried there.”
In 1989 he disclosed the circumstances of his case to authorities at the U.S .Circuit Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, before which he had been admitted to practice law in 1966. The court issued him a certificate of good standing, allowing the supposed fugitive to practice law there as well, although he didn’t do so full-time. He had by then become a rabbi. In Forest Hills, Gellers – Rabbi Ben-Shmuel-Yosef – was part of the Moroccan Jewish Organization synagogue. Teaching students there, his brother said, had become a central focus of his life. “He was always a living example of what Judaism embodied, and in his studies of the Torah and other sacred texts and books, he realized that we as a people are about justice and truth,” Paul Gellers said. “His passion was a striving for justice and fairness for anyone, especially the underdog and the downtrodden. It could be a tribe or it could be a poor woman who lost her luggage on an airplane.” Gellers paid a terrible price for taking up the cause of Maine’s Indians, becoming the victim of a state-sponsored conspiracy to drive him out of Maine or into prison, one orchestrated by the Attorney General’s Office, zealously executed by the state police and rubber stamped by judges. The whole sordid tale was revealed in the pages of the Portland Press Herald in 2019, the first act of the 29-part series “Unsettled: Triumph and tragedy in Maine’s Indian country,” and allies in Maine have been working to secure him a gubernatorial pardon.
Sadly, Gellers – who had gone by his Hebrew birth name Tuvia Ben-Shmuel-Yosef since fleeing to Israel in 1971 – didn’t live to see his name cleared. The lawyer-turned-rabbi died Oct. 8 at his home in the Forest Hills section of Queens, New York, after an all-too-short battle with cancer. He was 78. As of January 7, 2020 Don Gellers was officially cleared of all charges.
Harris Ralph Gleckman, was raised in Forest Park and then Bradley Street in Portland. He spent most of his professional life working for the UN in NY and Geneva, but he remained a Jewish Mainer and returned here in his retirement.
Harris was raised in a Conservative Jewish family that kept kosher and was active at Temple Beth El, where he remains a member. His Judaism runs deep: even now, and to the amazement of his family, he can quickly locate the place in the service and the likely times that each section will start and finish. Harris’ Judaism has anchored his strong personal and professional views on social justice. And Maine bequeathed to Harris his love of the outdoors: hiking, kayaking, and skiing. Sixty years later, his Brandeis friends thank him for introducing them to the White Mountains.
In college, Harris worked as a residential tutor for the first rounds of Brandeis’ Upward Bound program and led hiking programs for its inner-city students. As a postgraduate, he was director of the sociology/psychology faculty at Newbery College teaching US Veterans of the Korean war. In his 20+ years at the UN, Harris contributed to environmental and economic policymaking including the founding treaty on climate change. He was staff at the UN when it was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize. Harris authored two books and authored or contributed to scores of articles and interviews, He remains a highly regarded advisor to diplomats and NGOs from developing countries on issues ranging from climate change to human rights to global governance.
Around 2005, Harris started DMJ - Documenting Maine Jewry - an online repository for Maine’s Jewish community history. Early on, the standard response to this project was bafflement - “I never knew there were Jews in Maine!” This was a reasonable view, given that Jews have never numbered more than 1% of Maine’s population whose children mostly left the state for college and careers. Yet two decades later, we have a rich Jewish cultural life in Maine, including the Maine Jewish Museum, the Maine Jewish Film Festival, a revitalized Jewish Community Alliance, the Colby University Center for Small Town Jewish life, a Wikipedia page. Young Jewish professionals are moving into Maine (including Harris’ son and his family). There is no doubt that DMJ - and Harris – was an early catalyst for this renaissance. As one fellow Mainer noted, “No one has done more to collect and illuminate Maine’s Jewish history and to present it to the world than Harris.”
Harris graduated from Deering High School (1964); Brandeis University (BA, 1968; PhD Sociology, 1980). He is currently Director of Benchmark Environmental Consulting; an executive board member for the Foundation for Global Governance and Sustainability (FOGGS); and a board member of the Maine Jewish Museum. Harris is married to Riva Krut. Their son Raffi works on software coding and lives in Portland with his wife (Marie Barnett, an animal rights advocate) and daughter (3-year old Sophie); their daughter Miriam lives in Somerville, MA, and teaches Sociology at Harvard.
Albert Brenner Glickman was born in Portland in 1933. His family relocated to California where he pioneered the concept of the community shopping center. He was a great visionary. He was also an advisor to presidents, senators and governors. His philanthropy is apparent in the Glickman Family Center for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry as well as Spurwink School, UCLA, University of Maine System, UNE, the Portland Symphony, the Portland Museum of Art, and Cedars Sinai Hospital, to name just a few. Al was a leader at the Michael J. Fox Foundation where he focused his energies and resources in the pursuit of finding a cure for Parkinson’s, knowing the benefit was for future generations.
Judith Glickman Lauder was born in California. She is a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain and is a member of both the Getty Museum Photographic Council and the Photographic Visiting Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work is represented in over 300 public and private collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the United States Holocaust Museum.
Judy spent years delving into the actual sites of the Holocaust. In the 1990s she was invited to Denmark to locate and photograph Danish World War II rescuers and survivors.
Judy serves on the Advisory Board of the Maine Jewish Museum and the Portland Museum of Art. Her philanthropy has most generously extended, among many other places, to the Maine Jewish Museum and to the Portland Museum of Art where she and her husband, Leonard Lauder, gave a donation, representing the museum's largest matching gift ever.
Norman Israel Godfrey was the first Executive Director of the modern JCC in Portland. His vision led to the creation of Center Day Camp, which was dedicated in his honor posthumously following his untimely death. The 1920s and 1930s were tumultuous decades in American and in Maine Jewish history. By the late 1930s, American Jewry was a community that faced severe economic depression, unprecedented social anti-Semitism, and deep political impotence. Portland was known as the “Jerusalem of the North,” a designation that did not refer to an atmosphere of learning and study, but rather to a traditional piety that allowed no Judaism to flourish except an orthodoxy dominated by East European Jews. Also, Maine’s native Anglo-Saxon Protestant population, allowed little or no challenges to its centuries-long social, political and religious dominance.
The new JCC was, from its very founding, a secular Jewish institution. It was, in many ways, an alternative to the synagogue, a place where Jews could socialize without wearing a label. One was simply Jewish and not an Orthodox Jew, or if the other movements in American Judaism had existed in Portland, a Conservative or Reform Jew. The uniqueness of such a communal institution was distinctly American and a departure from the traditional form of Jewish religious and communal life. That uniqueness was not lost on Portland’s Jews, especially not on Norman I. Godfrey who spoke at the JCC dedication dinner in November, 1938. His speech focused on the twin aspects of Jewish identity and a commitment to democracy and Americanism: “Consecrated to the noble purpose of perpetuating Jewish life upon the highest possible plane, in consonance with the traditions of the founding fathers of our great democracy, the Jewish Community Center enters now upon its course of service devoted to the enrichment of the individual personality and the enhancement of American Jewry.” For Portland Jewry, this was an historic moment. Norman Godfrey’s dream, as recounted by his wife, a dream “to bring… the very best of Jewish life and combine it with the American life and the American way in this community,” would be realized, even though his early death in 1947 deprived Godfrey of seeing its full implementation.
For more than 40 years of its existence until it was sold in 1979, the Jewish Community Center building on Cumberland Avenue was a unique experience for thousands of Portland Jews. With classes and presentations in music, drama, dancing, art and crafts, an Institute of Jewish Studies as part of its focus on education; with classes in “weight normalizing and slenderizing,” and facilities that offered a full gymnasium, handball courts, exercise rooms, bowling alleys, a billiard and golf driving net, the JCC was truly separate but equal to the best facilities offered by the non-Jewish community. Due in no small part to Norman Godfrey’s tireless activities at the JCC, by the early 1970s, most of Portland and Maine’s social barriers for Jews had largely, but not entirely, fallen. Jews were not only able to join once-exclusive and discriminatory country and social clubs, but they now provided important leadership roles for numerous civic and philanthropic organizations in the greater community.
Susan and Jerry Goldberg grew up in Portland, Maine and attended Deering High School. Susan graduated from Brandeis University and Jerry from Colby College. He received both his MBA and JD degrees from Cornell University. They began dating as teenagers and married the summer after Susan graduated from college. While Jerry attended graduate school, Susan worked at the Department of Agricultural Economics at Cornell to help support them. After a short stint in Boston where Jerry worked at a tax firm, they moved back to Portland where Jerry became a partner in the law firm, Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer, & Nelson and Susan focused on raising their three children, Brian, Amy and Julie. Jerry later became a partner in the international public accounting firm, Coopers & Lybrand. He then became a principal in Bramlie Corporation, a real estate development company that he founded with his son. Jerry was chair of the Maine State Bar Association Tax Section, a member of the executive committee of the Federal Tax Institute of New England, director of the annual Colby College Tax and Estate Planning institute, represented the MSBA on the IRS North Atlantic Region-Bar Liaison committee and was president of the Maine Estate Planning Council, He was a tax policy advisor to two Maine governors and served on tax policy committees of the American Bar Association and the U.S. Treasury Department. Jerry was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maine Law School. He lectured at the Boston University Graduate Tax Program and the NYU Tax Institute, authored several tax articles and was a frequent speaker at local, state and national tax seminars. Jerry helped Sam Cohen found the Sam L. Cohen Foundation and served as its chairman since its inception. The Foundation concentrates its grant making efforts in southern Maine and to date has awarded several million dollars in grants.
Jerry and Susan have made substantial contributions to many community and cultural organizations important to them. Jerry was president of the Jewish Federation (now JCA) and Temple Beth El; chairman of the Israel Bond Drive and chairman of the Jewish Federation’s annual campaign. He was vice president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra; an advisory trustee of the Portland Chamber Music Festival; on the boards of The Cedars and the Maine Audubon Society; chairman of the lawyer’s division of the United Way; president of his class at Colby College; national chairman of the Colby College Alumni Association; and an Overseer and a member of the Colby College Board of Trustees. In recognition of his service to Colby, he was awarded a “Colby Brick.” Susan served in many capacities for multiple organizations in which she was involved. An accomplished pianist, she served on the board of the Portland Concert Association (now Ovations), where she sponsored the annual PCA concert to bring classical pianists to perform in Portland. She was president of Opera New England; vice president of the Portland Public Library, where she not only was a member of the committee to build the library, but also went on to found the Brown Bag Lecture Series; she was a Lion of Judah, she chaired the women’s division of the Jewish Federation Annual Campaign and co-chaired the overall Jewish Federation Annual Campaign; was active with Temple Beth El Sisterhood; vice president of the National Council of Jewish Women, vice president of Jewish Family Services and the League of Women Voters. She was co-editor of “Know Your Schools,” a guide to the Portland, Maine public school system published by the League of Women Voters and the Portland School Department and served on several school department committees. Susan established the Susan Turitz Goldberg scholarship at her alma mater and was president of the Maine chapter of the Brandeis Women’s Committee. She donated the Brandeis National Committee library collection in Music to Brandeis University. After surviving breast cancer, Susan was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2009 and passed away in 2018. She was a resource and comfort to others who had cancer, available to speak with anyone who wanted her insights. At the recommendation of the medical staff at Dana Farber, she was selected to be an ambassador for the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, the maker of a drug used to treat her disease, to travel the country to tell her story and talk with physicians and patients about her experience living with multiple myeloma. Even as her disease progressed, she never stopped thinking of others.
Gerda Schild Haas is a survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp and founder of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine. She is author of “These I Do Remember; Fragments of the Holocaust”, and the children’s book “Tracking the Holocaust.” Her organizational and creative papers reside in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives at Bates College. She and her husband Dr. Rudolph Haas, who passed away in 2006, have four children, eleven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Her youngest son David is here to accept the award on her behalf.
Gerda was born in 1922 into a religious family in the small town of Ansbach, Germany. Her father was a kosher butcher and her extended family including sister and grandmother lived above the store. Following Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938, the family was forced to sell their building and move to Munich. Gerda went on to study nursing at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin prior to deportation at age 17. After liberation to Switzerland, she wrote to the International Red Cross and found her father in the United States, the only other family member to survive. Gerda immigrated to New York in 1946, became a US citizen, married Rudolph, and settled in Lewiston.
In 1969, Gerda enrolled at Bates College and graduated two years later summa cum laude. She then studied for, and received a Masters in Library Science from the University of Maine, Orono in 1974. Gerda served as a catalog librarian at Bates College from 1972 to 1984. During this time, she worked on and published her first book which chronicles the lives of nine victims of the Shoah, including herself.
In the late 1970s, Governor James B. Longley appointed Gerda to the State of Maine Board of Education. In 1982, Gerda received a grant to organize a conference and a state-wide outreach program focused on the Holocaust. In 1985 she became the founding director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine, whose mission is to promote universal respect for human rights through exhibits, education and events. “Using the lessons of the Holocaust and other events past and present, we encourage individuals and communities to reflect and act upon their moral responsibilities to confront prejudice, intolerance and discrimination.”
In destroyed Leipzig, Irving Isaacson met Jutka Magyar, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp and the slave labor camp in Hessich-Lichtenau, Germany. They were married in the bombed-out Nuremberg City Hall on Dec. 24, 1945. They were married for 70 years and had three children. Judith Isaacson predeceased him in November 2015. Irving passed away in 2018 at the age of 102.
Jutka was born in Kaposvar, Hungary in 1925. A valedictorian of her high school class, Judith planned to write poetry and study at the Sorbonne until her dreams were crushed by the Nazi occupation. In June 1944 she was transported to Auschwitz. She was a slave laborer in an underground munitions factory in Hessisch Lichtenau, Germany.
After being liberated by American troops in 1945, Jutka met and married Irving Isaacson and moved back to the United States with him.
In 1960, Jutka began to watch mathematics lessons broadcast on PBS. Her distance learning led her to Bates College, where she received a B.A. in mathematics in 1965. Jutka taught mathematics at Lewiston High School and then at Bates College where she became the first computer science teacher. In 1969 she earned a Masters in Mathematics, one of the very first women to earn a Bowdoin College degree. In 1975, she became Dean of Women at Bates College and then Bates' first Dean of Students. As Dean, Isaacson fought fearlessly for women students' right to a fully equal education. The College later recognized her efforts on behalf of women when awarding her an honorary degree.
After speaking about the Holocaust at schools and community groups throughout Maine, Judith wrote her memoir, Seed of Sarah, which has been hailed as a triumph of elegant and powerful storytelling.
Isaacson served on the Bowdoin College Board of Overseers from 1984-1996 and numerous other local boards. Colby College and the University of New England also awarded her honorary degrees that recognized her accomplishments and highlighted her extraordinary optimism even after suffering profound loss and unspeakable horror. In 2004 she was inducted into the Maine Women's Hall of Fame.
Irving Isaacson, lawyer, soldier, entrepreneur, philanthropist and spy, son of Peter and Dorothy Day Isaacson, graduated from Lewiston High School in 1932, from Bates College in 1936, and Harvard Law School in 1939.
Irving practiced law from 1939 to 1940 but enlisted as a private in the National Guard before the U.S. had a draft. He was swiftly drawn into Officer Candidate School, Class No. 11. He was trained as a communications officer and posted to England as a replacement officer for projected D-Day casualties. He left the service as a major. Unexpectedly, he got orders, which he assumed were in error, to report to the English headquarters of the OSS, the wartime predecessor of the CIA. He was commando trained to parachute behind enemy lines, promoted to captain and sent to Holland, where he helped support the Dutch resistance.
Max Kagan was born January 15, 1898 in Riga, Latvia. Though his father Itzhak and mother Rachel hoped that he might become an Orthodox rabbi like Itzhak, financial reality meant Max joined the workforce at a very young age that today would be considered “child labor.” Since the 12th century, Riga had been a thriving commercial trading seaport, and a sizable leather industry had developed there. Young Max went into the leather shops, where his nimble mind earned him distinction as a “leather commissar.” As was the custom, Max entered a marriage arranged for him when he was in teens. His bride Nettie was eight years his elder. She, too, was born in Riga, before her family relocated to a city two-hundred miles to the east called Witebsk in what was then called White Russia, and today, Belarus. Upon marriage Max and Nettie settled in Riga, where their first children were born (Leah and Nochim). During this period there were constant pogroms against Jews, starting under the czar and intensifying after the 1917 Russian Revolution. In addition, Max saw that other young male Jews were being conscripted to the Russian army and never seen again. It was an open secret that Jews drew the worst military assignments, as far away as Siberia. Afraid for his family, Max paid a surgeon to sever a tendon in his right arm, a procedure that would render him temporarily unable to heft a rifle and thus unfit for military service. Generally, this disability healed with time, but Max was unlucky. The surgery left him with a shortened right arm for the rest of his life. Max took advantage of this temporary reprieve from conscription to plan his family’s escape. He led Nettie, Leah and Nochim on a tortuous overland journey through Poland and Germany. Max, unable to secure transatlantic passage on a proper passenger vessel, arranged for passage on a transatlantic freighter. This meant he and his family were restricted to the ship’s cargo hold, which was cold, damp and dank. All four contracted pneumonia, and only Max and Nettie survived - Little Leah and Nochim died at sea, a loss from which Nettie never truly recovered, and both Max and Nettie suffered permanent lung damage that each endured the rest of their lives. As their passage was aboard a freighter, there are no records showing the port through which Max and Nettie arrived in America. They had distant Kagan relatives in Massachusetts (Lynn, Revere) and New York City – Halsbands, Kasanofs (well-known Massachusetts bakers) who took them in. Remarkably, not only had Nettie Kagan studied English in school, she had once even visited her sister Isabella in the United States. Max Kagan, on the other hand, spoke not a single word of English. Still, he was a skilled leather worker (commissar), and within a short time was employed as a stitcher in a shoe factory. Even with his limited and heavily accented English, Max Kagan soon became a leader in the organized labor movement. In so doing, he caught the attention of management who elevated him to shop foreman. It was a chance association with Maine’s Phillip Lown, a Lithuanian-born Jew who had earned a degree in chemical engineering at the University of Maine, which brought Max Kagan to Maine. Lown was in the shoe business, and he hired Max, first as a factory superintendent and soon elevated him to factory manager. With the hiring and subsequent promotion came offers of more money, but Max insisted instead that he wanted equity in the Lown shoe business. This mutually profitable arrangement evolved to a 50/50 partnership. Together, Kagan and Lown built several factories in Maine, first the Lown Shoe Company factory in Auburn and then, in 1935, the Penobscot Shoe Company. First located in a former woolen mill in Old Town, Penobscot Shoe went on to provide many jobs to members of the Penobscot Nation, then living on an island reservation in the Penobscot River opposite the brand-new Penobscot Shoe factory they built on North Main Street. As success came, Max Kagan retained his history of escape from the poverty and pogroms in Eastern Europe. He had a powerful love for and commitment to Judaism and philanthropy. He was a Zionist who felt deeply about the necessity of establishing a homeland for the world’s oppressed Jews, and in particular, those who survived the Holocaust. As soon as he was able, he arranged for the Kagans of Riga to emigrate to what was then Palestine and became the State of Israel, where the family thrived and whose descendants still live today. Max Kagan was neither educated nor polished. He had no formal university education and his speech in English was sometimes halting and heavily accented. His early years in America were spent establishing a financial foothold. As the shoe business flourished, he sought out advice from others about how best to engage in philanthropy and teach such principles to his American children, Edith, Mildred and Irving. This led to his founding in 1955 of a family foundation to serve as a vehicle through which he could achieve these goals. The Max Kagan Family Foundation supported important Jewish charities, both local and national. United Jewish Appeal, the Bangor Jewish Community Counsel, and the Jewish Federation of Bangor were all recipients of financial support under Max Kagan’s leadership of the Foundation. But Max’s philanthropy was not limited to Jewish causes. Mindful of the permanent lung damage he and Nettie had sustained in their ill-fated passage to America, in 1969 Max directed that the Max Kagan Family Foundation would provide the lead gift to a new lung center at New England Hospital (now Tufts Medical Center) in 1969. Healthcare remained at the forefront of Foundation giving locally as well, as Eastern Maine Medical Center (now Northern Light Health, where all ten of his grandchildren were born) was a significant beneficiary of Max Kagan philanthropy. Foundational gifts from the Max Kagan Family Foundation contributed to the establishment of Bangor’s Husson College (now University, and which named a primary route through campus Kagan Drive in his honor), Beth Abraham and Beth Israel synagogues, and the Bangor Jewish Funeral Chapel on Center Street – where the services for the passing of all three of his children were held. Max Kagan died in his adopted home of Bangor, Maine in 1969, survived not only by three of his children – Edith, Mildred, and Irving, and their ten grandchildren, but also by a legacy of grit, survival, courage, tenacity, philanthropy, and generosity.
Irving Kagan was the youngest of five children born to Max and Nettie Kagan. Born on December 19, 1928, Irv never met his eldest two siblings, Leah and Nochim who were born in Riga, Latvia and did not survive the family’s tragic transatlantic passage aboard a freighter to start a new life in America. Irving, along with his two older sisters Edith and Mildred, were the first Kagans to be born American citizens. That the Kagan family settled in Lynn, Massachusetts, where Edith, Mildred and Irving were born, speaks to Lynn’s then-renown as the shoe-making capital of the world. Their father Max Kagan’s skills as a leather worker, honed as a child factory laborer in Riga, allowed him to find work in America almost immediately. It was the shoe business that brought Irving Kagan to Maine. His father Max had the opportunity to operate a shoe factory owned by Phillip Lown, a Lithuanian Jew, and University of Maine graduate who, in later years, would be Max Kagan’s partner rather than employer. This new position resulted in relocation to Bangor, Maine. It was the shoe business that also kept Irving in Maine. An exceptional student, upon graduation from Bangor High School at age 16, in 1945 Irving entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In three years, Irv earned a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering and management and therefore had diverse career opportunities in the post-war construction boom, including a lucrative offer to move to Ohio to enter the fledgling manufactured housing industry. But Irv wanted to be back in Maine, so he chose another path – joining his father’s company. In October 1948 he started work at his father’s company, Kagan-Lown Shoe (later Penobscot Shoe Company). He would remain there for his entire working career, retiring as its board chairman in 1999. Irving Kagan was dedicated to Maine. He returned here after graduating from MIT and never again lived anywhere else. He was immensely proud of the high-quality jobs that supported so many Maine families and the employment opportunities for members of the Penobscot Nation when Penobscot Shoe opened its factory on North Main Street in Old Town. He worked tirelessly to maintain these jobs even as global pressures and international treaties made American shoe manufacturing less and less financially tenable from the 1960s onward. Irving’s commitment to Maine is also evidenced by his many lofty positions in public service here. In 1984 he was invited to serve on the board of Bangor’s Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC). Irving understood the significance of that invitation being extended to a Jew, so even though he had neither education nor background in medicine or health care administration, upon accepting the invitation he threw himself into the task of becoming expert in health care delivery. By 1990 he was chairman of the EMMC board of directors. Then, in 1996, as EMMC’s board chair, he oversaw the transformation of EMMC as a stand-alone hospital into Eastern Maine Healthcare (EMH), a regional health care delivery network. He assumed the board chair of EMH, a position he held until 2005. Irv also recognized the region’s need for quality delivery of mental health services, and it was under his leadership that EMMC founded Bangor’s Acadia Hospital, of which Irv served as founding trustee. Concurrent with running Penobscot Shoe and his expanding role in modernizing health care delivery in eastern Maine, Irving Kagan served as: trustee and treasurer of Maine Maritime Academy in Castine; director of Merrill Bank Fleet Bank (now Bank of America); director of Footwear Industries of America; chairman of the Jewish Community Endowment Association; chairman of the United Jewish Appeal Campaign of Bangor; trustee of the Two/Ten Associates Inc., a national philanthropic foundation of she, leather and allied trades. Irving’s impressive record of service and leadership was also evident in the world of international sports. Starting as a parent volunteer for ski competitions at Maine’s Sugarloaf Mountain, Irv soon took on a series of ever wider roles in the sport. In succession he served the United States Ski and Snowboard Association (USSSA) as member, then chair, of the Eastern (US) Competition Committee; member, then vice-chair, of the USSSA national committee, and finally, as the United States delegate to FIS, the International Ski Federation. The sport of Freestyle skiing owes its status as an Olympic sport largely to Irv’s efforts on a national and international level. In addition, Irv was a founding trustee of the Carrabassett Valley Academy, a co-educational preparatory school located at Sugarloaf dedicated to training on-snow competitive athletes and served on the boards of the Sugarloaf Ski Educational Foundation and the Sugarloaf Ski Club. Irving’s contributions to the world of skiing and sports were recognized in his 2006 elections to both the Maine Ski Hall of Fame and the Maine Sports Hall of Fame. Though Irving Kagan’s life of excellence ended with his unexpected death in December 2005, his exemplary legacy endures in the State of Maine and beyond.
Linda Lavin was born in Portland, Maine, the younger daughter of David and Lucille Potter Lavin, sister of Jocelyn Lavin Pollard. The Lavin family were active members of the local Jewish community. Her family was musically talented, and Lavin was on stage from the age of five.
Linda won a Tony Award, as well as a Drama Desk, Outer Critics’ and Helen Hayes Award for her performance in “Broadway Bound” in 1987. She was a six time Tony Award nominee for her roles in “The Last of the Red Hot Lovers”, “The Diary of Anne Frank”, “The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife”, “Collected Stories” and “The Lyons”. In 2017, Linda was seen in “Candide” directed by Hal Prince and received stellar reviews. Inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 2011, other theatre credits include “The New Century” (Drama Desk Award), “Other Desert Cities” (LCT), and “Too Much Sun” (Vineyard Theatre). She was a two-time Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee for her role as Alice on the 9-year hit TV series “Alice”.
A.S. Levey’s photograph hung at the entrance to the (former) Jewish Federation office. It now hangs in the new Jewish Community Alliance building. His name is on the Jewish funeral chapel, the Hebrew day school, a room and library at Maine Medical Center, the social hall at the (former) Shaarey Tphiloh Synagogue, and the pavilion at the (former) Jewish Home for Aged. In Israel his name is inscribed on plaques at Weitzmann Institute, Hebrew University, Technion and Boys Town. Who was this man? Abraham Shlomo Levey was born near Riga, Latvia in 1885 and died in Portland, Maine on March 10, 1976. Abe’s father, a cattle dealer, tried to give his son the best Jewish education possible, hoping that someday Abe would become a rabbi, the ultimate achievement for any Jewish man in tsarist Russia. At the tender age of three, Abe started cheder (Hebrew school). At the age of ten he attended yeshiva (advanced Hebrew school). His mind proved to be one of genius. Life as a yeshiva student was not easy. He had to study sixteen hours a day, sleep on hard benches and eat in the different homes of local Jews who considered it an honor to support a yeshiva student. By fifteen, Abe was just steps away from ordination as a rabbi. At sixteen he realized that he no longer wanted to become a rabbi. In 1901 he left for America. He arrived in Portland then went to Chelsea, Massachusetts where he learned a trade, interior decorating. He returned to Portland and married Fannie B. Mack. Abe opened an interior decorating shop and then built a building on Middle Street, the first one named “The Levey Building.” The Depression came and there were no tenants, so Abe decided to occupy the building himself and open a furniture store. Then came World War II. Abe bought two more buildings, borrowed money, and stocked all the space available with furniture. Within a short time, the U.S. entered the war. Furniture was rationed and prices frozen. Reliable Furniture Co. had a large inventory and suddenly Abe started making money. He saw the opportunity to realize his life’s dream. He became a philanthropist. Abe and Fannie lived very frugally, but there was no limit to their charity. The needs in the community were enormous. News of the Holocaust was devastating; there were hundreds of survivors who had to be fed and sustained. The needs of Jews in America were also growing; supporting Jewish education was very important. Abe called a meeting of community leaders and within a short time the Jewish Federation of Portland was born. Abe was its founder and first president. Instead of having many fundraising campaigns, there was now only one. Most of the Jewish organizations became constituent/recipient agencies. Abe was the driving force and also the largest contributor. Abe’s philanthropy continues to this day through the A.S. & F.B. Levey Foundation. Following Abe’s wishes, the trustees of the foundation allocate funds to the Jewish Community Alliance (formerly the Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Center), the Levey (Hebrew) Day School, Maine Medical Center, the United Way, local synagogues (particularly the Orthodox synagogue), scholarships for local high schools and the Cedars (formerly the Jewish home for Aged).
George I. Lewis, who passed away in May 1987, was an entrepreneur and philanthropist who preferred to stay out of the limelight except when it came to helping his fellow man on Commercial Street in Portland, or in the poultry houses in Penobscot County, or at the Jewish Federation in Portland. His legacy in these three venues is time-honored by way of both the “Lewis Gallery” at the Portland Public Library and the “George I. Lewis Auditorium at Cross Insurance Arena”, named after him by the seamless communities which he served. In his business life, George was an investor in the Maine fishing and poultry industries. During the post-war era, he controlled as many as 25 vessels in Portland and carried mortgages on others, thereby enabling fishermen to prosper. In 1962, he purchased the massive 100,000 square foot, five-story brick building on Cumberland Wharf which had survived the 1866 Great Fire of Portland. He insulated the building with cork, converted it into a cold storage warehouse, and named the business Cumberland Cold Storage. George’s investments of both finances and time strengthened the waterfront economy and the significance to the City of its working waterfront. In Penobscot County, George invested in the poultry business, becoming one of the owners of Penobscot Poultry. He was a caring employer, taking an interest in his employees and doing what he could to make things easier for them. Even into his eighties, he was known for stopping by the plant to observe his employees on the lines in order to both make things better for them and improve production. While George’s contributions to the fishing and poultry industries in Maine were great, his contributions as a leader of Maine’s Jewish Federation for the survival of Judaism may have been greater. In 1945, the Federation launched its third annual campaign, which was directed by George. With the able assistance of his colleagues, he recorded a fundraising high of $120,000 (est. $1,675,000 in 2019 dollars). These funds assisted with the relief and rehabilitation of the remnant of European Jewry, together with the deliverance of European Jewish survivors and support of Jews in Palestine. He again took the helm as general campaign chairman for the 1948 fundraising drive. Under his leadership, Jews of Portland contributed $292,000 to the Federation (est. $3,044,000 in 2019 dollars). In 1954, George negotiated a $150,000 loan with Casco Bank and Trust Company ($1,401,000 in 2019 dollars), with the proceeds being forwarded to the United Jewish Appeal. That year, the State of Israel embarked upon a campaign to promote the sale of a second issue of Israel Development Bonds, resulting from the success of the first efforts. In Portland, the campaign was launched with a testimonial dinner honoring George I. Lewis in recognition of his services to the initial bond drive. The dinner, held November 9, 1954, was attended by several hundred persons. George I. Lewis was that rare, quiet, venerable businessman who unceasingly worked for the betterment of humankind across all borders.
Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, the son of a distinguished businessman , Dr. Lown immigrated with his family to the United States - at the age of 14. He attended Lewiston High School, graduated summa cum laude from the University of Maine and received an M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1945.
Dr. Bernard Lown, 1985 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, an organization which he co-founded with Soviet cardiologist Yevgeny Chazov, has affected major advancements in medical technology on an international scale throughout his medical career. Dr. Lown is the original developer of the direct-current defibrillator (for cardiac resuscitation) and the cardioverter (for correcting rapid disordered heart rhythms) and he introduced a new use for the drug lidocaine to control heartbeat disturbances. Dr. Lown has focused on two major medical challenges throughout his career: the problem of sudden cardiac death, which claims nearly 500,000 lives annually in the USA and the role of psychological stress on the cardiovascular system.
Dr. Lown is Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Senior Physician Emeritus at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is the founder of the Lown Cardiovascular Center and Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation. He recently founded the Lown Institute, which aims to reform both the health care system and society.
Dr. Lown was a principal and leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Committee of Responsibility for War Injured Vietnamese Children, and International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He received 24 honorary degrees including five from the state of Maine.
In 2008, Governor John Baldacci signed into law an act renaming South Bridge which connects Lewiston and Auburn to The Bernard Lown Peace Bridge. “That came as a great surprise,” he said. “In a way, it’s symbolic of my life - symbolic in the sense that my aim was always to connect. To connect human beings with one another. The patient with the doctor, the doctor with the patient. The Soviet with American, the poor world with the rich world - to create that connection - to create bridges. It’s emblematic of what my life was all about.”
Philip Lown was born in Lithuania in 1890, the son of a Lubavitcher Hasid and an equally pious mother. He arrived in the US at age 17, and although penniless, he worked his way through high school while learning English. He went on to the University of Maine where he received a chemical engineering degree. While at the University of Maine, he helped organize the Menorah Society and start the Hillel Foundation. He then spent several years working as a chemist in Rhode Island. In 1935, he purchased a shoe factory in Lewiston and moved there with his wife Anne (Rubin) and their daughters, Dorothy and Louise.
Philip Lown and Israel Bernstein formed the Maine Jewish Council and established UJA appeal committees throughout the State. He served as honorary president of the American Association of Jewish Education (AAJE) and established Camp Lown in Oakland, Maine, where thousands of Jewish children from New England and New York enjoyed a rich camping experience during its 30+ year existence. In his role as honorary president of the AAJE, he worked to enrich the Jewish experience and provide knowledge to young Jews.
Mr. Lown served as trustee at Brandeis University, where he launched and endowed the Philip W. Lown School of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. He served as trustee, president, and Board Chair to the Hebrew College in Boston, and was the College’s first recipient of the Medallion for Leadership in Jewish Education. His work in Israel included funding of the Lown Community Center, the Library of Education of Hebrew University, and a Hadassah program.
Mr. Lown was also actively engaged with helping survivors of the Holocaust reach Palestine, and in the establishment and defense of the State of Israel during the War of Independence. He was a co-founder of State of Israel Bonds, and he served as Treasurer of the B’nai B’rith Hillel Commission and received the Jewish Theological Seminary of America’s medal for distinguished contribution to Jewish education.
Peter Lunder served as Co-Chairman, President, and CEO of Dexter Shoe Company. He is the Chairman of The Lunder Foundation, a family foundation established in 1988. He is a former vice chairman and national board member of the Smithsonian Institution and is Commissioner Emeritus of the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). Mr. Lunder graduated from Colby College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1956 and received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1996. He is a Colby College Lifetime Overseer and member of the Colby College Museum of Art governing board. He received an honorary Doctor of Science in Business Administration in 2010 from Thomas College in Waterville, Maine.
Paula Lunder graduated from Lesley University with a Bachelor of Science in Education in 1959. She received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1996 from Colby College and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 2010 from Thomas College. At Colby College, Mrs. Lunder is a Lifetime Trustee and a member of the Colby College Museum of Art governing board. Mrs. Lunder volunteered in many organizations over the past 45 years, which include The Waterville Boys and Girls Club, The Kennebec Valley Mental Health Organization, board member of the Maine Holocaust Center for Human Rights, the Maine Public Broadcasting committee to raise awareness and provide funding for digital programming, and the board of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, to name just a few.
Mr. and Mrs. Lunder both serve on the Visiting Committee of Dana-Farber. They have provided funding for the Lunder Building at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and have established the Lunder Dineen Educational Alliance in partnership with MGH, which provides free educational programs to the healthcare field in Maine. The Lunders are major collectors of American art and were lead donors to the Lunder Wing of American Art at Colby College Museum of Art. They have created the endowed Lunder Chair for Education and Outreach Programs and the lead challenge gift for the Lunder Conservation Center at SAAM, as well as the Lunder Curator of American Art at Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery at the Smithsonian Institution. They have also created the Lunder Curator of American Art at Colby, the Lunder Whistler Curator of Art at Colby, and the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby. They provided funding for the Lunder Building at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. Their foundation has established scholarship funds at several colleges and universities in New England. They both received honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from the Maine College of Art.
For the past 50+years Billy Miller has been the Bangor Jewish community’s “uber mensch”. Billy was born in Bangor to Abe and Frieda Miller and is most closely identified with Miller Drug, a pharmacy that he and his wife Gloria (who died in 2021) ran for 55 years.
The roots of Miller Drug and Billy’s love affair with the Bangor area began in 1939 when his mother started a family variety store. Family and friends pitched in to help start the State Street business while his father recovered from surgery. The store was an instant success as doctors and nurses from the nearby hospital as well as neighborhood kids and families stopped by for a bite to eat or sit at the counter for an ice cream float.
Billy went to pharmacy school in Boston and returned to Bangor with a degree and Gloria, who he met at a drug store on Longwood Avenue. Billy described that first encounter with Gloria as “ I went into a drug store on Longwood Avenue to get a pack of gum and came out with a wife”. In 1957, he opened a prescription drug counter at Miller Cut Rate and Billy’s legend began. The store grew to be the largest privately-owned drug store in the State. No one ever left Miller Drug without the Rx they needed. Home deliveries were the norm. Miller’s was open every day of the year and late-night calls for critical medications were filled by Billy that same evening.
Billy is extremely active at Congregation Beth Israel. He helped ensure that there was a minyan twice a day, seven days a week for decades. He served as its President and has been its Head Gabbai for 50 years. He has been the Kevra coordinator for much of that time, ensuring that families were treated with dignity and compassion when at their most vulnerable.
In addition to his role in the Jewish community, his participation in the community-at-large is legendary. He had been, until his retirement in 2022, a percussionist with the Bangor Symphany and Bangor Band for 65 years, became a key part of the world-class community organization to which it has evolved; and meaning no disrespect to the several conductors with whom he worked, was viewed as the face of the BSO. There is now an endowed chair in his name.
He has served on area hospice and hospital advisory boards including the Red Cross Northern New England Board of Directors. Like his mother before him, he has been extremely active in supporting Camp CaPella, an area summer camp that provides diverse educational and recreational opportunities for children with disabilities. Until recently, Billy worked a weekly shift as a cook at the Salvation Army Bangor’s Soup Kitchen. He also served on the Board of the State Pharmacy Association, the Husson University School of Pharmacy, the Eastern Maine chapter of the American Red Cross and OHI, a Bangor area nonprofit which provides housing and financial support for people with disabilities. His philanthropy to area human services agencies, usually anonymously, is nonetheless well known. Billy Miller is often considered the “go-to” Jewish resource in the Bangor area by both Jewish and non-Jewish residents alike. He is truly an uber mensch to everyone. However, he kvells that his joy and success has been the family that he and his beloved wife Gloria raised and nurtured in their sixty-eight years of marriage, a brood that includes four children, ten grandchildren and (at the moment) three great grandchildren.
Charlie was, and Ellie continues to be, integral as members of the Jewish faith community in Greater Portland. Having met and married while students at Colby College, they spent seven years in the Waterville area where Charlie was an English teacher at Lawrence High School in Fairfield. There, Charlie created and coached what became a state champion debate team, with several of his students earning full-tuition scholarships to college. Ellie acted as the sole teacher and B’nai Mitzvah tutor for the 23 student Beth Israel Congregation Hebrew School. She also served as the first woman cantor for high holiday services in October 1978. They moved to Portland in 1976 so that Charlie could attend law school and remained here, where both epitomized the very best of civic engagement and leadership in the Jewish community, the legal community, and the southern Maine community generally. In the words of one current laureate member of the Hall of Fame, over many years “nothing ever happened in the Jewish community in Portland without their involvement.”
Charlie and Ellie each served as President of Temple Beth El in Portland and Charlie led campaign efforts to build TBE’s endowment, which he continued to serve until his death as Chair of that Committee. The Fund has recently been renamed the Temple Beth El Charles E. Miller Endowment Fund, honoring Charlie’s long and dedicated service and skill. Both Charlie and Ellie continued to serve on the Board at TBE after their service as President had ended. Rabbi Emerita Carolyn Braun of Temple Beth El called Charlie and Ellie “stalwart members” of the Temple Beth El community, participating in myriad religious and educational functions and programs. Rabbi Braun further said that, for Charlie and Ellie, “it was all about the children.” Ellie served as the first Chair of TBE’s Hebrew School and as President of Levey Day School’s Board. She went on to serve as Director (“Head of School”) at Levey and for many years she has tutored B’nai Mitzvah students for both TBE and Bet Ha’am. She also continues to teach adult classes for the JCA. Together, Charlie and Ellie taught the high school program at TBE with memorable trips to Newport and New York, and Charlie taught music to younger students for more than 30 years, being remembered for the joy and creativity he brought singing and playing guitar. Charlie also served as a member of the USY Commission, focusing on Beth El’s and the community’s teenagers, from when he first moved to Portland and as Chair of that Committee for many years. He was Co-Chair of the Hillel Advisory Board, serving Jewish students at local Maine colleges, continuing to act in that capacity at the time of his death. In addition to specifically serving the youth population, Charlie focused his efforts on the elder community as a member of the Cedars Board when the new facility was being developed on Ocean Avenue.
For both Charlie and Ellie, it was about not only specific groups, but about the entire community. They stepped forward to meet whatever the need might be. For example, when asked to step in suddenly as Executive Director of the Jewish Community Alliance three years before its new building opened on Congress Street, Ellie without hesitating filled the void and successfully ran the JCA until the new building opened and a new Executive Director could be hired. During the entire process of planning, approval, and construction of the new facility, Charlie expertly represented the JCA, addressing and overcoming numerous legal and other issues that arose with the City of Portland, Libbytown area neighbors, and other interested parties during the real estate transaction and construction process. Some have said that the new JCA facility would not have been built but for their efforts. To commemorate Charlie’s and Ellie’s efforts, the JCA dedicated all the mezuzahs in the building in their honor during the grand opening ceremony. In the legal community, Charlie was an enormously influential attorney, nationally recognized and celebrated for his legal abilities. He was also a leader within his law firm, Bernstein Shur Sawyer & Nelson, serving for 10 years as the firm’s Chief Executive Officer and continuing his legal practice in real estate and business law until his death. Beyond legal practice, however, Charlie and Ellie turned their community leadership skills and their ethic of compassion to aiding in the quest for justice for Maine citizens of all faiths who are unable to afford legal representation. Through Ellie’s work as Assistant Director of Pine Tree Legal Assistance for 28 years and Charlie’s leadership support for the Campaign for Justice, the Muskie Fund for Legal Services, the Frank M. Coffin Fellowship in Family Law, and numerous fundraising efforts, their participation has helped ensure that Maine citizens have access to justice in civil legal matters. In recognition of their commitment to justice for all, Charlie and Ellie were jointly honored with the Edmund S. Muskie “Access to Justice” Award in 2009 and in 2024 Pine Tree announced a new initiative named the Elinor and Charles Miller Rural Justice Fellowship aimed at improving access to civil legal services for residents of Aroostook, Hancock, and Washington Counties. Ellie continues to serve on Pine Tree’s Board as Treasurer and also serves as Treasurer of Hope Acts, an organization providing housing and other services to immigrants. At the time of his death, Charlie was a member of the Board of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute where he had served as Chairman from 2016-2019.
For both Ellie and Charlie, their professional and community volunteer lives were of critical importance to them, but at the core of their beings was their love for each other and the family they created together: their three children and their spouses and their six grandchildren.
Myer Minsky, the son of and grandson of ordained rabbis, was born in Kreva, Russia in 1888. He emigrated to Boston in 1904 and then to Bangor. Following service in WW1, he opened the National Confectionery Co. which he ran until his death. Myer organized the first Zionist group in Bangor and later the Sons & Daughters of Zion. He became a leader in the Zionist movement within New England and served on several national committees. He was also prominent in bringing Jewish National Fund activity to Bangor (an effort that continued under the leadership of his son Norman), the Jewish Relief Fund and B’nai Brith, of which he was a founder. He was a key member of the group that established the Bangor Jewish Community Center. In addition, his wife Bess held local and New England leadership positions with Hadassah and was a founder of the Congregation Beth Israel Sisterhood.
His sons, Leonard and Norman, continued the Minsky family contributions to community and Jewish life in the Bangor region.
Following graduation from the University of Maine, where he was President of Hillel, Leonard immediately joined National Confectionery, assuming leadership of the paper products division, which emerged as a stand-alone entity, Superior Paper. That business became a state-wide enterprise under Leonard’s leadership. In his business career, Leonard served as President of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, was a founding director of Merrill Merchants Bank and was a recipient of the Bangor Chamber of Commerce’s Dowd Award.
He was an active alumnus of the University of Maine. He was Chairman of the Patron of the Arts for over 30 years and he and his wife Renee, were the recipients of numerous awards and recognition. Leonard was a past president of the Jewish Community Council and past Treasurer of Jewish Community Endowment Associates. The Minskys were members of Congregation Beth Israel.
Leonard and Renee’s philanthropy extends to a number of Jewish and civic organizations. They have endowed funds that support NGOs in Israel and art programs in public schools from the primary grades to the university level. Major gifts that bear their name are located at the University of Maine, Eastern Maine Medical Center and the Bangor Public Library.
Norman Minsky earned his undergraduate and law degrees from Boston University. A member of the Gross, Minsky, Mogul law firm, he also has a long history of professional, political, community and philanthropic involvement. Norman served two terms on the City of Bangor Planning Board and two years as Chairman; two terms on the Bangor City Council, one year as Mayor; and two terms in the Maine House of Representatives. He was president and a long-standing board member of each of the Bangor Public Library, Bangor Symphony Orchestra, Jewish Community Endowment Associates and Counseling Center as well as an original member of both the Baxter State Park Advisory Board and the Collins Center for the Arts Advisory Board. He was also a founding board member of Merrill Merchants Bank .
Professionally, he is a member and was president of the Penobscot Bar Association; and is a member and was Chair of the Continuing Legal Education Committee of the Maine State Bar Association.
Norman is an honorary alumnus of the University of Maine, is responsible for the establishment of the Judaic Studies program at the University of Maine. He is a member of Congregation Beth Israel, served as its President for twelve years and established the synagogue’s endowment fund during his tenure.
Katherine Morgan was the first Jewish United States Administrative Law Judge appointed to hear cases in Maine (1994). She served in the Portland office of the Social Security Administration from 1994 until retirement in 2018. Her tenure included appointment as Chief United States Administrative Law Judge. Katherine has been acknowledged and held in high esteem nationwide by the legal Bar and was known for her integrity and respectful and compassionate treatment of all who came before her in the courtroom. Prior to her appointment as an ALJ, Katherine was honored by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Houston Texas, for her contributions as an attorney in the District Counsel’s Office and for the quality and success of her work, including winning a major sexual harassment case involving a VA Hospital Department Chief who was engaging in gross sexual abuse of his employees. She also conducted an investigation, which led to the exoneration of a hospital employee wrongly accused of causing a patient’s death; was instrumental in establishing a smoke-free hospital environment; and educated and trained employees on topics of racial, sexual, religious, and age discrimination prohibitions under federal law. She served as a United States Administrative Judge in Houston for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in addition to teaching criminal justice, labor law, legal research, and legal practice and procedure in several colleges and universities as an adjunct professor and working as a labor arbitrator. In Washington, DC, Katherine worked as a professional staff member with Congressman Claude Pepper’s House Select Committee on Aging, helping write the legislation for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which eliminated most mandatory retirement age requirements in the country. In DC and NYC, Katherine worked as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board. Before earning her JD and practicing labor and discrimination law, Katherine earned a Masters Degree in Urban Education. As a fifth and sixth grade teacher in a special community-controlled inner-city education project in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, Brooklyn, one of three experimental “demonstration districts” established in New York City, she successfully educated students whom the school system had given up on, and considered unteachable. In the turbulent late sixties when the city was torn apart with issues of Black Power and community control in the schools, Katherine was one of the few Jewish teachers appointed and accepted by the inner-city community to teach in the schools. Through innovative and creative teaching methods, she was able to establish good relations with the community and students; raise the reading levels and scores of students; and inspire them to enjoy and desire learning. Active in the Civil Rights and Anti-Apartheid Movements, Katherine participated in sit-ins and demonstrations to integrate construction sites and other segregated businesses and to oppose businesses and universities investing in South Africa’s apartheid government. Katherine had a long and proud history as a humanist/activist contributing to the dignity and welfare of the needy and injured in society. In all her endeavors, she acquired a reputation for fairness and compassion.
Lenny and Merle Nelson have dedicated their lives to the advancement of their family, their professions and to their community. Their commitment to Maine’s Jewish community has been a constant throughout their lives.
Lenny and Merle Nelson have been leaders in Portland from their Deering High School days until the current moment. At Deering, Merle was a class officer, a cheerleader and elected by a school-wide vote as “Miss Deering.” Lenny was a distinguished student and a star for three years on the Varsity tennis team. He was elected the president of the Center Youth at the Jewish Community Center and was also elected as President of the Center Youth of New England. They both went to college in Cambridge, MA: Merle at Lesley College and Lenny at Harvard College. They married as undergraduates at the end of their Junior year. They each graduated college with honors. Merle began teaching elementary school in Newton, MA, which supported Lenny as he embarked on a three year program at Harvard Law School. Merle was named a Master Teacher which made graduate study for her possible at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In that academic period, Merle gave birth to Judd and earned her Master’s degree from Harvard; Lenny graduated from Harvard Law School and all three of them returned to Maine.
Lenny began his legal career at Bernstein and Bernstein in June of 1960 as an associate of Israel, Louis and Sumner Bernstein, becoming the 4th lawyer at the firm. By 1964, Lenny organized the merger of Bernstein, Bernstein and Nelson with Barney Shur and Herb Sawyer to create Bernstein Shur Sawyer and Nelson (now Bernstein Shur) which is now Maine’s largest law firm staffed by over 120 lawyers. If a major legal matter was occurring in Maine in the last half century, Lenny and Bernstein Shur were frequently in the thick of it, whether it was the gigantic Bath Iron Works Dry Dock deal, or the Georgia Pacific national hostile takeover of Great Northern Paper, or the fight to end religious and racial exclusionary practices at Portland’s powerful private clubs. In the last 25 years as Lenny’s business and legal skills were recognized beyond the borders of Maine, he became a fiduciary to many of the nation’s prominent families. He currently acts as a fiduciary for the Saidye Bronfman Trust of Montreal and New York, the Charles Bronfman Trust of Delaware and the Glickman Family office – originally of Beverly Hills and now of Maine.
In addition to building Maine’s premier law firm, Lenny also found time to lead and reorganize many of Maine’s most important cultural charities. He served as president of the Portland Symphony Orchestra Board in his 20’s; chaired the Maine State Arts Commission in his 30’s; and became President of the Portland Museum of Art in his 40’s. He also served as chair of the architect selection committee for both the Portland Museum’s IM Pei building and the Cumberland County Civic Center. He and Merle separately ran two Maine State Israel Bond drives in the 60’s, and he and Merle together chaired the 50th anniversary celebration of Temple Beth El. Lenny was elected to and served five years on the Falmouth town council, two of which he was the chair.
After returning to Portland, Merle and Lenny began raising their growing family: Judd, Eve, and Julie. Merle’s public service, which was continuous, took off dramatically in 1976 when she decisively won election to the Maine House of Representatives for the City of Portland. She served for 10 productive years in that office before retiring in 1986. Merle’s legislative career focused on trying to make life better and more equitable for all people, especially in civil rights matters. She sponsored landmark legislation to create opportunities for women so that they were prepared to join or re-enter the workforce. She sponsored and passed tax reform, safety, and health protection for children and women. She began innovative educational programs for gifted and talented children in art, music, dance, reading and math. She established new organ transplant procedures for the State of Maine. She provided research and educational opportunities for children and adults struggling with physical and mental disabilities. She introduced voluntary mediation in matrimonial matters, restorative justice in criminal matters and restricted smoking in public places. As a result of her legislative efforts on behalf of the artists of Maine, she received an Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the Maine College of Art. She championed the % for Art bill in all Maine public buildings generating over $20 Million for Maine artists. For her work in the Legislature and the community, Merle received the Deborah Morton Award for “Service to the State of Maine.” When Merle was the National Chair of the Arts and States Committee of the National Conference of all the States Legislatures, she coauthored a book on “Funding the Arts of America.” Merle consistently contributed to the care and welfare of the Jewish communities of Maine. She introduced the first state funding for the fledgling Holocaust Center in Maine. While serving on the newly constituted Holocaust Human Rights Center Board, she developed the program to systematically introduce the teaching of the Holocaust, in public and private schools, in Maine. While serving on the Temple Beth El Board as President of its Sisterhood, Merle co-authored and helped finance the printing of the Beth El Sabbath Services handbook. As a Board member of the national Seeds of Peace organization, Merle founded the Maine Seeds of Peace program that brought children of color, immigrant children, and under-privileged children together not only at the summer Seeds Camp in Otisfield, but also during the regular school year. Merle found time to volunteer for the Cedars “Meals on Wheels” for many years and the Preble Street food kitchen as a representative of Temple Beth El. Merle continued her service to the community of Maine and New England by serving as President of Children’s Theatre, Vice President of the Spurwink School, member of the Executive Board of the Junior League, and a Trustee of: Lesley University, Maine Community College System, New England Organ Bank, Maine Ethics Commission, Portland Public Library, the Mitchell Institute, Council of Jewish Women, and the Portland Symphony. Merle’s personal philosophy can be stated simply: “I have always felt and believed in the importance and the power of being a Jewish woman. Judaism has guided my life and helped to give it honor and purpose.” More recently, and closer to home, Merle organized the fundraising and managed the design of the magnificent garden at the Jewish Museum in Portland. She and Lenny established the Nelson Social Justice Fund at the Portland Museum of Art, an endowed fund that annually honors artists whose work or lives reflect a “commitment to social justice.”
“My total conscious search in life has been for a new seeing, a new image, a new insight. This search not only includes the object, but the in-between place. The dawns and the dusks. The objective world, the heavenly spheres, the places between the land and sea...Whatever creation man invents, the image can be found in nature. We cannot see anything that we are not already aware of. The inner, the outer = One.” ~ A statement for the exhibition Nature in Abstraction, 1957.
Photo credit: Louise Nevelson by John Gordon, Whitney Museum of Art, 1967
Louise Nevelson is considered to be one of America’s foremost artists. Nevelson’s sculpted wood assemblages transcend space and transform the viewer’s perception of art. For her brilliant compositions in varied mediums critics hailed her as the leading sculptor of the twentieth century. A pioneering grande dame of the art world, Nevelson’s iconic persona was characterized by her skilled mixing and matching of ethnic clothing, mink eyelashes, and especially her charismatic presence. Her work can be found in major museums and esteemed private collections worldwide.
Louise Nevelson was born in 1899 in the Ukraine and immigrated to Rockland, Maine in 1905. It was tough for the family to find work and assimilate into American culture, and while they spoke Yiddish at home they quickly learned English. Louise graduated from Rockland High School and “knowing” she was an artist, married Charles Nevelson and moved to NYC. There she had her only child, a son, Mike Nevelson in 1922 and studied at the Art Students League. Her marriage soon fell apart. She left her young son with family, traveled around Europe and studied with the painter Hans Hoffman from 1931-32.
When she returned to New York, she worked with the great Mexican Muralist, Diego Rivera (1933), and in 1934 studied sculpting with Chaim Gross at the Educational Alliance, a wonderful school in lower Manhattan with classes taught in Yiddish.
World War II and the return of male artists created a competitive environment in NYC where women artists were slammed with their gender. Abstract Expressionism was the rave and the women were just as important to the development as men but were ignored. Nevelson was among them. She struggled to find her artistic voice along with all the artists. 1941 brought her first solo exhibition at the Nierendorf Gallery in NYC. She was 41 years old. She sold nothing, but gained respect as an artist.
In 1957-58, the box breakthrough came and the exhibition at Grand Central Moderns (NYC) showed everyone her new signature style of wooden crates filled with found wooden objects painted black. The Museum of Modern Art acquired one of these creations, “Sky Cathedral,” where it resides in their permanent collection.
With more solo and group shows in the US and Europe, numerous news articles and speaking engagements, and constantly working, Nevelson moved to the A-list of American Artists and Art History.
Today, we see her sculptures in museum and private art collections in America, Europe and Japan. The Portland Museum of Art has the black sculpture “Untitled”. The Farnsworth Art Museum has “Endless Column”, as well as many early paintings and sculptures that help the viewer understand her early development as a major artist. The Farnsworth also has the second largest repository of Nevelson’s papers and artwork.
Several notable installations are the “Louise Nevelson Plaza” (NYC), a triangular park with black Cor-Ten steel sculptures up to 20’ high; the white wood “Nevelson Chapel” (NYC); “Mrs. N’s Palace” at Metropolitan Museum of Art; “City on the High Mountain” at Storm King Sculpture Park; “Homage to Six Million II” at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; “Bicentennial Dawn”, Federal Court House, Philadelphia; “Dawn’s Forest”, Baker Art Museum, Naples, FL; and “Sky Horizon”, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, MD.
Louise Nevelson has been commemorated by a series of fiveUS postage stamps and many numerous awards including: National Medal of the Arts; Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture; Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in Sculpture; National Arts Club Gold Medal in the Visual Arts; American Institute of Architects Medal; Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition, Ms. Nevelson was conferred several academic honorary degrees from colleges and universities including: Smith College; New York University; Columbia University; Boston University, Harvard University; Tufts University; and Art Institute of Chicago.
Louise Nevelson is one of America’s great artists who made remarkable contributions to Abstract Expressionist Art, inspired women and young girls to pursue their creative abilities despite familial expectations, and worked tirelessly to overcome the cultural challenges of her youth.
Marion Osher and Herb Sandler
Marion graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wellesley in 1952 and earned an MBA from NYU where she was the first woman to win the school's Money Marketeers Marcus Nadler Award for attaining the highest scholastic ranking in banking and finance. She went to work for a firm as an executive and one of only two women in professional jobs on Wall Street at the time. She later became one of the first women CEOs of a Fortune 500 company (Gold West Financial) and the longest serving.
Marion and Herb acquired significant wealth and exhibited great philanthropy. They committed to giving away all of their wealth, and participated in the Giving Pledge initiative organized by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates. They also started the Sandler Foundation in 1991 which has contributed more than $550 million to various causes.
Bernard Osher and Barbro Sachs-Osher
Bernard spent his early years in Southern Maine running a large hardware store as well as Palace Playland in Old Orchard Beach. He moved to California and became a founding director of World Savings which merged with the Wachovia Corporation.
Bernard is an avid art collector and purchased the Butterfield and Butterfield auction house which he ultimately sold to eBay.
Bernard is known as the "quiet philanthropist" and has given in the vicinity of one billion dollars to various arts, educational, and social services. He has funded over 120 Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes and has been financially very generous to causes in Maine. He has earned the designation as The Chronicle of Philanthropy's third most generous donor in America.
Harold and Peggy Osher
Harold was a cardiologist and lived in Maine full time. He and his wife Peggy created The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education in 1994 housed at the University of Southern Maine. Harold's love for maps traces back to his childhood. The Library contains 300,000 maps, among other related items.
Harold and Peggy always supported their beloved Portland Museum of Art, which was Peggy's "home away from home" as a board member for over 40 years. They proudly donated their collection of Winslow Homer graphics to the museum. Mark Bessire, Museum Director, said it’s hard to imagine the cultural landscape of Portland without the Osher family: “Peggy and Dr. Osher are the quintessential quiet leaders that our community reveres: They lead by example. They inspire us all to weave lives that connect our passions with practicality and results. Their vision of the museum has always been tied to their aspirations for our community and their love of Winslow Homer. Like Homer, they are the DNA of the PMA.”
Alfred and Dorothy Suzi Osher
Dr Alfred Osher, who passed away in 1999, was an oral surgeon and orthodontist who practiced in Biddeford. His wife Suzi currently lives in Scarborough, Maine. Their foundation, the Alfred and Dorothy Suzi Osher Foundation, has supported many nonprofits over the years, and was the lead donor for the new JCA of Southern Maine, which would not have been built without their support.
Suzi and Alfred came to recognize the importance of comprehensive healthcare services for the elderly. As a healthcare provider himself – the the first board-certified orthodontist in the state of Maine – Dr. Osher was always known for his compassion and cheerfulness. Nicknamed “Uncle Al, the kiddie’s pal,” he went out of his way to make sure his patients had a positive experience. This spirit of compassion was mirrored by Suzi, an active community volunteer and philanthropist for such organizations as Maine Medical Center, the YMCA, and various Jewish causes. Suzi has always been a strong supporter of efforts to improve healthcare in our community, with a particular interest in programs that benefit nurses. With their close connection to Maine Medical Center and MMC’s commitment to geriatric care, after Alfred’s passing in 1999, Suzi decided to create two endowed funds at the Medical Center in Alfred’s memory. Both support specialized educational training and professional development for those who care for the elderly - physicians and nurses alike.
Edith Lucas Pagelson, Holocaust survivor, public speaker, and educator was born in 1926 in Worms, Germany. Her earliest years were idyllic. Her family lived an openly Jewish life in Worms’ thriving 1000-year-old Jewish community. Her neighbors and friends were both Jews and non-Jews, for, at the time, much like in recent decades in America she’d tell her students, socially there was no distinction. Friends were simply friends, and neighbors joyfully visited neighbors. This ended on Kristallnacht, Nov. 10, 1938, “The Night of Shattered Glass” when Edith was twelve years old. Their family hardware store and their apartment above it were broken into and ransacked. The memory of her parents’ mattress, thrown into the street, its feathers swirling in the chill air, remained vivid in Edith’s mind all her life. In Theresienstadt, her father perished from the lack of medical care, and Edith witnessed the deception of the sheeplike International Red Cross by the Nazis who deviously crafted a false façade of civil treatment of the incarcerated Jews. At Auschwitz, Edith faced Josef Mengele and convinced him that she and her mother could work. He told Edith to bring her mother – and sent them both to the gas chamber. But the gas chamber door malfunctioned in what Edith perceived as one of a series of miracles that led to her and her mother surviving the Shoah. They came through its fires alive and were forged by them.
Edith, her mother, and her future husband Henry Lucas, immigrated to America in 1947. Here, their relatives told Edith that she should forget the past, but Edith knew that the gift of life that she and those she loved had been granted required that she share her story: the knowledge of how precious life is, and how every life has infinite value. She actively engaged with the communities where she lived, from New York and Southern California to Maine, as well as with Holocaust Remembrance agencies like Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and the Maine Holocaust and Human Rights Center to which all the profits from her memoir AGAINST ALL ODDS: A MIRACLE OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVAL, now in its fourteenth printing, are donated.
Sharing her story as a living witness to the Holocaust became Edith’s life’s mission. She spoke frequently at schools, churches and synagogues, chambers of commerce, and community associations.
More than that, she made everyone she met feel loved, appreciated, and special. Small in stature, Edith nonetheless was a commanding presence when she spoke. Her humble demeanor and calm voice in relating the greatest of horrors brought her audiences to rapt attention: “I [speak to you] with great humility, honor, and pleasure; and I sincerely hope that my tale of persecution, horror, resilience, survival, rebirth, and transition will serve to educate both young and old alike. There is no greater gift that I could give, particularly to the innocent and inquisitive minds of middle and high school children who are still in the process of forming their attitudes and beliefs about ethical behavior and tolerance.”
Edith passed away at the age of 97 on the morning of Oct. 7, 2023 – during the very hours that Hamas perpetuated the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Edith would have seen this tragedy as a call for greater vigilance and, especially, for expanded education. She would have remarked on how, despite the media’s focus on the comparatively few, but loud, who hate, the majority of Americans (85% per the ADL’s The State of Antisemitism in America 2024: AJC’s Survey of the General Public recognize that “antisemitism affects society as a whole; and everyone is responsible for combating it.”
As per the Mishnah: “He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it…”
– Pirke Avot 2:16
To her family and friends, Edith was our “shamus”: the candle used to light all the other Chanukah candles. Through her example, her deeds, her dedication to Holocaust education, and her inextinguishable love, she embodied the truth that one can always give light to others without ever diminishing one’s own.
When Nathan Povich arrived in America in 1877, immigration officials changed his name, but not his dream. That 15-year-old boy, known then as Natan Pertzikovitz from Butrimonis, Lithuania, grew to become a successful businessman, a synagogue founder, and a Jewish pioneer in Bar Harbor and Bath.
Nathan had 10 children, and despite the dearth of Jews, saw to it that they all grew up in a Kosher home and had a Jewish education. Today, his grandchildren and two more Povich generations are spread across the United States and the world, from Hawaii to Switzerland.
Yet his legacy is felt strongest in Maine. He owned businesses in both Bar Harbor and Bath and was a charter member of the synagogue in Bath, Beth Israel, which continues to thrive today. The home he purchased in Bath in 1927, on the banks of the Kennebec River, was a nod to the shipbuilding industry that was instrumental in his move from Bar Harbor to Bath, and still remains in the family.
Nathan came to Boston with his father, Simon, but his mother and four sisters were left behind. When Simon sent for them some years later, his wife had died on the dock waiting for the ship, and his daughters arrived with an unknown woman who had agreed to take them. Simon and Nathan were peddlers traveling to Maine because a peddler’s license was cheaper there than in Massachusetts. Nathan liked Bar Harbor, settled there, and when he was 21, he sent for his cousin, Rosa, to become his wife. They were married in 1888 in Boston in a civil ceremony and later by a rabbi.
By 1908, Nathan had opened Standard Furniture in Bar Harbor where he had become a well-known man around town. But the family remained grounded. When a prominent town official came to visit, Rosa offered him a chair. In the midst of explaining how important he was, Rosa interjected, “Then, take two chairs.” While the family mostly thrived, one child, Sam, tumbled from a dock into the water and drowned. Nathan was away, and Rosa traveled to Bangor with the small body in her arms for a Jewish burial. The family then moved above the store on Main Street, living on the second and third floors and renting the other two floors to boarders.
Simon, meanwhile, was prospering in Bath real estate, and with the shipbuilding town booming during World War I, he persuaded Nathan and Rosa to move there and open a furniture store in 1916. Nathan became a leading member of the community and a checkers champion in his spare time. Nathan also owned other properties around town and it was in one of them where the seeds for Beth Israel were planted. The small Jewish group met in a number of venues, including a music hall owned by Nathan, until enough money was accumulated to build the synagogue in 1922. Everything was a fundraiser – including becoming a charter member of Beth Israel. Nathan was determined to bid the highest for listing on the charter, so that his father, Simon, who had by then passed away, could top the names. He got the top spot for $52.
The first Jew named to the Maine Superior Court and the first Jew named to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was Abraham M. Rudman, a noted Bangor attorney and Navy veteran of World War I. Mr. Rudman was active in the Jewish community, past president of B’nai B’rith in Bangor, and the first president of Bangor’s Jewish Community Center and Hebrew School. Abraham’s son, Paul, would also go on to serve on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.
Judge Rudman, after graduating from the University of Maine Law School, began his career founding the firm Rudman Winchell where he practiced as an attorney with his son Gerald until he was appointed to the bench. Abraham spent over 6 years as a judge at the State Superior Court in Augusta before being appointed to the State Supreme Court.
Rudman was a member of Temple Beth Israel in Bangor as well as a leader of the B’nai B’rith Pine Tree Lodge, dedicated to ensuring the security of Jewish people and combatting antisemitism. He additionally served on the fortieth anniversary committee for Bangor Hebrew school in 1947.
Abraham and his wife Irene bore three sons, Robert, Gerald, and Paul, producing 8 grandchildren.
Roxanne Quimby is an artist, conservationist, and businesswoman. She was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a daughter of an engineer and a homemaker. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she was influenced by “back to the land” homesteading ideas. In 1975, she moved to Maine living in a small cabin in the Maine woods, raising her children in a very rustic environment. From humble beginnings selling naturally made candles at fairs, she began making personal care products with partner Burt Shavitz, and thirty years later, she sold her company ( Burt’s Bees ) to Clorox. Roxanne used the proceeds to support her love of Judaism and the State of Maine. She was a major contributor to the new Chabad House in Portland.
In 2004, Roxanne founded the Quimby Family Foundation, the mission for which is “to grow human wholeness by fostering stronger relationships between people and nature.” For several years, the Quimby Family Foundation made grants to art and environmental organizations. In late 2016, the Roxanne Quimby Foundation was created, which focuses on growing human wholeness in Maine.
During 2016, Quimby purchased over 120,000 acres of Maine forest, 87,000 acres of which she transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior. This transfer was a prelude to the establishment of a national monument. The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument was established on August 24, 2016, the day prior to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service. She also purchased the 113-acre Ocean Wood Campground with the hope that the grounds will once again take their place among the many lovely landscapes and recreational opportunities of the Schoodic Peninsula.
Roxanne lives today in Portland and in Schoodic and is a major philanthropist and active with many charities. A biography of her life titled Queen Bee, was written and published in 2015 by author Phyliss Austin. A quote from the epilogue of Austin’s book summarizes what is important to her: “Roxanne Quimby is a unique presence in the north woods. As a former back-to-the-lander, she knows from experience how vital nature can be in people’s lives. As a businesswoman, she knows what jobs mean to communities. As an artist, she is stirred by the beauty of the northern forest. As a Thoreau acolyte, she wants to pay her dues to nature for having made her money manufacturing consumer goods.”
Louis Scolnik, civil rights activist and former Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, passed away on Oct. 10, 2024, at the remarkable age of 101. Born on Feb. 14, 1923, his family’s “Valentine baby,” Justice Scolnik, affectionately known as Lou or Louie – was a Navy veteran, a lawyer known for his fierce commitment to the rights of the marginalized, a justice on the Maine Supreme Judicial Court noted for his important dissents, a passionate lover of animals, a life-long jazz sax player, and a devoted husband, father, and grandfather.
The youngest of five children, Scolnik was born to Julius and Bessie Scolnik, Jewish immigrants who fled Kovno, Lithuania, in 1904, to settle in Lewiston, Maine. There, Julius Scolnik ran a dry goods store with his brother Kalman. Raised in a kosher household, Scolnik often recalled how his mother would send him to school with unwrapped potato latkes in his pockets, which he would eat covered in lint.
Upon graduation from Lewiston High School, Scolnik enrolled at Bates College and, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, enlisted in the Bates V-12 Naval Program. In the final year of the war, he served as an officer on LCI(L) 776, an amphibious landing ship, participated in landings in the Philippines and occupation duty in China, ultimately commanding the ship. After the war, Scolnik returned to Bates College, where he completed his BA in 1947. He then attended Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. and earned an LLB in 1952. On the advice of a professor, he returned to his hometown of Lewiston to practice law.
Scolnik’s legal career was defined by his steadfast commitment to civil rights and civil liberties. After opening his own private practice in 1957, Scolnik served as corporation counsel to the City of Lewiston, counsel to the central Maine branch of the NAACP, chair of the Maine Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Human Rights. In 1968, after serving for 16 years as the only cooperating attorney in Maine for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Scolnik helped organize and became the first president of the ACLU’s Maine chapter.
Before his appointment to the Maine Superior Court in 1974 and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court in 1983, Scolnik was active in the local branch of the NAACP, and also served, in the mid-1960s, as chairman of the Maine Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where he fought to end housing discrimination, including against Black service members stationed at Dow Air Force Base in Bangor who were being blocked from renting or buying adequate housing.
In 1974, Governor Kenneth Curtis appointed Scolnik to serve as a justice on the Maine Superior Court, where he was eventually named presiding justice for Region II. As a trial court judge, Scolnik was obliged to ride circuit hearing cases around the state. During these month-long sojourns he brought his golden retriever Sarah to keep him company. Sarah would remain in chambers during the trials, but Scolnik joked with the attorneys that one bark meant guilty, two barks innocent and three barks a mistrial. In 1983, Scolnik was elevated to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, where he served until his retirement in 1988.
Though Scolnik won numerous awards throughout his career, his greatest pride came in 1989 when, in recognition of his lifetime commitment to civil liberties, he was presented with the Roger Baldwin Award, named for the late founder of the ACLU. That same year, the Maine Civil Liberties Union established the Justice Louis Scolnik Award, which annually honors members of the legal community who have demonstrated an outstanding commitment to the protection of civil liberties. Scolnik himself received the eponymous honor for lifetime achievement in 2019.
In addition to his legal pursuits, Scolnik was a passionate and accomplished jazz musician, playing tenor saxophone and clarinet throughout his life. As he loved to say, “I wasn’t a hangin’ judge, I was a swingin’ judge.” He played in various dance bands during his high school and college years and even had a jazz trio on board his ship in the Pacific. Later in life, he formed “The Golden Years Trio,” which often entertained residents at local retirement homes. Among his favorite tunes were “Sunny Side of the Street” and “Our Love is Here to Stay.”
Scolnik was married for 67 years to Paula Scolnik, a beloved high school English teacher who passed away in 2018 after a long illness. During her final years, Scolnik devoted himself to her care, embodying the love and commitment that defined their life together.
Jack Spiegel was a devoted leader of Judaism, an ecologist, and had a great entrepreneurial spirit. He and his wife founded Quoddy Moccasins in Portland in 1947. By the late 1960s the firm had grown so large that Jack built a second distribution center on Western Avenue in South Portland. He also developed the site for the Maine Mall.
Jack had a life-long passion for preserving the Maine land and forest. He acquired a 150 acre lot at Bradbury Mountain and later donated it to the State. He later bought an 1,100 acre parcel in Raymond known as Morgan Meadow, nurtured the land, and later donated it to the State as well.
Jack and Anne became founding members of Temple Beth El in 1948 where he was active on the board of directors and served on many committees. He also served on the board of the Cedars.
He helped start the first Goodwill store in the Portland area. He established a scholarship award under the auspices of the Maine Holocaust Foundation. He and Anne established a fund through the Maine Community Foundation to support causes they cared about.
A 2007 study of Maine Jewish history recognizes Benjamin S. Stern of Biddeford for his achievements in state government during the 1930’s, a time when other Jews could not “break the grasp” on the Protestant-controlled politics in the cities of Portland and Bangor. Terming him a “New Deal Roosevelt Democratic legislator in the Maine House of Representatives” who represented “the heavily French Catholic community of Biddeford”, it characterizes Stern as “a long-time champion for social justice”, crediting him with helping to “create laws for child labor, workers’ rights and safety initiatives, and old-age pensions.” Within and beyond the Biddeford Jewish community, Stern lent his energies to causes including Congregation Etz Chaim in Biddeford,, the establishment of Israel, and Holy Cross Hospital, on whose board he served.
Born in Kovne, Lithuania on July 14, 1885 as Benjamin Chelner, he adopted his mother’s maiden name in 1900 when—pursued by Russian authorities as a Jew and a radical—he fled to London, home of his maternal uncle, father of the writer G[ladys] B[ertha] Stern. He devoured the city’s intellectual opportunities: frequenting the socialist circles of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, honing his formidable English oratorical skills on Sundays in Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner. Yet he soon departed for America, despairing of British society as incurably bourgeois and paralyzed by its rigid class system. Upon arrival in Boston, he did not seek out another materially advantaged family member, father of journalist Walter Lippmann. Rather, he started peddling linoleum from a wagon, then labored in the window-cleaning and building maintenance business, continuing in that line of employment, first in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and, by 1920, in Biddeford, for the rest of his working life. While engaged in union organizing, he met Rose Wolftraub, daughter of a rabbi from Odessa, Russia; she scandalized her family by accepting his marriage proposal in 1910.
Notwithstanding his identification as a “New Deal Roosevelt Democratic legislator”, Stern was elected to the Maine House of Representatives for its 1931-32 session, a year before FDR won the US presidency, as an Independent. He then ran and won as an Independent Democrat for the following, 1933-34, session. Once elected, he supported a resolution ratifying a proposed amendment to the US Constitution permitting Congress to regulate child labor laws, and introduced bills providing a system of non-contributing old age-pensions and regulating the wages of employees on state highways. Entirely self-educated, he wore an abundance of learning lightly, marshaling statistical evidence along with humanitarian arguments and wry witticisms in advocating for these bills.
His advisors numbered such esteemed figures as Albert Abramson (1906-1988), a Jewish economics professor at Bowdoin College and Maine’s Works Progress Administrator from 1935-37, and the eminent Socialist Norman Thomas (1884-1968). His legacy abides in the children and grandchildren of his four offspring: Arthur Stern (1912-1956), Celia Stern Peller Wilson (1913-1973), Saul I. Stern (1915-2010), and Samson B. Stern (1917-2016), two of whom he sadly outlived. He inspired them to fight for progressive ideals, human rights, and the welfare of others in their vocations and avocations.
Mel Stone was born May 1, 1921, to David and Gertrude (Cohen) Epstein at home on Munjoy Hill. He was a graduate of Portland High School, 1938, Portland Junior College, 1941 (now USM), Boston University, cum laude, 1943, with a degree in Journalism/Business. He married Frances Marsha Lempert, of Lewiston, as an Army 2nd Lt. July 23, 1944, just prior to going overseas. Mel served more than four years in WWII, mostly in Europe where his unit, the 187th Combat Engineer Battalion, was attached to several Army Divisions for engineering support. War’s end found the 187th attached to Patton’s 2nd Armored in Czechoslovakia, facing Soviet troops. Following deactivation of the 187th in late 1945, Mel, then a Captain, became adjutant of the 1120th Combat Engr. Group. His final posting was Military City Engineer for the nearly entirely demolished city of Nuremberg. Fran was among the earliest group of Army wives to travel to Germany to join their husbands. She and Mel occupied an apartment in Furth, Bavaria, a Nuremberg suburb, for a year. They travelled extensively all over Allied Occupied Europe. One highlight was attendance at several Nuremberg trial sessions. Early in 1948, Mel, with a business partner, acquired the Rumford (ME) Publishing Co. and it’s Rumford Falls Times. Under their management the weekly increased circulation 40% and doubled the number of pages per issue. Plant expansion enabled them to publish the Wilton Times, Westbrook American (now the American-Journal), Lisbon Enterprise and the Rangeley Record, a summer weekly. From publishing, Mel’s attention turned to broadcasting. Over the years he developed ownership in nine AM and FM radio stations and Channel 7, TV, Bangor. In his 70s, Mel recognized that broadcasting was a “young man’s game” and began to divest the various properties. His attention turned to media brokering. Mel became New England vice president of a New York media brokerage firm. Until he finally retired at 84, Mel actively brokered the sale of dozens of radio stations, including WGAN AM & FM, locally.During the 1970s, Mel also built and operated a twin cinema in Rumford. In his later years, Mel wrote a book titled “Media Guy”. Cover description: “A humorous romp thru much of the 20th century, following his career in newspapers, radio, television and other weird enterprises”. Mel was active in his community. In Rumford he was president of the Jaycees and a Rotarian. He was treasurer of the Maine Press Assn. and first president of the New England Press Association. A few years later he was elected president of the Maine Radio-TV Broadcasters Assn., the only person ever to hold an office in both Press and Broadcasting groups. He became a director, later president of the Jewish Home for Aged (now the Cedars organization). He chaired finance and investment committees for many years. Mel was a president of the Portland Lions Club and president of its Lions Low Vision Clinic at the Institution of the Blind, now the Iris Network. He was president and a campaign chair of the Portland Jewish Federation, vice president at Temple Beth El and president of its Brotherhood. Mel was a past commander of the local Jewish War Veterans Post and, later, until a short time before his death, served as Quartermaster (secretary-treasurer). Each year he would arrange for flags to decorate Jewish veterans’ graves at local cemeteries for Memorial Day. He was the longest serving member of SCORE, at first counseling and, later, doing marketing for SCORE workshops. Mel was a 32nd degree Mason, a member for more than 60 years. After retiring with Fran to the Atrium at Cedars in 2005, Mel served as Atrium Member Council chair, served on various committees, and presented weekly travelogues. Fran and Mel traveled extensively for many years, visiting every continent but Antarctica. He is survived by sons, David J. and his wife, Katharine (KC) of Windham, Charles E. and his wife, Barbara N.; grandsons Dr. Brian N. Stone, his wife Jennifer, Peter L. Stone and wife, Alicia; two great grandchildren, Eric Charles and Ella Jean Stone, two step great-grandchildren, Hayley Lee and Austin Jennings, all of Pennsylvania. Months before his death, Mel became certain that all of the loving concern shown him by family, Atrium staff and friends contributed greatly to the effectiveness of his many pain alleviating medications. He wanted them to know how grateful he was to them all.
In 1954, a group of campers headed down the Kennebec River in canoes hoping for a taste of white-water adventure. They didn’t get very far before they became stuck in a log jam that covered the water from bank to bank. They had to give up their trip and trudged into the town of Caratunk to call someone from the camp to come pick them up. The guide who led the expedition was dismayed. It was illegal for the logging companies to block the river, he said apologetically. Those words stayed with Howard Trotzky long after his summers at Camp Modin in Canaan. Trotzky, a native of New York City who moved to Maine as soon as possible after his summer stays, became so fed up with the logs clogging the Kennebec that he filed a lawsuit to stop the use of the river to move and store wood. Shortly after graduating from Columbia College in New York, Trotzky moved to Maine and enrolled at The University of Maine to earn a master’s degree in fishery biology. Working with the Maine Department of Fish & Game and the U.S. Department of The Interior, Trotzky was asked to do a study of the fish population in the upper Kennebec River. Residents thought the number of fish in the river was declining because of the log drives that choked the water with pulpwood and bark deposits. As he studied the river, Trotzky concluded that the log drives were damaging the underwater ecosystem. He studied the laws of Maine and found a 19th century statute which designated waterways as public highways open to all. He formed the Kennebec Valley Conservation Association in 1970 and began lobbying the log driving and paper companies to stop using the river to carry their logs. Trotzky was criticized by many as a radical outsider who sought to end a centuries-old Maine tradition. Even the state’s mainstream environmental groups said his lawsuit was misguided. But Maine Attorney General James Erwin joined the Trotzky lawsuit, followed by Peter Mills, Maine’s U.S. attorney, filing a federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court. Soon after, Scott Paper announced it would stop the log drives on the Kennebec by 1976. In addition, the Maine Legislature passed a bill banning log driving by the same year. Today, the upper Kennebec River is a recreational mecca for white-water rafting, kayaking, canoeing, camping, hiking, fishing, observing wildlife and generates millions of dollars for Maine’s economy. Trotzky (Bangor) was elected to the Maine Senate for 4 terms. He was Senate Chairman of the Natural Resources, Energy, and Education Committees. He was recognized for his environmental advocacy. He was a high school science teacher for 26 years starting in the Rumford School District, a Registered Maine Guide for most of his adult life, and rafting guide on the Kennebec during summers.
The Unobskey family came to America from Snovsk, Russia (now Ukraine) and settled in downeast Maine. At the time of the Russo-Japanese war in 1903, Sarah Unobskey (1878-1935) encouraged her husband, Joseph, to leave Russia. He left her and their two sons. Arriving at Ellis Island he soon began working in Boston in the fur industry. His territory was Washington County, Maine. His career as a peddler was traveling from farm to farm to sell goods. After two successful years, in 1905, Joseph was able to finance the immigration of Sarah and their sons, Arthur and William. The family settled in Eastport, ME. They had another son, Charles. As the story goes, “Sarah liked Eastport. Its climate and view reminded her of home and they could own land, not allowed to Jews in Russia.” Sarah and Joseph moved to Calais, Maine in 1911 and opened a clothing store called “Unobskey’s” which became known as “Unobskey’s New York Store.” Sarah and Joseph next opened the State Theater next door -- an 870-seat venue featuring movies, vaudeville acts, fashion shows, political rallies, and graduations. After Joseph died, Sarah and her sons Arthur and Charlie built Unobskey’s into a men’s and women’s clothing store as well as a two-story professional building – all during the Depression. William (Bill) became a practicing surgeon in NYC and head of surgery at The Joint Disease Hospital. Sarah was determined to build an 88-seat synagogue in Calais named ‘Chaim Yosef ’ in her husband’s honor. In 1926 the first and only synagogue in Washington County opened its doors. A minyan often included Jews from New Brunswick and Washington County. Sarah’s half-brother Morris Holland was particularly dedicated to helping the synagogue succeed. After Sarah’s death in 1935, sons Arthur and Charles became the business and civil leaders of the next generation. They ran the existing store and theater, invested in vegetable canning and manufactured wood bottle tops. They funded hospital affairs, school buildings, airport operations and the Calais Blue Sox baseball team. Like his father Joseph, Arthur was a furrier and had one of the largest collections north of Boston. In 1951 Arthur met with President Truman to encourage the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power development project. Senator Margaret Chase Smith remembered him as “very direct, very honest, and very civic-minded.” Meanwhile, Morris and Charlie kept the stores running in Calais. Charlie won several elections for mayor, earning him the nickname “Unanimous Unobskey.” Arthur married Lillian Rudman in 1931. From Bangor, she was a graduate of U of Maine. They had three children: Joseph, Martha and Sidney. Arthur died in 1955. Fast forward to the Calais downtown fire in 1958 which leveled the department store, theater, and adjoining properties. Charles died in April 1958. Brothers Joe and Sidney managed the business redevelopment and the store thrived with Joe at the helm until it closed in 1974. Joe married Marylou, lived in Calais and had 3 children: Arthur Charles, Sydney Jean and Jeri. They later moved to Bangor and was integrally involved in the development of the Bangor Mall. His store there was ladies ready-to-wear clothing-specializing in large sizes. His other passions included musical theatre and participation in the Jewish community. He later died in 1981. Sidney left Calais, graduated from Yale, went to NYC and began his career as a real estate developer. He married Nancy Goldstein of Rochester, NY. They have two children: Laura and Arthur Charles Messenger and five grandchildren: Oscar and David Unobskey and Nadav, Ela and Noa Shenkar. Sidney and his wife participated in the financial and cultural life wherever they lived especially Washington County, Calais, and Robbinston. Sidney passed away in early 2021. Martha graduated from Wellesley College and married Dr. Fred Goldner in 1955. They lived in Nashville, Tennessee for 65 years and were involved in many areas of Jewish, medical, musical and educational participation, especially Vanderbilt University. They have four children: Arthur Lee (deceased 1988 from melanoma), Cynthia Ruth, Francie Sue, Fredjoseph. Their grandchildren include: Aaron, Natalie and Hannah Niederman and Dorian and Julian Goldner. Fred passed away this past April.
Contributed to the MJHF by: Dr. Fred Goldner and Martha Unobskey Goldner Sidney Roy Unobskey and Nancy Goldstein Unobskey
Rita Sacknoff Willis was born in Portland on Nov. 21, 1914, daughter of Samuel and Anna Sacknoff. After graduating from Portland High School and Simmons School of Social Work in Boston, she returned to Portland with her husband Lester M. Willis, whom she married in 1936, and worked for the Federal Work Projects Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression. After leaving the WPA, she began her lifetime commitment to volunteer work. Rita and Lester were the proud parents of three sons, Stephen J., Mark A., and Robert E., Willis, who were the focus of their lives.
The full extent of Rita’s volunteer activities in Portland are too numerous to mention. Over the years, she served on a very large number of community agencies, often as a board member or officer. Rita continued a family tradition by serving as president and honorary vice president of the Portland Section of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW), for which she was not only the president from 1955-1957, but the scholarship committee chair, chair of the social welfare committee in 1948, and a lifelong Member.
Rita served as general chairman of the Jewish Federation Campaign and later, chaired the women’s division. She became one of the first Lions of Judah. Rita was president of Jewish Family Services for many years and helped to draft its by-laws.
As a volunteer to over 30 other community organizations, Rita understood the importance of community service. A few she felt close to were: the Counsel of Social Agencies, where she was the chairman, the Women’s Board of Temple Beth-El where she was co-president and founding member, the Children’s Cancer Program, the United Way of Maine, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Cornelius Sweetser Heritage Society, the Sweetser Children’s Home of Portland, and the Refugee Resettlement Committee (RRC).
She was instrumental in establishing the Hebrew Free Loan program, which continues to give financial assistance to Jews who are in need of help. She was dedicated to the provision of social services to Jews through casework and financial assistance. During her time on the RRC she aided in the resettling of Jewish Russian refugees, she had an extraordinary impact on the lives of those she served, and made lasting friends.
She was frequently honored and presented with awards for her efforts. Among these are: The Hannah Solomon Award, in 1984, from the National Council of Jewish Women. On May 21, 1984, Rita was given the key to the City of Portland and the Mayor designated that day as Rita S. Willis Day. In 1986, she was recognized by the Young Women’s Christian Association as a Woman in Philanthropy. In 1994, the Southern Maine Agency on Aging honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1997, she was particularly proud to join other distinguished women as a recipient of the Deborah Morton Award from the University of New England. This award is given to outstanding Maine women who have made cultural and civic contributions to the state; Rita was recognized for her lifetime involvement in civic, cultural, and social causes.
She was committed to the community, as both she and her husband believed in and understood the importance of community service. That commitment manifested itself in her involvement and leadership of many service organizations in Southern Maine. Rita was a special person, a woman of intelligence, humor, energy and with a strong passion to better the world around her. She was a champion to this community and her work is visible to this day.
* Indicates of blessed memory
Toby Adelman
Rabbi Gary Berenson
Steven Brinn
Jody Sataloff
Aaron Shapiro
Miles Theeman
Jenny Aranovich
Abe Peck
King Weinstein
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