Postrel Family Circle Meeting
September 21, 2014
Minutes
Welcome new President Irwin Zweigbaum.
Thanked Larry Weisberg for his 10 years of service as President
Thanks to Phyllis and Ben Frankel for hosting the meeting.
Notes from the Families:
Larry and Becky:
both kids are in Philadelphia;
Anna finished graduated school at Brown and is a 3rd grade teacher at Green Street Friends
School in Germantown; and
Molly is taking her prerequisites for nursing school.
Cooper Medical School is going well; it’s in its 3rd year now;
Mom (Irene Weisberg) is nearby in Philadelphia and just celebrated her 94th birthday.
Gwen: Is working, traveling and heading to Ireland on vacation.
Steve and Junie: Danny had a baby boy - Robin Daniel Greenblatt – they are living in Zurich,
Switzerland; and
Ellen is doing well.
Sharon - Nicole had a baby - Andrew James - her husband babysits;
Her son is trying to get a physical education teaching job; he is getting his masters degree; and
Melissa is getting a masters in teaching.
Roz & Ken:
They are breaking the fast on the way to London for Mimi's new baby's birth;
Mimi is director of strategic transformation for the BBC;
Laura is in Durham, NC; she has been in Jordan since February where she was trying to do a
documentary on the girls in Amman;
Roz is still working for the transit agency;
Ken still works for British Embassy occasionally; and
They go to their cottage in Whitestone, VA.
Marion:
Their granddaughter is nine next week; she enjoys playing violin and sports;
Singing with the Sweet Adelines.
Laurel:
Her oldest granddaughter is a senior at Northwestern; she went to South Africa to do AIDS
research; she took her MCATs and waiting for results; she is interested in medical materials;
biomedical engineering;
Her grandson is a sophomore at BU; he spent 6 months in London; and
Her youngest granddaughter, Brook, is in high school.
Rachel:
Every January, Rachel leads a group to Jamaica to preserve and document the Sephardic
Jewish cemeteries; she worked in Surinam to excavate and document Jewish cemeteries and
has written a book on the history;
Her son, Emmanuel is 14;
Her son, Jonah, is 13 and was bar mitzvahed last month in Ben and Phyllis' backyard; and
Everything else is going well
Rita and Scott:
They are doing fine; they live in the house that Scott built and is still working on;
Jessica was teaching 3rd grade in Bridgeport, CT and is now teaching 2nd grade; she is also a
school psychologist;
Scott and Rita going on 50 years of marriage.
Phyllis and Ben:
Fran has lived in Boca Raton, Florida since December 2013; she is in the process of buying an
apartment and Lorraine has been helping with the search; and
Faith's older son, Abe, graduated from college and has a job in media research.
Richard and Cheryl:
Benno and Rachel having a baby in January 2015;
Danny and Sara now have 2 sons - Wes and Owen.
Reida Herskowitz:
living in Lennox, MA near Mara; they had a 90th birthday party in Western MA.
Irwin and Bev
They are in their sixth season in St. Petersburg, Florida and happy to be there;
They visited Fran last winter in Southern Florida; she is acclimating well to Florida;
They are going on a Jewish heritage tour of Eastern Europe in the fall - Prague, Budapest,
Warsaw and Kracow;
Bev's son is going to be living in their NY home; he graduated from nursing school and is
working at Albany Medical Center.
Stavisht Project:
It is now fully funded and Richard thanks everyone who contributed;
Richard expects there will be a ceremony marking completion of the Project – whether a fence
or wall – in the spring of 2015, and everyone is invited to attend; and
There will be a plaque in Stavicht and he would like suggestions on the wording.
Cemetery:
We have finally paid off the lifelong obligations;
The engraved plaque was installed in Ira’s memory;
The bench is on property but will have to be moved at some point; and
Larry will forward the new grave configuration to June who will print it out.
Treasurer (Roz):
The treasury is limping along with about $1300;
This appears to be sufficient for our needs.
Irwin:
He looks forward to the family meetings;
He does understand that subsequent generations don't have the same feelings for the
meetings;
But he wants to keep the meetings going and to preserve the photos and memories digitally for
us and for future generations.
Irwin maintains the web blog;
He has gotten some archival information on it;
It includes the 1946 family circle meeting, tapes of people's discusses and Bernie's memoirs.
There is a Flickr site for photos, There are also photos on the web blog and he's putting other
photos on Flickr.
We need to update the Family Tree and put it on line with photos for each person.
Pam Postrel is working on a family tree;
Roz created the paper tree and there is another one that Emily Bayard created;
Irwin will speak with Pam and see if the tree is same one that Leo Postrel created;
Leo took lots of pictures and movies over the year that should be available for viewing.
Irwin has new information on Stavicht;
He has been speaking with someone whose wife is from Stavicht.
Talks about origins of the Jewish community in Stavicht now;
His friend feels strongly that the new Ukrainian government is very Fascist;
Irwin has received some historical information that will go on the web site.
Larry:
The Harzfeld fund took a dive with the global crash in 2007 and has now rebounded; it has
significant funds, so we really need to make use of them.
Maximum grant is $10,000; we will reimburse for travel; and
The usual length of the trip is 2-4 months or so.