Member Profile
David & Gloria Balacaier
In honor of the 90th birthday of David Balacaier, celebrated this past March of 2005, the 80th birthday of Gloria Balacaier in January and in honor of the 45th anniversary of their TBS charter membership, we present the following profile of David and Gloria Balacaier.
David and Gloria Balacaier
David William Balacaier was born in the second decade of the last century, March 22, 1915. He was the second child of Isaac and Rose Balacaier and the second of their children to be born deaf. Only their third child, Harriet, was not affected by whatever caused David and his sister, Malvina's, deafness.
While their grandparents were Orthodox, the Balacaier children were raised in a more conservative environment. Jewish customs and rituals were observed in their home although there was no formal religious education.
For their secular education, Malvina and David attended P.S. 47, New York City's school for the deaf and hearing impaired on 23rd Street in lower Manhattan. One of David's teachers, seeing that so many of his students were Jewish like himself, invited a group to meet with him weekly and instructed the young students in Jewish history and Bible stories. David was fascinated by what he learned in that group. When he finished P.S. 47, David went on to Evander Childs High School in the Bronx, near his home. After a time there, he left to work in the printing trade.
David joined a hearing Boy Scout troop in his neighborhood and passed each level earning its respective badge. With that experience, under his belt, he worked as a counselor at a summer camp for deaf youths. "Bernard Bragg and 'Bummy' Burstein [two nationally known deaf professionals, Bernard Bragg Gerald 'Bummy' Burstein] were among the campers in my cabin," David said, and went on to add, "I really felt comfortable in this role. It was a good experience and a lot of fun." Because of his 9 years of scouting and the summer camp experience, Fanwood School, in upper Manhattan, called upon David to set up and run a Boy Scout troop at their school; he later did the same thing at P.S. 47.
David's hearing sister, Harriet, trained as a speech teacher and graduated from Hunter College in New York City. She taught speech at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York's Jackson Heights and also gave private speech training to students in the city. Gloria Shotland was one of her students and Harriet played an especially important role in her brother David's future; she introduced him to Gloria Shotland.
Abraham and Sadie Shotland met and married in New York City. Abraham had emigrated from Poland and was a designer of fine woman's apparel. Their daughter, Gloria, was born January 22, 1925 and diagnosed as deaf at a young age. They researched all the possible options for her education and decided on P.S. 47 when she was only five years old. They bought a car so that Sadie could drive Gloria back and forth to school while she was still too young to travel by subway or elevator train from the Bronx where they lived. They wanted their daughter to have all the same advantages of any hearing child and so gave her ballet and music lessons, sent her to a hearing girl's camp in the Berkshires in Massachusetts for five years and hired Harriet Balacaier to give her speech training to improve her speaking abilities.
Gloria had many friends, both hearing and deaf, among the neighbors on the Grand Concourse and at school. These were the days before the TTY and so Gloria's mother acted as secretary and helped Gloria with her social life. In an interview done in the early '90s, Gloria said, "We loved to go downtown on Saturdays and see all of the popular musicals," Gloria said, "I really loved watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. To this day I try not to miss a musical comedy whether in regular theater or on the screen. I can feel the rhythm so it compensates for what I cannot hear."
In the early 1940's, Harriet Balacaier, who had been teaching at the Alexander Graham Bell School in Cleveland, returned to New York with her new husband, who was also a teacher in the field of special education. She called Mrs. Shotland, inviting Gloria to her new home for dinner to renew their old acquaintance. Sadie was leery about Gloria coming home at night on the subway. "Have no fear," Harriet told Sadie, "My brother, David, will take her home." And so the match was made and in 1944 Gloria and David were married.
When they settled in California, David and Gloria immediately sought out young couples like themselves in the deaf community and especially the Jewish deaf community, who were starting their married lives. At that time the active Jewish Deaf groups in Los Angeles were the Hebrew Association of the Deaf and the Unison Club.
When Rose Zucker, of blessed memory, approached the members of the Unison Club to discuss the need for a Jewish temple for the deaf, David Balacaier rolled up his sleeves and became an integral part of the committee that eventually founded Temple Beth Solomon. In 1960, the year that Temple Beth Solomon was established, David became its first president. He served for 7 years, continuing to serve on the board for many years after that, with a further stint as president in 1985.
David went to Fairfax High School and finished the necessary courses needed for the high school diploma he never earned. He then began a journey of life-long learning from the Los Angeles Junior College system taking a variety of courses at Harbor College, Los Angeles Trade Technical College, Valley College and West Los Angeles City College. At age 62 he earned his A.A. degree from Los Angeles Trade Tech and gave the graduation address in sign language. He taught sign language at Valley College for six years and then his love for travel took over and both he and Gloria enrolled in classes so they could become travel agents.
With that expertise, they have traveled much of the world: Israel, France, Germany, Romania, Italy, Greece, the Scandinavian countries, Russia, and Japan; just to name a few. Their love of travel, culture, art and especially visiting Jewish synagogues of the world has been the highlight of their lives.
While David pursued his A.A. degree classes, Gloria fulfilled her interests in drawing, painting and art appreciation studies. Over the years she produced many fine pieces of art, several of which were on display at the TBS' members' art Exhibit.
Over the decades, until the mid 1990's, Gloria and David had been among the most active and dedicated supporters of Temple Beth Solomon, chairing many committees and special events. Gloria is a past president of the Sisterhood and wears its coveted Woman of the Year pin. David received the Hirsh Man of the Year Award in 1984 and there was never a Shabbat service, event, holiday or fundraiser where the Balacaiers were not very present.
On December 5th, 1999, the Balacaiers celebrated their many years of married life together with dozens of their friends and family at their 55th wedding anniversary reception. Unfortunately, this milestone year also marked a decline in Gloria's health and her memory began to fade until finally David had no choice but to place her in a facility where her needs could be specifically addressed. A love affair that lasted 55 years had now entered a strange and devastating phase. David was heartbroken but still made the long, weekly train trip to see her, even though there was only an occasional spark of memory left of their life together. He kept up that devotion until his own health problems disallowed it.
Now, David can be found at the California Home for the Adult Deaf in Arcadia, where he still keeps very busy. Among his tasks, he guides the Jewish residents there in observance of holidays and rituals with the same love that he guided the Boy Scouts and taught sign language classes. With careful attentiveness to his health concerns, he makes a Passover trip or attends an occasional life-cycle celebration back east to see family and friends and also several times a year stops off at TBS for special events.
We owe the Balacaiers a great debt for all they have contributed to the life of Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf over the last 45 years. They are an important and integral part of our founding and history and will always be remembered as such in our memories and our scrapbooks. More Profiles...