Member Profile
Marge and Alvin Klugman
When he is introduced as Mr. Temple Beth Solomon, charter member, Alvin Klugman, with tongue in cheek always replies, "That's not my real name." In truth, the title fits Alvin to a tee. There is no one member of Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf who has worked so long and so hard for the welfare of our Temple and for deaf Jews everywhere.
Alvin and Marge Klugman - a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. Temple Beth
Solomon
Alvin Klugman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in October of 1922, the only boy of four siblings, to Yetta and Morris Klugman. He lost his hearing at age five and attended an oral school in Minneapolis. Later he attended the residential state school for the deaf at Faribault, where he became an outstanding student in the print trade and graduated in 1942. Alvin and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1944 and it was here that he found his niche, both socially and in his trade. He discovered a very rich and active deaf community and became involved in the Hollywood Club deaf athletes, the Unison Club (a group for oral deaf adults), and the newly growing Hebrew Association of the Deaf (HAD).
The 1940's proved to be an exciting time for Alvin, beginning a new life in a new city with a new and thriving deaf community and where in 1948 he met the love of is life, Marge Nemzer.
Marjorie Nemzer was born in 1925 and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She lost her hearing as well as partial sight when she was 16, from an illness which changed her life. But Marge was strong and her family sent her to live with an aunt in Los Angeles to help her cope with her new challenges. Her aunt steered her to the Unison Club and it was there she met Alvin Klugman. They married on December 19, 1948, the same year that Israel became a state.
"In the beginning," Marge said, "I had taken my Jewishness for granted but after I met and married Alvin I was able to think what being Jewish really meant." Together they raised a daughter, Peggy, their proudest accomplishment. Peggy, in turn, with her husband is raising two sons.
Marge tells of her Jewish upbringing, "I was not like Abraham. I was born Jewish and my maternal grandfather gave us a very Jewish environment, but yet we were not religious. My mother's family came from Russia. They were radical people who spoke a lot of Yiddish and always lived in Jewish surroundings. There were always Jewish newspapers in our home and a lot of Yiddish jokes. It really seemed fun being Jewish. Summers we went to the Catskill Mountains - 100% percent pure Jewish! I grew up feeling that everyone in New York was Jewish, the same way that I was. My father's family were more Orthodox and went to temple regularly. We would join them for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur so I would observe the customs with them and a little of that feeling grew on me, but it was not until I met Alvin, that I really began to think more about being Jewish. He was so active and he drew me along with him. When we worked together to help found our Temple, that's when I actually related to being Jewish."
At a TBS Board retreat in 1992, Alvin told the story of his early Jewish upbringing: "When I was little, I knew I was Jewish because I had a Jewish family. My father used to take me to temple, I would not understand anything but would sit next to him and read the English portion of the prayer book." Alvin went on to tell us, "Temple was very special, the Orthodox Jews of the town worshipped in the basement of the building and the Conservative Jews worshipped in the same building upstairs. My father was president of the upstairs Conservative group and my grandfather was the rabbi in the downstairs Orthodox group."
As Alvin approached his 13th birthday, his father taught him how to read Hebrew, upstairs, but it was with his grandfather, downstairs, that Alvin became a bar mitzvah at a service that started at 6:00 AM on a weekday morning, with only the men from the congregation present. When services were over, Alvin returned to school—no gala reception, no big party. But the influence of Alvin's grandfather and his closeness to him played the greatest part in developing Alvin's identity as a Jew and his deep feeling for Judaism.
With that strong Jewish background in place, Alvin, along with his wife, Marge, became the major movers and shakers to mold the Jewish deaf community of Los Angeles and to help establish a synagogue of their own: Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf. From its very inception they have truly been one of temple's greatest assets. At a roast honoring Alvin and Marge in January of 1989, Rabbi Alan Henkin wrote: "...In many ways the careers of Alvin and Marge parallel that of Moses. Like Moses, Alvin and Marge have provided strong and loving leadership for a community long neglected and oppressed. Since the formation of our Temple, Alvin and Marge have gently guided the deaf Jewish community towards independence, interdependence and Jewish empowerment...."
The list of tributes, honors and accomplishments that Marge and Alvin have amassed over the last forty years are extensive:
- Alvin served as President of TBS from 1967-1975 and then again from 1979-1985; a fourteen year tenure. In total, he served 35 years on the Board of Directors.
- He earned the TBS Hersh Man of the Year award 5 times and Marge received the Hersh Woman of the Year in 1975.
- In 1978 Alvin was elected president of the National Congress of Jewish Deaf, (now Jewish Deaf Congress, JDC) and he served in that capacity for 4 years. From 1982-84 Marge served as vice-president of NCJD/JDC.
- Marge held the extremely important position of editor of Temple Beth Solomon's Congregation News for over 28 years, while Alvin oversaw the layout and printing.
- Marge is a former officer of the Temple's Sisterhood and was a recipient of the Sisterhood Woman of the Year Award in 1972.
- In 1976 both Alvin and Marge were honored by California State University, Northridge (CSUN), receiving the Distinguished Service Award for outstanding service to the deaf community.
- They were both inducted into the NCJD/JDC Hall of Fame and Alvin received the prestigious NCJD Plapinger award.
- In 1976 Marge went to work for the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness (GLAD) as their Information Specialist and as editor of the GLAD News, and when she retired in 1993, she continued to put the magazine together for another 7 years.
This tribute list is but a small accounting of the creations of Alvin and Marge Klugman. Tributes and awards are only a punctuation after the fact of an accomplishment and naturally cannot tell the story of the formation of an entity or the effects that came after. They are only the acknowlegement of work done. Missing are the birth of the ideas, the hours, months and years of bringing those ideas into existence and the feeling of inspiration and pride as you see your work continue as falling dominoes into the future. As you can see, we could easily establish a Klugman Library to record the entire day-by-day history of the founding and organizing of deaf Jewish life in Southern California, but all we can give you here is a taste of the love, dedication and work from Klugman hearts and hands. They have touched many and have created a continuing living legacy of which we are all so proud. Thank you Marge and Alvin.More Profiles...