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Charter Members Celebrate 90th

David Balacaier David Balacaier

Helly Udkovich and David Balacaier both celebrated milestone 90th birthdays recently. Both Charter members since TBS' inception and instrumental in the formation and establishment of the Temple since the early 1960's.

David was the first President of Temple Beth Solomon in 1961 and received a Dedicated Service Award in 1960 before TBS was incorporated. He was the Hirsh Man of the Year in 1984 and was one of TBS' most active members . David now resides at the California Home for the Adult Deaf in Arcadia, where he continues to bring Jewish rituals and flavor to the home.

helly_u (15K) Helly Udkovich

Helly Udkovich, received the Sisterhood Woman of the Year Award in 1964 and the Hirsh Woman of the Year Award in 1991. She served as the Temple Membership chairperson for about 30 years. Her daughter, Hedy Udkovich Stern, graduated from our religious school and even though Hedy now resides in Santa Fe with her family, they all continues to be a long-distance members of TBS. Helly continue to watch over TBS every Wednesday at the senior's social, where she can be found at the 500 table. Her daughter made a surprise 90th birthday party for her at her home at Pilgrim Towers this past February. Ninety people attended which shows how much Helly is adored.

These two wonderful people have spent 45 of their 90 years, creating a legacy in TBS. The history and accomplishments of TBS, in great part, are due to the vision and hard work of Helly and David and we owe them tremendous recognition for their efforts over all these years.

Chanukkah Potluck

On Dec 10th, TBS celebrated the 4th night of Chanukah with a potluck dinner. The room was very crowded and the food was great. Attendees brought drinks, salad dressings, applesauce, sour cream, cream cheese, bagels and desserts. We made latkes and kugels and Gelson's prepared the main meal: Grilled veggies, lox & bagels and salads. Food was abundant and divine.

chanukkah

Paul Heller, from the Skirball Cultural Center, along with his cameraman, stopped in to video tape the candlelighting for a project the center is doing. The project is a brief look at the Synagogue and is designed to help explain to the lay public what Synagogues do as a House of Worship, a House of Study and a House of Community. They are trying to show the great diversity of Synagogue memberships, as well as the wealth of programs offered in their communities. Now TBS is on tape signing for posterity as our small part in this exciting project.

Eddie Lee Bachus drove a van full of people from CHAD, among them Freda Norman, who helped to interpret the story that Bess Hyman chose for the evening's entertainment. We thank all three of them for their help and care, along with Roz for leading services, Lorraine Kronick and Florence Haberman for kitchen duty and all those who helped clean up.

The night was a huge success and we will definitely be doing this again for future holidays.

Happy 44th Birthday Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf!

Excerpted from "The Diary of Temple Beth Solomon" by Bess Hyman

Judaism and deafness came together in June of 1960, when Temple Beth Solomon held its first Shabbat service in the Chadwick Chapel of Temple Israel of Hollywood, with student rabbi Don Singer officiating and Jewish comedian, Georgie Jessel in attendance. For the first five years, Temple members travelled to various host congregations but in the early 1960's the members began their search for a permanent location.

The recorded history of Temple Beth Solomon began in November 1961 with the first issue of the "Congregation News", with Marge and Alvin Klugman as the editors. We had already been meeting in various locations throughout the city but now we are being recorded for posterity. The postage was 3 cents. The zip codes on the address labels were two digit numbers. David Balacaier was president of the temporary Board of Directors and an open meeting was to be held on December 5, 1961 to elect a full board.

Happy Birthday

While we were saving for our permanent location, we travelled each month to conduct our services at different areas synagogues: Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles, Beth Hillel in North Hollywood, Temple Emanuel in Beverly Hills, Temple Isaiah in West Los Angeles, Temple Israel in Westchester, Temple Israel in Hollywood, Temple Beth Shalom in Santa Monica, University Synagogue in Brentwood, Temple Beth Ohr in Inglewood, Temple Beth David in Temple City, Temple Menorah in Redondo Beach, Temple Solael in Canoga Park, Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles, Fairfax Temple in Los Angeles, Pasadena Temple & Jewish Center, UCLA Hillel and Temple Ner Tamid in Downey. We had a lot of encouragement and help from our hearing friends: Helen Winer, Evelyn Magnin, Elizabeth Gesner, Blanche Fortus, Daisy Fields, Harriet Medress and Rose Zucker; our student rabbis: Don Singer, Bernard King, and David Morgan, and all of the wonderful rabbis and their staffs at our host synagogues.

At the November 14, 1965 meeting of the Temple members, the decision had finally been made to purchase the buildings and grounds of Temple Beth Torah at 13580 Osborne Street in Arleta. It was not an easy decision and much discussion ensued We were taking on a big responsibility. We had worked hard these past five years to enable us to make the down payment and now we were taking on even more of a challenge. But we were ready to roll up our sleeves even further. We placed our down payment in escrow.

On March 11, 1966 the B'nai B'rith Messenger announced our undertaking as: "...an endeavour of a group of people who have not let their deafness shut out the lyrical joys of Judaism. The Messenger continued: "...in six years the deaf congregants have raised the $30,000 they used as initial down payment, doing their fundraising the hard way. But standards of giving of these affluent Los Angeles Jewish community, the second largest in the world, there were no "angels," no big givers, no massive grant of funds. This was indeed a wonder of a self help program that excites the imagination. But we had a lot of good friends. Charter members: the Abe Levin Family, enabled us to obtain our first mortgage and the escrow closed. Temple Beth Solomon was ours. We would hold the dedication in June.

Then on June 12, 1966, we held the formal dedication of Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf. Almost 300 people came to watch for two hours under the grueling hot Valley sun. Marge Klugman called it: "An act of faith in our temple!" Five rabbis participated. UAHC sent their representatives who had helped us with the legal matters in our purchase: Robert Arkush and David Caplin. Wilshire Boulevard Temple sent their executive secretary, Gerald Berg. Also participating were Helen Winer, Rose Zucker (both of blessed memory) and the Temple's own choir in all their glory.

And then there was the Torah! The Torah itself was about 375 years old, saved from Nazi destruction during the Holocaust of World War II and obtained for us through the efforts of Rabbi Herman of the UAHC. The Torah was a gift of Mrs. Rose Snyder, who had set aside her gift even before we had started to look for a home of our own. Helen Udkovich sewed the blue velvet curtain for the ark with material donated by Mr. and Mrs. Al Potter.

All of this could not have been accomplished without our liaison officers, Rose Zucker, for the Temple and Blanche Fortus, for the Sisterhood. For these were the days before TTYs and we had no phone numbers to list for the Temple other than those of these two wonderful women who zealously took the messages and then relayed them to us either in person or through voice calls made to our children at home.

Even though TBS no longer resides at the Arleta address, we continue to serve the community and are very proud of our history and contributions to the Jewish Deaf. Listed below are the names of our Charter members who are still with us. We thank them for their hard work and dedication to creating such a wonderful legacy. Thank you!

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