JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Eulogizer is a new column (soon-to-be blog) that highlights the life accomplishments of famous and not-so-famous Jews who have passed away recently. Learn about their achievements, honor their memories and celebrate Jewish lives well lived with The Eulogizer.
Decorated Czech World War II pilot who flew for RAF
Jan Wiener, a decorated veteran of a Czech bombing unit attached to the Royal Air Force during World War II, died in Prague on Nov. 24 at 90.
Wiener, a native of Hamburg, fled Hitler’s Germany for Prague, but had to escape again after the Nazis occupied Czechoslovakia. He made it to Britain after racing through Yugoslavia and Italy, and joined the RAF’s No. 311 Czechoslovak Bomber Squadron.
A Prague newspaper offered the most detailed account of Wiener’s early life and flight, including a dramatic retelling of how Wiener’s parents committed suicide rather than risk capture: “The father swept the pawns from the (chess)board and told his son: ‘Tonight I am going to kill myself. … Tomorrow they will be here. They will shave our heads. We will stand naked in front of them. They will humiliate us and in the end they will kill us. So I want to use my only freedom — to choose the way I die.’ That evening, Jan was summoned to the master bedroom, where Julius and Margaret Wiener lay dressed in their Sunday best. ‘We have already taken the pills,’ father told son. ‘Let’s hold hands.’”
Wiener’s life was celebrated in two films, including “Fighter,” an award-winning documentary by Amir Bar-Lev that featured the intense emotions released as Wiener and a companion retraced his journey across Europe.
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Sportswriter who covered the Philadelphia 76ers
Phil Jasner, a longtime newspaperman who covered the Philadelphia 76ers for the Philadelphia Daily News since 1981, died Dec. 3 at age 68.
Friend and colleague Rich Hoffmann described Jasner as “an old-fashioned reporter who grew to be the most important basketball voice in a basketball city, known for both his fairness and his decency.” Hoffmann said Jasner not only had phone numbers for the famous, such as Wilt Chamberlain, he also had “the phone number of the guy who would get you to the guy you needed. He kept all of them in a stack of index cards held together by a rubber band.”
The team Jasner covered remembered him fondly: "He loved to talk about basketball, off the record, just talk hoops," said Sixers General Manager Ed Stefanski. "How many guys who had Stage 4 cancer would continue on like he did? He just loved it. He loved basketball. It was his outlet. We argued sometimes, had great debates. But he was fair and he was a character. Philadelphia basketball people are interesting people, and he was one of them."
Jasner is in five halls of fame: the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, Overbrook High School Hall of Fame, Temple University School of Communications and Theater’s Hall of Fame, and Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.
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Rabbi who taught in Winnipeg, Denver in Israeli forest fire
Another of the many victims of the Carmel Forest fire was Rabbi Uriel Malka, an Israeli Prison Service trainee chaplain who had worked at Orthodox day schools in Winnipeg and Denver.
Columnist Rabbi Levi Brackman described Malka as “a Torah scholar and the epitome of a guy who would not sweat the small stuff. He somehow always saw the positive in every situation.”
Here’s a short video of Malka blowing shofar this past Rosh Hashanah.
Malka, who died on the doomed bus of Prison Service cadets, said in a final SMS message: “I am on my way to rescue Jews. We’ll be in touch.” A memorial website for Malka, a native of Yavneh, Israel, is already filled with tributes, photographs, videos and more.
(Click here to read previous posts from The Eulogizer. Write to the Eulogizer at eulogizer@jta.org.)
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