Faye Avrunin Hurvitz ז

…from the archives (with minor updating), reposted on what would be her 4th Yahrtzeit

21st of Tevet 5674 — 8th of Tam­muz 5765
Decem­ber 20 1913 (the win­ter sol­stice) — July 14, 2005

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Our mother, Faye Hurvitz, died July 14, 2005 (8th of Tam­muz 5765).

Three months ear­lier, Mom suf­fered a debil­i­tat­ing stroke. Until that time she lived a full and grat­i­fy­ing life, and through­out her 91 years enjoyed very good health.

Mom was a lov­ing mother who in return was much loved by her chil­dren and grand­chil­dren, and by the many friends she made through­out her life.

She was a great com­mu­ni­ca­tor, yet felt that she didn’t do enough to let other peo­ple know what they can do to bring about peace — espe­cially peace in the Mid­dle East. She was always quick to ply friends and acquain­tances with infor­ma­tion about the Givat Haviva Edu­ca­tional Foun­da­tion in Israel, an exam­ple she believed showed how small steps can make a big dif­fer­ence.

Mom’s funeral took place on July 18, at Hill­side Memo­r­ial Park and Mor­tu­ary in Los Ange­les. She was buried next to her hus­band of 43 years, Nathan Hurvitz.

Con­tri­bu­tions in her name may be made to the
Givat Haviva Edu­ca­tion Foun­da­tion:
114 West 26th Street Suite 1001
New York, NY 10001

Her fam­ily:

• Libbe and Loren Mad­sen (Lay­tonville, CA)
  • Anne, Nora

• Mark Hurvitz and Deb­bie Prinz (Poway, CA and NYC)
  • Avi­gail, Noam

• Jay Hurvitz and Tzippi Pel­lat (Kib­butz Hat­zor, Israel)
  • Eitan, Nadav, Hila

Debbie’s Eulogy

Jay’s Eulogy

• Eng­lish

• עברית

A few pho­tos from before Mom was born till when she was still a baby.

Meyer (Max) Avrunin (Faye’s father) 1908

Chaneh Avrunin (Faye’s mother) 1908

To cel­e­brate her 88th birth­day we posted a bit about Mom’s High School Grad­u­a­tion.

Graph­ics depict­ing Jew­ish life of East­ern Europe

Through­out their mar­ried life our par­ents col­lected graph­ics that depict Jew­ish life of East­ern Europe before the Sho’a. Shortly after Dad died, Mom arranged to have the col­lec­tion of graph­ics they had assem­bled con­tributed to the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berke­ley, Cal­i­for­nia. The museum mounted an impres­sive show called Shtetl Life and pub­lished a won­der­ful cat­a­log by Flo­rence Helzel that included small repro­duc­tions of each of the items in the Hurvitz Collection.

Among these graph­ics is one by Chaim Gold­berg. She’d be pleased to know that the Wikipedia arti­cle about him men­tions her and Dad in its list of the exhi­bi­tions of his work. While the book is out of print, it is (as of this post­ing) avail­able.

Faye Hurvitz and Push Technology

A cou­ple of years ago ear­lier, as part of a class assign­ment, Avi­gail pre­pared some fam­ily his­tory mate­ri­als. This page [has been removed from the Reed Web site], From Mar­gin to Main­stream in Dif­fi­cult Times, 1924–1945 is fairly self explana­tory. I have the code. With Avigail’s per­mis­sion, I will make it avail­able once again on this site.

For Moth­ers’ Day 2009 the Jew­ish Women’s Archive sent out a call to share pho­tos of Jew­ish moth­ers on Flicker. I selected a few to share among the many other pho­tos of Jew­ish mothers.

Mom often wore a lapel but­ton. Usu­ally it was a blue one with white text, about 2.5″ in diam­e­ter that read: “Every Mother Is a Work­ing Mother.” Once in a while she would switch that with another that read: “I’m a sci­en­tist… let’s exper­i­ment.” (I don’t know where those but­tons are now.)

Bobe’s Lul­laby CD

When we were chil­dren Fri­day nights after our Shab­bat cel­e­bra­tion, we’d change into our bed clothes and climb into bed. Dad would sing us lul­la­bies. When Avi­gail was born I asked Mom and Dad to pre­pare a tape of the songs they sang so I could have their voices singing for her. They pre­pared a list and pro­cras­ti­nated. After Noam’s birth and Dad’s death I put more pres­sure on Mom. She pre­pared a list, col­lected the songs, wrote her script in short­hand, then typed that up and finally recorded a tape. Our kids lis­tened to it for a num­ber of years then it joined the many cas­sette tapes in the drawer. I found it a cou­ple of years ago some­time around 2003. Noam dig­i­tized it, sep­a­rated it into tracks and we made a CD of it with a label using the photo on this page.

Bobe’s Lul­laby CD… not avail­able at the iTunes Music Store

Faye Hurvitz sings Yugnt Hymn Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (ver­sion 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Down­load the lat­est ver­sion here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Yugnt Hymn was writ­ten by Shmerke Kacz­er­gin­ski as an anthem for the youth of the Vilna Ghetto. The refrain: “Any­one is young who wants to be. Years have no mean­ing. Old peo­ple can also be chil­dren, in a new day of free­dom.” Tears of joy would prob­a­bly come to her eyes if she could watch this group singing the same (and other) song(s). There is a 1:15 minute intro­duc­tion before the singing begins.

Vozes do Holo­causto (Voices of the Holo­caust) Con­ducted by Cícero Alves Filho (www.ciceroalvesfilho.com.br). Par­tic­i­pação espe­cial do ator Dan Stul­bach ( O Léo de Queri­dos Ami­gos). Solis­tas: José Maria, Rox­ana, Ana Maria, Ser­gio Wain­traub. Local: Teatro Cul­tura Artís­tica, São Paulo, Brasil, Brazil. Yugnt Himen, Still the Night,Itsik Vitnberg, Par­ti­san Anthem. Orques­tração: Sheri­dan Seyfried.

Each of the grand­chil­dren now has a copy of the CD. Mom enjoyed lis­ten­ing to it her­self when she went to sleep… singing lul­la­bies her hus­band sang her chil­dren which she then sang for her grand­chil­dren. This was one of the CDs she enjoyed lis­ten­ing to most in her final months.

She would be thrilled with what her prog­eny are doing and to know that they enjoy being with each other.

Thank you for all your expres­sions of condolence.

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First posted: July 27, 2005
Imme­di­ate pre­ced­ing update: Sep­tem­ber 13, 2005
Reposted on the after­noon of June 29, 2009 = (erev) 8 Tam­muz 5769 | ח תמוז תשסט