Faye Avrunin Hurvitz ז“ל

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

Faye Hurvitz cel­e­brates her 90^th birth­day a bit ear­ly with her fam­i­ly gath­ered, August 2003

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

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Our mother, Faye Hurvitz, died July 14, 2005 (8^th 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 26^th 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 88^th birthday we posted a bit about Mom’s High School Graduation.

Faye Avrun­in’s High School Grad­u­a­tion Photo

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.

front cov­er of the Shtetl Life exhib­it brochure at the Magnes Museum

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:http://www.davka.org/what/music/lullabytape/26.YugntHymn.mp3]

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.

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.

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