Zvi Tomkiewicz, Linguist, Talmudist, Orthodox Leader, Chosen for Bar-Ilan University Honors

Selection of Zvi Tomkie-
wicz — executive director of
Mizrachi-Hapoel Hamizrachi
in Detroit for 26 years and
director of Detroit Friends
of Bar-Ilan University since
its establishment — as hon-
oree at the annual dinner of
the local Bar-flan University
chapter, has won acclaim
from national leaders.
Held in high esteem in
cultural and philanthropic
circles, respected for his
scholarship and directorial
capacities, Tomkiewicz will
receive wide praise at the
dinner Sept. 12 at Cong.
Shaarey Zedek.
Phillip Stoilman, chairman
of the global board of Bar-
Ilan University, stated this
week that the recognition to
be accorded his friend and
associate, Zvi Tomkiewicz,
received unanimous endorse-
ment from faculty and board
members of the university
at ,themeeting of interna-
tional leaders held on the
university campus in Ramat
Gan, Israel, last month.
"His is a name well known,
and he is revered by many,"
Stoilman said. "As a member
of the family of Rabbi Itzhak
Yaacov, the founder of the
Mizrachi movement 70 years
ago, he follows a great tra-
dition. But he has earned
the honors to be accorded

him in his own right — by
his devotion and ability. We
are happy to honor him."
Zvi Tomkiewicz will be 80
on the third day of Hanuka,
this year occurring on Dec.
20, and the Bar-Ilan honor
also will assume the form of
a birthday greeting to him.
Born in a small village
near Warsaw, Tomkiewicz
was 6 when his family moved
to Ruzhany, a small town
that was destined to gain
fame because of the Zionist
spirit that permeated that
Orthodox environment. His
father, who organized the
family wholesale hardware
and construction materials
business, was engaged to
supervise the building of a
road from Ruzhany to
Slonim.
It was in Ruzhany that
young Zvi gained much of
his inspiration from noted
talmudic scholars, who pio-
neered in Orthodox Zionism.
Ruzhany rabbis had gone to
Eretz Yisrael 92 years ago to
establish the Ekron colony.
Entire families pioneered
from there, and their des-
cendants now are among the
leaders in Israel.
Tomkiewicz studied in
leading yeshivot, and his
major studies were in the
Volozhin Yeshiva where some
of his distinguished fellow

students later rose to -world
leadership. Among them was
the late Rabbi Pinhas Chur-
gin, who was the first presi-
dent of Bar-Ilan University.
Tomkiewicz's secular
studies were at the famous
Krimsky Gymnasium in War-
saw.
Among the writers he knew
were Hillel Zeitlin, David
Frishman, I. L. Peretz, F.
Lachover, Dr. S. A. Poz-
nansky and Chernowicz.
Thus, in addition to being
devout in studies of the Tal-
mud, Tomkiewicz also is
secularly trained. In addi-
tion to English, which he
learned upon coming to this
country, he mastered five
languages — Hebrew, Yid-
dish, Polish, Russian and
German.
He credits his successful
labors for the Mizrachi move-
ment and Bar-Ilan University
to his business training, hav-
ing managed the family's
wholesale hardware estab-
lishment in Warsaw until it
was destroyed by the Nazis.
His first wife was the
granddaughter of Rabbi
Itzhak Yaacov Reines, the
founder of Mizrachi, the
religious Zionist movement.
When the war broke out in
Poland, invading forces sepa-
rated Tomkiewicz from his
wife and their infant son. He

Levittown builder Finances bar-Ilan Campus

was sent to a Russian labor
camp in Bukhara; his wife
and son were transported to
a ghetto in Lida, where
both were victims of the
mass murder of Jews on
May 8, 1942.
Tomkiewicz recalls the
hardships he and his fellow
inmates suffered in the Rus-
sian camp, and he credits his
survival to his having been
assigned an office job be-

ZVI TOMKIEWICZ

cause of his knowledge of
Russian.
Thanks - to the Orthodox
refugee assistance m o v e-
ment Vaad HaHatzala, Tom-
kiewicz was rehabilitated
from the camp in Russia,
when Winston Churchill and
other Allied leaders secured
Russia's consent to liberate
Polish prisoners.
Landing in Paris in 1947,
he met Rabbi Mordecai Kir-
shblum, the Mizrachi leader,
who encouraged him to come

Bar-Ilan Prof
Helped Beat
Rh Disease

William J. Levitt of New York, builder of Levittown and head of one of the
world's largest building and land development companies, shows his wife, Simone,
and his daughter Gaby the master plan for the new Bar-Ilan University campus
which he is helping to build in Israel. The photo was taken at the ceremony dedi-
cating the new campus in his name. Thanks to a record contribution by Levitt, one
of the largest ever made to an Israeli institution, the new campus will enable Bar-
Ilan University to double its size within the next decade. At the inauguration cere-
mony, Levitt revealed plans to build an entire self-contained city in Israel along
the lines originally devised by him when he first built several Levittowns in the
U.S. after World War II.

RAMAT-GAN — Conquest
of the dreaded Rh Disease,
a blood disorder, passed
from mother to infant, has
been described in a - new
book, "Rh-The Intimate His-
tory of a Disease and Its
Conquest," by David Zim-
merman.
In one chapter, the author
writes that Prof. Kurt Stern
of the department of life
sciences at Bar-Ilan, "had
achieved the most excruciat-
ingly close near-miss to suc-
cess—and glory—in the en-
tire hotly contested history
of Rh." In his failure, how-
ver, he provided clues to
others.
More than 40 years ago
little was known about it;
today doctors know how to
prevent the disease and help
its tiny victims.
Prof. Stern's experiments
have been credited with
making the difference be-
tween stopping and going
ahead with research into Rh
disease. Through his im-
munology research, he dis-
covered a vital clue to Rh
disease prevention. By using
an anti-Rh antibody he de-
vised a method of stopping
the mother from developing
anti-Rh antibodies which
would damage the baby's
blood.
Prof. Stern is continuing
his immunologic research at
Bar-Ilan. He recently re-
ceived a two-year grant from
the Stanley Thomas Johnson
Foundation of Berne, Switzer-
land, to investigate an ap-
proach to understanding,
alleviating and preventing
cancer.

to the United States. He was
immediately given directorial
posts by Mizrachi, traveled
in many cities as an organ-
izer and came to Detroit in
1948. When he came to
Detroit, Tomkiewicz sought
his relatives, the late Mr.
and Mrs. Sam Lubetzky,
parents of Mrs. Jerome Per-
shin, and Mrs. Ralph Raimi.
During the past 26 years,
he has guided to success
many Mizrachi functions,
and under his direction De-
troit became one of the
leading communities to labor
in support of Bar-Ilan Uni-
versity.
Here he has played impor-
tant roles also for the Jewish
National Fund, Israel Bond
Organization, Allied Jewish
Campaign, Akiva Day School
and the Young Israel congre-
gational movement.
In his recollections, citing
many trying experiences,
Tomkiewicz also recalls the
great men in Jewries he had
met and worked with for the
Zionist cause. He speaks
affectionately of a cousin of
his first wife, Rahel, the late
Chief Rabbi Shlomo Shliefer
of Moscow, who was a noted
Russian Zionist leader.
Tomkiewicz was married
to Jeannette Baumer, mem-
ber of a prominent Detroit
family, in 1955. The second
Mrs. Tomkiewicz, who died
in 1970, worked at Children's
Hospital for 10 years.
Tomkiewicz's numerous
recollections of his life in
Warsaw include a close ac-
quaintance with Warsaw's
famous Dr. Janusz Korczak
(Dr. Goldscmidt), who died
a martyr's death while car-
ing for orphans doomed to

18—Friday, July 26, 1974

die en masse in Auschwitz.
Dr. Korczak's nursery school
was close by the Tomkie-
wicz family wholesale busi-
ness and the kehilla head-
quarters. While in Warsaw,
Korczak, was supported by
a friend of Tomkiewicz's,
Abraham Gepner, who was a
wealthy metal merchant.
Gepner also was the head of
the Jewish Merchants Guild
in Warsaw.
Tomkiewicz speaks with
reverence of the labors of
Korczak, whose name is
revered among the great
heroes in the spiritual resist-
ance against Nazism.

Chief Is a Lady

JERUSALEM — El Al's
Aviva Tatiana Glezer is be-
lieved to be the only woman
in civil aviation to serve as
a chief flight simulator in-
structor. Born in Yugoslavia
in 1931, she arrived in Israel
in 1948 and enlisted in the
Israel Air Force.
In 1951, she joined the re-
cently established Israel air-
line and was appointed head
of flight simulator instruc-
tion.
With El Al's acquisition of
a fleet of Boeing jets and the
latest in flight simulators,
Miss Glezer's duties took on
greater importance. They
call for continued, intensive,
on-the-job study and great
physical exertion and pa-
tience.
Although 23 years in a pre-
dominantly masculine occu-
pation, Miss Glezer is femi-
nine—with a film star figure.
She holds an honorary cap-
tain's license awarded by
Boeing Aircraft Co.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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