I NEWS I

LA Lubavitcher Wins
$5.5 Million In Lottery

TOM TUGEND

Special to The Jewish News

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hy," asks Chaim
Sitrin's six-year old
daughter, Leah, "is
everybody saying `mazel toy'
to us?"
The reason, explains the
unemployed father of six
children, is that he just hit
the jackpot in the California
state lottery, winning $5.5
million.
Sitrin, a 31-year old,
bearded, Lubavitcher
Chassid, and his wife Esta,
29, live with their children,
all under the age of eight, in
a three-bedroom apartment
in the predominantly Jewish
Fairfax district. They are
expecting a seventh child in
July.
Not surprisingly, Mrs.
Sitrin's first priority is to
buy a house for her
expanding family. Her
husband's initial thought is
of "a lot of people who have
helped us out over the years.
And I intend to pay back
every one of them," he told
the Los Angeles Jewish
Journal.
Since their good fortune
became public, the Sitrins
have fielded an endless
stream of congratulatory
calls from friends and family
around the country, to the
point that they have been
forced to replace their phone
number with an unlisted
one.
"Everybody wants to know
what plans we have for the
money," said Sitrin, "and I
tell them, I don't know.
We're just going to proceed
slowly, carefully."
While waiting for the first
lottery check to arrive in 30
to 60 days, the Sitrins are
trying to raise enough
money for a hastily arranged
trip to upstate New York to
visit family and then pay a
call on the Lubavitcher
rebbe.
Chaim Sitrin has been
buying two lottery tickets a
week, at $1 apiece, for mon-
ths. He stopped to buy the
winning ticket while on his
way to assure a former
employee that he would
eventually pay her back
wages.
A native of Gloversville in
New York state, Sitrin grew
up in Brooklyn, where he at-
tended a yeshiva. After his
marriage, he moved to

Tom Tugend writes from Los
Angeles.

110 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1990

Miami Beach, and came to
Los Angeles five years ago.
In Florida, Sitrin worked in
the bakery of his father-in-
law, Rabbi Stanley B. Weiss,
now of Los Angeles.
Shortly after arriving in
Los Angeles, Sitrin became
the proprietor of La Glatt, a
kosher restaurant in the
Fairfax district. The venture
failed last March, partly due
to increasing competition
and, Sitrin admits, his own
business naivete.
Since then, he has struggl-•
ed to provide for his family
through irregular, part-time
work. A day after getting the
news of his sudden fortune,
he reported for a short, tem-
porary shift at another
kosher restaurant.
What does the future look
like for the family?
"All I know is that I plan
to work,"said Chaim Sitrin.
"But I don't know if we'll
stay in Los Angeles." ❑

Demjanjuk
Has Setback

Washington (JTA) — The
family of convicted Nazi war
criminal John Demjanjuk
received a setback recently
in its attempt to appeal his
death sentence.
On Jan. 26, Judge Louis
Oberdorfer of the U.S.
District Court for the
District of Columbia denied
a request by Demjanjuk's
son-in-law that the Justice
Department produce docu-
ments that led to the ex-
Cleveland autoworker's
denaturalization in 1981.
The documents were in-
terviews conducted by at-
torneys from the depart-
ment's Office of Special In-
vestigations with five
witnesses who implicated
Demjanjuk in various war
crimes.
Demjanjuk, who was
extradited to Israel in 1986,
was sentenced to death there
on April 25, 1988. He had
been convicted a week
earlier of being "Ivan the
Terrible," the man who
operated the gas chambers
at Treblinka, where an
estimated 90„000 Jews died.
In April 1987, Oberdorfer
had upheld a Freedom of In-
formation Act request by
Edward Nishnic, Demjan-
juk's son-in- law. Oberdorfer
required OSI to provide an
index to all of its documents
on the Demjanjuk case.
Oberdorfer rejected the
latest FOIA suit.

„—<