Obituaries

Wizards Owner,
Philanthropist
Washington/JTA —
Abe Pollin, a longtime
supporter of Israel
and Jewish causes,
has died. Pollin, best
known as the owner
Abe Polin
of the Washington
Wizards basketball
team and its arena,
the Verizon Center, died at his home in
Bethesda, Md., following a battle with a rare
neurological disease, corticobasal degenera-
tion. He was 85.
Along with serving on the boards of
ALPAC, Hillel and the Israel Project, he
also was involved in numerous philanthropic
activities outside the Jewish community.
Pollin was an activist for Soviet Jewish
refuseniks in the 1970s and '80s, pressing the
issue in meetings with government leaders
and in other venues.
More recently, Pollin was one of three
Washington real-estate developers in 2004
who bought and restored the Sixth & I
Historic Synagogue, the former home of the

Adas Israel synagogue, before it could be
turned into a nightclub. The facility is now a
magnet for the city's younger Jews, sponsor-
ing Jewish and cultural programming. The
synagogue is in the same neighborhood
Pollin revitalized when he built the Verizon
Center. Pollin changed the name of his
basketball team from Bullets to Wizards as
a statement against gun violence after the
assassination of his longtime friend Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
President Barack Obama saluted Pollin in
a statement Nov. 25:
"Abe believed in Washington, D.C., when
many others didn't — putting his
own fortune on the line to help revitalize the
city he loved',' he said. "He was committed to
the teams he guided, generous to those who
needed it most, and as loyal to the people of
D.C. as they were to him."
The American Israel Public Affairs
Committee said in a statement, Abe was
a longtime leader of AIPAC and giant of
America's pro-Israel
commulity.
"As a member of AIPAC's board of direc-
tors and friend of many of our country's

most influential policymakers and elected
officials, Abe never missed an opportunity
to stress the importance of America's special
and unbreakable bond with the State of
Israel."

Survivor, Nuremberg Witness

Sydney, Australia/JTA A survivor of
Auschwitz who gave evidence at the
Nuremberg Trials died in Auckland, New
Zealand. Fred Silberstein, 80, died Nov. 30.
Silberstein, who was 14 when he was
taken to Auschwitz in 1943, spent much of
his life educating New Zealanders about the
horrors of the Holocaust and the dangers of
racism. New Zealand Jewish Council presi-
dent Stephen Goodman described him as "a
tzadik," a righteous person.
"For 60 years he worked tirelessly
bearing witness to the horrors of the
Holocaust," Goodman said. "He was a
modest and humble man."
Tattooed with the number 106795,
Silberstein survived operations by Dr.
Josef Mengele, "the Angel of Death': and
cheated near-certain death by telling camp
guards he was 15 and able to do labor.

—

His evidence at the Nuremburg Trials in
1946 helped condemn Nazi leaders such
as Herman Goering and Rudolph Hess. He
moved to New Zealand in 1948.
There are no records of how many
Holocaust survivors are still living in New
Zealand, but Goodman said they would
be few.

Painter Mayer Kirshenblatt
Toronto/JTA Mayer Kirshenblatt, 93, who
recorded the world of Polish Jews in paint-
ings and stories, died Nov. 20 in Toronto.
Born in Opatow (Apt), Poland, he left for
Canada in 1934. In 1990, at age 73, he taught
himself to paint and began recording the
vibrant lost world of his childhood.
Since 1967, his daughter, the scholar
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, had con-
ducted interviews with him on every facet of
prewar Jewish life in Apt. In 2007, these rec-
ollections were published along with nearly
200 of Kirshenblatt's paintings as a book,

—

They Called Me Mayer July. Ell

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Obituaries