18 June 13 • 2019
jn

continued from page 17
jews d
in 
the

One of Elsie’
s sons, Dan 
Simkovitz, recalls learning about 
the two poems. “I knew about the 
first poem from my 
youth. I learned about 
the second poem on 
a visit to Detroit late 
one Shabbat evening 
when my mom 
and I were up late 
reminiscing, going 
through old albums, 
and she showed me her birthday 
poem.
“It dawned on me the next 
morning that my family had 
two poems composed three days 
and thousands of miles apart 
under very different conditions, 
connecting three generations of 
women.” 
Simkovitz said the blessing at the 
end of the 75th birthday poem for 
Bertha Weinschenk “came true for 
all three women.”
Bertha survived and moved to 
Detroit.
 “They all lived into their 90s, 

and they all lived to be surrounded 
by children, grandchildren and 
great-grandchildren. In my 
mother’
s case, she lived to see 49 
children, grandchildren and great- 
grandchildren, with more on the 
way.”
Elsie Simkovitz died in Jerusalem 
in December last year.
One more note from Dan: 
“Regarding my mother’
s 
16th birthday poem: My mother 
could not Americanize fast enough. 
She changed her name from Ilse — 
a name I happen to like — to Elsie. 
She refused to speak German. She 
would listen to soap operas after 
school and, yes, according to her 
brother, Grandmother Hannah, 
and my mother, she was as lazy a 
teenager as depicted in the poem. 
“Obviously, this was not the 
woman I knew,” he said. “The 
woman I knew was unstoppable 
and always busy, like her mother, 
Hannah, and grandmother Bertha 
before her.” ■

Dan Simkovitz

LET THE MEMORY
LIVE AGAIN

TM © 1981 RUG LTD 


 
 
oc Sept. 8