Hebrew Day School celebrates 50th, memorializes Steimans

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO– Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School celebrated its 50th anniversary on Sunday  night, June 2,  at a banquet featuring  recollections of two of the school’s pioneer board presidents and a tribute to the late philanthropists  Morrie and Barbara Steiman who helped the  Orthodox Jewish school surmount some tough financial times.

Dr. David Hammer, a doctor at Navy Hospital who helped to organize the school, jocularly described  to approximately 400 attendees of the banquet at the Hilton Hotel on Mission Bay the problems facing Hebrew Day in December 1963: “We had no money, no teachers, no physical site, almost a principal, and, of course, no money.”

“So,” he continued, “what does any Jewish organization in this situation do?  We decided to make a banquet… and then we realized we also had no caterer.”

However, the women of Beth Jacob Congregation, pitched in by cooking a dinner for the nascent  Orthodox Jewish school, serving it inside their synagogue building, then located on 30th Street.  The charge for the banquet was $3.

During that banquet, Abe Abramson, z”l, a longtime leader of Beth Jacob Congregation and first board president of Hebrew Day School, was giving a talk when Hammer’s nine-month pregnant wife, Florence, looked up in surprise and told him she was having contractions. Her husband told her to stay seated, cross her legs, and not to show any alarm. The next day, the couple’s second son, Eliezer, was born, recalled Hammer.  “Florence has always been a good sport,” said Hammer, drawing applause for his wife.

The following September, Hebrew Day School formally opened with 23 students in the old Jewish Community Center on 54th Street.

The JCC was to be the first of many homes for the fledgling school.  From there, Hebrew Day went on to successive quarters at Congregation Beth Israel (at 3rd and Laurel Streets), the Golden Lion Restaurant on El Cajon Boulevard, Tifereth Israel Synagogue at its 30th and Howard Streets location, and then to Beth Jacob Congregation.

It was at this juncture that Dr. Arnold Kisch became involved.  The school, he recalled at Sunday night’s banquet, was in “fragile condition” when it was at Beth Jacob Congregation, so fragile that  within a year of his arrival in San Diego, he was elected president of the school’s board of directors, and he began looking for a more permanent location.

He found a former two-story, Spanish-style school building on two acres of land, which would have made his fellow board members ecstatic, except for the fact that the school was not in San Diego but was, rather, on 8th Street in National City. This augured a considerable shlep for parents driving their children to school.

Fellow board members cautioned Kisch against the site.  Moving there would be so controversial, the school might lose all its students, they told him.

Kisch said he went to Morrie Steiman to ask his advice, and before giving it, Steiman asked to be driven to the property so he could see for himself.  After looking it over, Steiman said that it would be all right. Kisch said he asked Steiman how the board could be persuaded of that.  Steiman suggested that four people should agree to purchase the building with their own funds–and then to propose to the board that the school take over the obligation.  Steiman said he would be one of the purchasers, and would guarantee that none of the three other co-purchasers would be financially hurt by the transaction.

Sure enough, the board agreed to take over the property, pay the mortgage, buy the insurance and to paint and fix up the school, Kisch said.   He added that he suggested to Steiman that plans be made to open the school with a big dedication ceremony the following September.

However, he said, Steiman wisely counseled to not wait until September, but instead to move the school immediately to National City — even though there were only a few weeks left in the Spring semester.  In that way, he said, parents of the school children would be able to see what a difference having its own property would make for the school.  The parents also would get used to driving their children to National City, Steiman said.   That is what happened, and by the time the school reopened after summer vacation, a bus had been donated to bring students who lived farther away, Kisch related.

Years later, the school moved again.  Its present location, in its own building, is 3630 Afton Drive in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood of San Diego.

Continuity and building upon the accomplishments of past generations were among the themes struck during the 50th anniversary banquet.

It was announced at the banquet that Kisch, who now lives in Jerusalem, had established an endowment fund in the Steimans’ honor.  A rabbi who had been headmaster of the school from 1969 to 1972 — Jacob Schwab– traveled to San Diego from Israel and offered the traditional Ha Motzi prayer at the start of the banquet. And Perla Attia and Shoshie Wohlgelernter, retiring teachers with 18 and 25 years tenure respectively, were saluted during the celebration.

Among attendees were Zelda Waxenberg and Yehudah Leib Steiman, the adult children of the Steimans.  In a brief interview, Yehuda Leib related that Morrie had visited his  father, Hirsh Leib Steiman, in Winnipeg, Canada in summer 1953, about a half year before he died. Morrie’s father and uncle previously had helped to establish a Lubavitcher shul and “on the last day before my father left, my zeide took my father aside and said ‘Moishe (Morrie’s Hebrew name), you make sure that there is a cheder for that boy and the rest of your children to grow up in.”

Yehuda Leib Steiman said that admonition was one of the reasons that his father felt so strongly about the success of the Hebrew Day School.

Tova Winick, a second generation Hebrew Day school student,  whose mother Claire also was a graduate, represented the Class of 2013 which next week will travel to Israel on the school’s traditional trip for graduating 8th graders.

She said unlike Korach, the rebel who unsuccessfully challenged Moses’ authority, students at Hebrew Day School learn “that we can create our own paths within the context of the tradition of those who came before us.”

Having attended three other schools, Winick said she felt she “belonged” at Hebrew Day School on the very first  day she attended.  “Every student here is treated on an individual basis,” she said.  “Hebrew Day is surrounded in such a warm and welcoming environment, it’s impossible to walk into the building without receiving a ‘good morning’ or ‘how are you?’  If you’re having a bad day, you don’t have to go through the entire day feeling miserable because there’s always someone there you can talk to.”

Addressing the faculty and administration of the school, she added, “I don’t know how you do it but I do know that this is an extremely special school and I one hundred percent guarantee that you won’t find another one like it.”

A final reflection of the evening came from Rabbi Simcha Weiser, the current and longtime headmaster.

He said that one of the occasions calling for the Shehekiyanu prayer–which thanks God for delivering us to a special moment — is when rain finally falls after a drought.  He said the Talmud states that only those people who own their property independently can fully understand the depth of the blessing that the rain represents, and thus they are the ones who traditionally pronounce the prayer.

He said that standing on the shoulders of Morrie and Barbara Steiman, the Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School has much to celebrate.  The people who make it possible for the teachers of Soille students to instruct them in the Jewish religion and ethics have much to celebrate.  “These are the children that the community of San Diego has always hoped for and has always waited for,” he said.  “These are the drops of rain.”

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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com