Page 1 - The Jewish Voice - June '24

VOL. 14 NO. 6 www.seabreezepublications.com JUNE 2024

New Chair, Leadership Positions for

Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County

During Jewish Federation of Palm Beach
County’s annual meeting with more than 250 guests
in attendance, distinguished community leader Barry
S. Berg was announced as the nonprofit’s new board
chair for a two-year term, succeeding immediate
past-board chair Susan Shulman Pertnoy. The event
was held at Temple Emanu-El on Palm Beach;
Pertnoy’s adult children, Samantha Carroll and
Michael Katzenberg, served as event chairs.
Berg is recognized among Palm Beach County’s
most dedicated leaders, having served as founding
chairman of Leadership Palm Beach County, founding board member of Children’s Federation board chairs. Mark F. Levy and Lynn Levy Peseckis, two of Federation’s most
Services Council, and as Florida chair of ADL. He currently serves on the ADL National devoted leaders, surprised Pertnoy with the announcement that she will be the recipient of
Commission. Berg recently retired after a more than 30-year professional career in wealth the 2024-2025 Jeanne Levy Community Leadership Award — Federation’s highest honor,
management. named for the mother of Levy and Peseckis who served as a founder and matriarch of the
During the event guests celebrated Pertnoy for significant accomplishments as Palm Beaches’ Jewish community.
Federation’s board chair from 2022 to 2024. Pertnoy, a longtime community leader and “Despite facing significant challenges locally and globally this past year, and the troubling
host of mosaic, Federation’s weekly television news magazine, continued a family legacy:
Both of her parents, Barbara Kay, of blessed memory, and Alan L. Shulman served as New Chair, Leadership Positions on page 2
Never Lose Hope Local Students Learn

99 Years Old and More Inspiring than Lessons of the Holocaust
Ever – Saul Dreier and His Holocaust
Survivor Band
The Holocaust Learning Experience (HLE), a non-profit developed by MorseLife Health
Temple Judea celebrated its last day System in West Palm Beach, recently welcomed four dozen teachers and eighth-grade students
of religious school and commemorated from the Rosarian Academy.
Yom HaShoah in keeping with its motto: “Unfortunately, children having to deal with antisemitism, bullying, and hate have not
Joyous Judaism that Inspires Action. been relegated to the dustbin of history,” said HLE Executive Director Leigh Routman. “By
Over 100 children under age 13, and the teaching age-appropriate lessons from the Holocaust, we hope to inspire students with stories
parents and grandparents who love them, of courage and overcoming adversity and provide them with tools to combat the bigotry and
attended TJ’s closing assembly, where prejudice they may face in their own lives.”
families and staff were treated to a very The previous week, the students welcomed Holocaust survivor and HLE ambassador Rose
special lesson and concert with Saul Dreier and his Holocaust Band. Rosenkranz to their classroom. Rosenkranz spoke about how her family survived through the
Dreier, who grew up in a Jewish family in Krakow, was sent to the Krakow-Plaszow Holocaust in a Russian labor camp in the northern reaches of Siberia and then in a displaced
concentration camp in German-occupied Poland when he was 16, then was moved to a subcamp, persons camp before receiving visas enabling them to immigrate to the United States.
where he toiled in a factory called NKF, repairing automobile radiators. Saul shared the story of
one of the men in his barracks who was a cantor. They chanted traditional Jewish songs. “You’re
missing something,” Dreier declared one evening to the men. He took two metal soup spoons
and started banging them together to create a beat that his fellow prisoners could sing along to.
“That’s how I learned to play the drums.”
His grueling days in the work camp were punctuated by his terror that he could be slaughtered
at any moment. Making music was his salve — a small but significant joy. Dreier’s parents were
murdered by the Nazis, as well as about 25 of his family members. He credits music for keeping
him alive. “It helped me survive,” said Dreier, who was sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp
in Nazi-occupied Austria in 1944, when he was 20.
Dreier was liberated by the Americans in 1945. While everyone celebrated, Dreier said
he was narrowly fixated on one thing: “I thought about my parents, my sister, and my father,

Never Lose Hope on page 3

Rosarian Academy students at the Gendelman Children’s Holocaust Memorial

Local Students Learn Lessons on page 4