Joy Levy Alkalay was born in 1920 in Vienna, Austria, the only child in a Sephardic family. Perceiving the German threat, the family was permitted to leave Austria because they were Yugoslav nationals. Joy’s family went first to Zagreb and from there to Sarajevo and Split. Later she was interned by the Italians on the island …
Read MoreLouis Albert was born in 1891 in Kiev, Ukraine where his father was a Rabbi. He was supposed to be one too, but when he was 13 years old, he went into the forestry business with his uncle. In 1906, he immigrated to America. After a few years in Portland, Oregon, Louis moved to Fall River, …
Read MoreDora Ail was born in the small village of Ugrain, near the larger town of Echelanislov in Poland in 1901. Fearing the pogroms then prevalent in that area, the family traveled a circuitous route through Siberia, Vladivostok, and Yokohama, finally reaching Harbin, Manchuria when Dora was 15 years old. Her memories of Harbin are mostly …
Read MoreMiriam Aiken (nee Boskowitz), born July 3, 1886, was the second daughter of Sarah Bloch and Isaac Boskowitz. Her paternal grandparents came west from New York after the Civil War in search of opportunity and were among the first Jewish families to settle in Oregon. Miriam’s father ran a general store in Union, Oregon when she …
Read MoreLeslie “Les” Aigner, one of three children, was born Ladislav Aigner in 1929 in Nové Zámky, Czechoslovakia. In the early 1940s his family moved to Csepel, Hungary on the outskirts of Budapest in the hope of escaping oppressive Nazi discrimination against Jews. But in 1943, the Nazis forced Les’s father into a slave labor camp …
Read MoreSanford’s father, Carl Adler, left Stuttgart, Germany in 1882 on a ship via the Panama Canal to Berkeley, California, where he had a sister, Theresa Eisenberg. He then moved to Astoria, Oregon and met Laura Hirsch, who lived in Salem, Oregon. By 1885, the Adlers had married and settled in Baker, Oregon near Laura’s sister …
Read MoreClara Blackman Zusman was born in Lidvinka (now Ludvinka), Russia in the late 1800s, circa 1898. Lidvinka was a small town with both Gentile Russians and Russian Jewish inhabitants. Her parents, Sura (Sara) and Bern, had seven children together, listed here in descending order: Avrum (Abe), Beila, Molla (Molly), Rushka (Rose), Bertha, Clara, and Moshe …
Read MoreArthur Ira Zuckerman was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 18, 1953, to Max and Sylvia Zuckerman. He grew up in an Orthodox home, and was part of a Zionist youth group called B’nai Akiva. After high school, he moved to Israel, living on a kibbutz before joining the Israeli army to fight in the …
Read MoreMin Mudrick Zidell was born in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 1923. She was the last of seven children of Russian immigrants Max and Rebecca Mudrick. Her father died before she was born, and her mother settled in Portland, Oregon, as she had a few brothers living there. Min grew up in Congregation Shaarie Torah but …
Read MoreBorn in 1927 in Portland, Martin Zell was a second-generation manager of the successful Zell Brother’s jewelry business. Martin’s father, Julius, was one of four brothers who emigrated from Austria to the Pacific Northwest around the time of the First World War. Julius and his brother, Harry, took over the drugstore of their cousin, Mike …
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