Category Archives: Extraordinary Individuals

Unique Jews In a Category of Their Own

Jew of the Week: Samuel Ullman

Samuel Ullman (Photo Credit: likesuccess.com)

Shmuel Ullman (1840-1924) was born in Hechingen, Germany. Due to persecutions of Jews in the region, his family fled to the US in 1850, settling in Mississippi. Ullman spent much of his youth working in his father’s butcher shop. The Civil War broke out when Ullman was just 21, and as a citizen of Mississippi, the young man served in the Confederate Army. Following the war, Ullman got married and started a dry goods business. He became active in his town’s political and religious life, often devoting his time to the needs of the community. He then moved to Alabama and started a new hardware business. Together with his wife, they founded a hospital for the needy. Ullman also served on the Board of Education, was a key civil rights activist, and fought tirelessly to bring equal education for African-American children. His efforts led to the first free public school for blacks. At the same time, he served as the president and unofficial rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham. When he finally retired, Ullman devoted his time to writing. The most famous of his essays and poems is titled “Youth”. It was the favourite poem of American General and World War II hero Douglas MacArthur, who credited the poem with getting him through the horrors of the war. MacArthur had it framed and hanging in his Tokyo office, and introduced the poem (and its poet) to the Japanese. Many Japanese, too, were given hope by those words, ultimately making Ullman one of the most popular poets in Japan – even moreso than in America! It was the same poem that inspired Konosuki Matsushita to start a business despite his advanced age, giving birth to Panasonic. Kim Dae Jung often quoted the poem in his successful campaign to become President of South Korea, as did Robert F. Kennedy, and countless other noted figures around the world. Seventy years after Ullman’s passing, his home was turned into a museum by the University of Alabama and the Japan-America Society.

Words of the Week

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind…
… Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals…
… Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul…
– Verses from Samuel Ullman’s “Youth”

Jew of the Week: Anne Heyman

Mother of Rwanda’s Orphans

Anne Heyman with Rwandan President Paul Kagame

Anne Elaine Heyman (1961-2014) was born in South Africa and moved to the US with her family when she was 15. After doing a year of high school in Israel, she studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and then got a law degree from Columbia University. She was soon Manhattan’s assistant district attorney, focusing on fighting white-collar crime. In 1994, she began devoting her time to philanthropic causes, first volunteering with an organization that assists the elderly, as well as Hillel, Young Judea, and the Jewish Community Centers of America. In 2005, she learned that the Rwandan genocide left over a million orphans. Inspired to make a change, she realized she could apply the same model that Israel used in caring for orphans following the Holocaust. Heyman raised $12 million and convinced the Rwandan government to give her 144 acres of land on which she built a village for orphans (called Agahozo-Shalom). To power the village, Heyman built a solar plant – one of the largest in sub-Saharan Africa – which provides electricity for the rest of Rwanda as well. To help her, she brought in Israeli Ethiopian Jews to serve as councilors and teachers. The orphans, some of whom didn’t even know their names, were given a home, an education, a trade, and a new family. They affectionately called Heyman “Mom”, “Grandmother”, and “Angel”. Over 500 teenagers continue to live and prosper in Heyman’s village today. Sadly, Heyman passed away a year ago in a tragic horse-riding accident. Her husband and children are continuing her important work.

Words of the Week

I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world… as a marvelous example of what can be done… how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Jew of the Week: Judy Feld Carr

Saving Syria’s Jews

Judy Feld Carr

Judith Feld Carr (b. 1938) was born in Montreal and grew up in Sudbury. She earned a Master’s in musicology from the University of Toronto, and taught music in both high schools and universities, including Yeshiva University in New York and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In the early 70s, inspired by a neighbour who was a Holocaust survivor, and by an article in the Jerusalem Post about 12 young Syrian Jews who were badly hurt when attempting to flee the country, Carr undertook a mission, together with her then-husband Dr. Ronald Feld, to help disadvantaged Jews living in Arab lands. Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, the living conditions for over a million Jews living in Arab lands became intolerable. In the following years, around 900,000 Jews were forcibly expelled from their homes across the Arab world. While the global community focuses on the Palestinian refugee crisis, few have ever paid much attention to the plight of these Jews. In Syria, Jews were barred from leaving the country (in fact, they were forbidden from traveling more than three kilometres without a permit!) and were forced to remain under terrible circumstances. Carr made contact with Syrian Jews in Canada who could help her, and then with Rabbi Ibrahim Hamra in Damascus, with whom she worked to smuggle Jews out of Syria, as well as to ransom Jews trapped in Syrian prisons. They communicated in secret by highlighting phrases in Torah texts that would be sent back and forth. Carr soon received death threats for her efforts, but persevered, even after her husband passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. In 1973, a charity fund was established at Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto to assist Carr in her work. All in all, over three thousand Jews were rescued from Syria – three quarters of the whole community. Carr was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal, the Order of Canada, as well as Israel’s Presidential Award of Distinction, among many others. A book about her story has been adapted to film.

Words of the Week

The three loves – love of God, love of Torah and love of one’s fellow – are all one. One cannot differentiate between them, for they are of a single essence… And since they are of a single essence, each one embodies all three.
– Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe