Baruch (Bert) Strassburger died a short time ago in Frankfurt on the Main at the age of 76.
Strassburger, who was born in Arad, Rumania, was an extraordinary individual His personality combined excellent intellectual qualities with kindness and goodness of heart.
He was a very able and successful businessman, a well known philanthropist and a fine rabbinic scholar who devoted his free time to study and research.
His heart and hand were open to many causes but he supported in particular hospitals and educational institutions. He donated precious medical equipment to hospitals in Israel, notably to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem (to whose synagogue he also presented a Torah scroll). He supported ORT vocational schools in the country and was of great help to Midrashiat Noam which combines Yeshiva studies with instruction in general subjects.
Two years ago he opened a center for senior citizens in Jerusalem. Last year he contributed a large sum toward building, in Bnei Brak, a Kollel in memory of the Yeshiva of Szekeyhid, Hungary which he attended in his youth.
Strassburger had a special love for the writings of the Rambam since his Yeshiva days. In 1984 he published an English edition of the illustrated pages of the famous Kaufmann Mishneh Torah manuscript, which is preserved in the library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. He presented a copy of this edition to the King of Spain during a special audience granted him in Madrid.
Strassburger authored The Rambam, His Life and is Work, which appeared in Hebrew English, Hungarian and German.
He was a descendant of Rabbi Moshe Sofer, and the writings of the Sage of Pressburg were his steady companions.
He played a prominent role in the Jews community of Frankfort where he resided. For a number of years he gave a Shiur every Sabbath morning – before the prayer services– to a group of men who met for intense study of the Talmud.
My wife and I knew Strassburger and his wife Helen very well. On visits to Frankfort we learned much about their activities in the local Jewish community.
About a month ago we were informed that Baruch Strassburger was in Jerusalem He was sitting Shiva for his mother, who had died at the age of 98. She had lived in Jerusalem and was buried on the Mount of Olives in the family plot which her son had acquired in the 1970s and where the remains of her late husband, Reb Mordcai who had died in 1942 in Arad Rumania were also interred.
In recent years, Strassburger had commissioned a group of scholars to compile a new lexicon of the Talmud.
He invested large sums in the project but was not satisfied with it progress. When I visited him during the Shiva, he showed me three volumes of bound proof sheets which contained articles on Talmudic subjects beginning with the letter Alef. He expressed the hope that at long last he might have some Nahat from the project which had cost him so much money and caused him a lot of aggravation.
We then talked about his desire to acquire the library of a mutual friend of ours who resided in New York. I believe he wanted to buy the library in order to donate it to an educational institution.
We had paid Strassburger our condolence visit at his sister’s apartment on Palmach Street on Motza’ei Shabbat. Shiva ended the following Tuesday. Strassburger went to the grave of his mother, took leave of his seriously ill brother, whom he was afraid, he might not see anymore on a future visit to the country and returned to Frankfort.
Three days later, on Friday morning, we were shocked to see in the HaTzofeh daily a large black-bordered notice that Baruch Strassburger had died in Frankfort and that his funeral would take place on Motzaei Shabbat.
Later I learned that he had died Wednesday night. His older son, Aaron Mordecai (Robert) who resides in Ramat Gan and is an importer of medical equipment was in Paris at that time. He rushed to Frankfort and together with his mother, arranged for his father’s funeral there and for bringing the body to Israel. It arrived at Lod airport Friday afternoon.
Continued next week
The Jewish Press, March 10, 2000
Conclusion
When we arrived on Motzaei Shabbat at the Shamgar funeral home in Jerusalem, the place was filled with relatives, friends and acquaintances of Baruch Strassburger.
He was eulogized by his sons, Aaron Mordecai and Chaim David. Both studied in Israel and settled in the country. Their eulogies touched everyone present.
“We are entering the month of Adar. Our sages said that when Adar comes, joy increases. For us this month has become a time of mourning,” Aaron Mordecai cried out.
Aron Mordecai as well as his younger brother Chaim David stressed that their father didn’t want to be eulogized. He told them that in this world which is filled with sheker (falsehood) there is no eulogy that doesn’t contain exaggerations. He wanted to appear before the Divine throne unaccompanied by exaggerations about his life and his work.
Aaron Mordecai said he would honor his father’s request not to eulogize him, but not for the reason his father had stated. Simply he didn’t have the words to adequately describe his father’s way of life and good deeds.
Several rabbis wanted to speak but Strassburger’s sons didn’t permit it.
The funeral procession set out for the Mount of Olives. In accordance with the custom of Jerusalem’s Jews, the sons didn’t follow the bier to the cemetery.
A man who was kind enough to take us home in his car told us that he had known Strassburger only slightly but he felt obligated to pay him his last respects, because on a visit to Frankfort, he had enjoyed the Strassburger’s hospitality.
Strassburger’s wife, Helen, who was his partner in all his benefactions was also at the funeral. She had arrived the day before from Frankfort with the bier. Only a few of the many who attended the funeral know that Helen was mourning not only the death of her husband but also that of her mother. As soon as she landed she had rushed to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva to see her critically ill mother.
“Mamma, I thank you for having waited for me, so that I could still see you,” Helen said to her mother. The mother didn’t recognize her daughter. She died the next day and was buried on Sunday in Petach Tivka. She was 92.
The Strassburgers sat Shiva at Aaron Mordecai’s home in Ramat Gan.
On a table in the large parlor room there were copies of Strassburger’s Reshimot Shenot Dor and Midor El Dor, which were published in recent years by Midrashiat Noam, an institution of which he had been a strong supporter. The books include memoirs, Divrei Torah, notes, lectures and speeches. Among the latter are Hadranim on Tractates Kiddushin and Moe’d Katan which he had delivered at the weekly Talmud study group of Frankfurt’s Westend Beth HaMidrash.
Helen told my wife that although all her family, children and grandchildren were living in Israel, she was determined to go back to Frankfort to take care of the business which her husband had built up
Like her husband, Helen has been active in Jewish communal life in Frankfort. Several years ago, my wife and I visited the synagogue of Michelstadt, Germany, which is now a Jewish museum. We noticed the name of Helen associated with one of the displays.
Aaron Mordecai told me about the funeral in Frankfort and about his father’s latest large benefactions.
He donated an operating theatre to the Laniado Hospital in Kiryat Sanz. Twenty three years earlier, in 1977, he had provided the same hospital with an emergency ward on the occasion of the 75th birthday of his mother.
Recently, Strassburger had pledged to establish a department of endocrinology at the Assaf HaRofeh Medical Center. The department is now being installed and will be dedicated in the near future.
Strassburger gave not only of his own money to various institutions, but as a prominent supporter of Hadassah, a world leader of ORT, as president of the “Friends of the Misrashia in Germany” and as a prominent associate of other organizations, he prevailed upon many others to support the worthy causes he championed and cherished. Strassburger was , without exaggeration, one of the great benefactors of our people.
Yehi Zichro Baruch
The Jewish Press, Friday, March 17, 2000