Weinberg Village Senior Hall of Fame: Honoree profiles continue

EDITOR’S NOTE: Weinberg Village’s 2010 “8 over 80” honorees are being profiled two per issue. Nellye Friedman, Jack Weisenfeld, Sylvia Krone and Ruth Klein were included in previous issues. Judith Szentivanyi and Walter Kessler are being featured here. Doris Rosenblatt and Roberta Golding will be included in the next issue.

Weinberg Village will formally recognize eight local seniors, 80 years or older, for their dedication to the Jewish and general community in Tampa and elsewhere at a dessert reception Sunday, Oct. 31 at Congregation Schaarai Zedek in Tampa.

The 2010 honorees will be inducted into the all-new Weinberg Village Senior Hall of Fame. The 2010 “8 over 80” honorees are Nellye Friedman, Roberta Golding, Walter Kessler, Ruth Klein, Sylvia Krone, Doris Rosenblatt, Judith Szentivanyi, and Jack Wiesenfeld.

The 8 over 80 Awards program is a fundraiser for Weinberg Village. To help reach the fundraising goal of $80,000, local businesses and individuals can place salutatory ads in an 8 over 80 Mazel Tov Recognition Book, which will be available to the community. Proceeds raised will be directed to the Weinberg Village Facility Enhancement Fund and the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Endowment Fund.

Honoree Judith Szentivanyi

Judith Szentivanyi survived the Holocaust and went on to marry Andor Szentivanyi, become a physician, and raise two sons, Peter and Eddie. She has been a

member of Congregation Kol Ami since its inception.

Born in Miskolc, Hungary, in 1928, she recalls fondly how wellliked her mother was, and how, when she was very ill, people in their town prayed for her recovery in temples and churches. She died later in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Her father was a dental surgeon, and members of her family had fought with the Hungarian Army in World War I, she said.

Of the 96 people packed in a boxcar headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II, Szentivanyi was one of only five who survived the war.

After a few days in Auschwitz- Birkenau, she was taken to Plassow, the camp featured in the movie Schindler’s List. She later returned to Auschwitz-Birkenau and was placed in a camp called B2, or “gypsy camp,” and then later sent to Parshnitz. The prisoners were taken each day by train to Trautenau, today called Trutnow, to work in a factory called A.E.G.

At the end of the war, she set out to find her family.

“God was good to me for my father was already home,” she said. He escaped from the work camp and was hiding with a family in Miskolc.

But 26 members of her family were killed during the war, including her mother and 6-year-old sister.

Following the war Szentivanyi went to medical school in Hungary, specializing in internal medicine. When she and her husband immigrated to the United States, although she spoke three languages, English wasn’t one of them. She ultimately completed a medical internship in Chicago.

In 1969, Szentivanyi’s husband moved to Tampa as one of the founding doctors of the University of South Florida Medical School. Judith Szentivanyi followed him to Tampa in 1970 and was Clinical Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Associate Professor of Comprehensive Medicine at USF. She practiced dermatology in Tampa until 1996 when she retired after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She is in remission and doing well.

During her retirement years she has volunteered her time as a public speaker, telling her story to groups of school children at the Florida Holocaust Museum, as well as conducting summer workshops. Szentivanyi has participated in the Spielberg Shoah Project and is a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. She is a 30-year member of the Lutz-Land O’Lakes Women’s Club and a member of the Brandeis Group of Tampa.

Honoree Walter H. Kessler

Walter Kessler was born in 1927 to Israel (Ish) and Theresa Kessler at Tampa Bayside Hospital, which closed later the same year.

His family’s Jewish roots in Tampa go back even farther. It was at the home of his grandfather, Judge M. Henry Cohen, that Tampa’s first synagogue, Schaarai Zedek, was formed in 1894.

Ccontinuing that leadership at Schaarai Zedek, Kessler served as president of the congregation from 1971-73.

Kessler graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in economics, and then later received a Business Administration degree from the University of Tampa.

He served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as a Pharmacist Mate, and then as a U.S. Army Reserve-Captain from 1950 until 1964.

During his professional career he served as president of Weil-Maas, Inc., owned Viola Todd, and was a certified public accountant.

Actively involved in the Tampa Jewish community for more than 40 years, he was charter director and president of Jewish Towers Apartments, Campaign Chair for the Tampa Jewish Federation from 1986-88 and then president of Tampa Jewish Federation from 1988-90. He is also a former member of the board of trustees of Menorah Manor.

His other affiliations have included the Egypt Temple Shrine, the USF President’s Council and life member of the Minaret Society of the University of Tampa.

He received the Tampa Bay Silver Medallion Humanitarian Award in 1990 and the JCC/Federation Leo Levinson Memorial Award for Leadership Excellence in 2008.

Married to the former Leonore “Lee” Rosenau, now deceased, the couple’s three children are Robert Kessler, married to Robyn; Lawrence Kessler, married to Betsey; and Susan Kessler. He also has five grandchildren.

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For more information about Weinberg Village Assisted Living Residences or the 8 over 80 event or Mazel Tov Recognition Book, call Dan Sultan at (813)769-4729 or go online to www.weinbergvillage.com. Weinberg Village is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tampa Jewish Community Center & Federation.

— Story by MINDY RUBENSTEIN