By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO — The current issue of Western States Jewish History is devoted to the Jews of neighboring Orange County. One very familiar San Diego name is included, that of Dr. Abraham Nasatir, (1904-1991), who grew up in Santa Ana and learned Torah from his father, Morris, long before settling here with his wife Ida and becoming a leader of the San Diego Jewish community. Nasatir’s name is revered at San Diego State University, where he was a professor of history. Nasatir Hall on the SDSU campus is named for him.
In the article reprinted by the history journal, Nasatir tells of his family’s arrival in Santa Ana in 1898, and how his father ran a men’s clothing store there. He described his father as “self-educated but very well-versed in Hebrew and Talmud” and noted that his father “used his weekly visits to Los Angeles to learn shechita, and after having passed his examination used to kill the chickens which he raised in our backyard, and which were eaten at our Sabbath meals. My mother (Sarah) finally brought out her brother Frank Hurwitz, who was a shochet in the Old Country (a village on the border of Lithuania and Russia), and once he arrived in Santa Ana my father gave up his killing of the chickens.”
Nasatir said when his older brother Julius was about to become a bar mitzvah in 1913, his father sent him to Los Angeles to be instructed. “He then purchased a Sefer Torah and decided to conduct the bar mitzvah in Santa Ana. He converted our dining and front rooms into a synagogue. My father rented fifteen rooms in the Alerton Hotel to house his Los Angeles relatives and his Jewish freinds who observed the Sabbath and did not ride the day.”
That experience prompted Morris Nasatir to persuade a number of Jews in the Santa Ana area to join him for High Holy Day services at the Nasatir home on Orange Avenue, and to continue attending for as many Sabbaths as they could. There were Sabbath services for nearly six months after the High Holy Days, he recalled.
Eventually the family moved to Los Angeles because “my father became worried about us growing up and perhaps dating gentiles. So he gave up his business.” In Los Angeles, he was convinced, his children would be “more likely to follow traditional Jewish paths.”
Nasatir also disclosed that when he was 9 years old, “I had an accident while roller skating, in which I collided with a bakery truck resulting in the loss of my left hand.”
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MEMBER APPRECIATION — As Torah School classes concluded at Tifereth Israel Synagogue on Sunday, June 3, many parents and relatives descended upon the Conservative synagogue — but it was not merely to take their students home in time for lunch. On this day, the congregation hosted a free lunch as part of “Membership Appreciation Day.”
You might describe the lunch as a “border picnic” with chips and a spicy salsa representing our neighbors in Mexico and potato salad and a choice of kosher hot dogs or veggie burgers representing the U.S. A. Lemonade, iced tea, coffee and Otter Pops (colored ice pops) completed the menu.
Organized by the synagogue’s program director Beth Klareich, with a welcome by administrative vice president Jerry Hermes, activities included karaoke singing for the adults while children enjoyed temporary tattooing and competed in games under the auspices of the Looney Tooney company. Games included tugs of war, and a version of musical chairs that is played by stepping into hula hoops laid in a circle on the ground.
“It’s a way of showing our members appreciation,” commented Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal, the congregation’s spiritual leader. The activity is organized, he said, to guard against taking “our members for granted; we’re so busy looking for new members” that it’s important not to forget “those people supporting the synagogue for some cases years and in some cases decades.”
The rabbi noted approvingly that there were “no speeches — we just want people to kick back and have fun.”
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FAMILY REUNIONS — One of the services that San Diego Jewish World has the honor of performing again and again is to be an agent of reunion. Some years ago, for example, a family researching the name Zaks found via Google a reference to Mike (z”l) and Gussie Zaks of our city. They wrote to us wondering if they were part of the family they had known in Poland before the Holocaust. In fact, they were, and later a reunion was held.
Just recently, we received a note from Michael Naiman, who now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His family had some photos of the Klaskin family of San Diego, and he wondered how to get in touch with them, so he might send the images on to them. That turned out to be fairly easy for us. We learned from Norman Greene that the Klaskins’ daughter, Janice Friedman, is living in Chula Vista. Linda Neiman, daughter of Gert Thaler (z”l), is a cousin of the Klaskin family, and she kindly volunteered to serve as an intermediary for the photos.
As more and more people research their genealogies on the Internet, they come across mentions of family members in our “Adventures in San Diego History” column culled from the pages of the old Southwestern Jewish Press. That prompts emails or telephone calls to us and it’s our pleasure to bring families back together.
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com