Orlanskys spend their 71st Valentine’s Day together

Other items in this column include:

February 14, 2020

*Political bytes
*Coming our way
*Recommended reading

 

By Donald H. Harrison

Danny and Arlene Orlansky

SAN DIEGO — Danny and Arlene (Addleson) Orlansky, who celebrated their 71st Valentine’s Day as a married couple on Friday, say the man who was their Cupid was the late Rabbi Morton Cohn of Congregation Beth Israel.

Two years after the end of World War II, on a Sunday when Arlene was being installed as president of the Temple Youth League, Rabbi Cohn suggested that because the teens of the only three synagogues in the county (Beth Israel, Tifereth Israel, and Beth Jacob) didn’t know each other, they should have the occasion double as a dance in his Reform congregation’s social hall.

“I give all the credit to Rabbi Cohn,” Arlene said. “I can’t tell you how many marriages came from that group. Let’s see there were Irwin and Carolyn Sklar, Ted and Annabelle Mintz — they all came out of that group.”

Beth Israel was then located at 3rd and Laurel Streets in San Diego, at what is today Ohr Shalom Synagogue. Today, Beth Israel is located in the University Towne Center area, east of La Jolla.

Danny, who was a member of Tifereth Israel Synagogue, and his friend Irwin Sklar, purchased tickets from Arlene’s cousin, Lora Dean Addleson, to attend the dance, which was intended to introduce the teens of the different congregations to each other.

“Rabbi Cohn thought it was terrible that we didn’t have any place to get together,” Arlene recalled.

Today 92, Danny was 20 years old at the time of their meeting and Arlene, today 88, was a Sweet 16. Arlene said she fell for Danny the moment she saw his wavy hair.

“You see that hair” she enthused during an interview. “That’s not a toupee; that’s his hair. He was very pretty!”

She said Danny had served in the Navy, and “he was very, very handsome.”

The couple initially got to know each other while navigating a four-step dance in the temple’s social hall.  Later, Mission Bay was one of their favorite places to go on dates.

Newlyweds Danny and Arlene Orlansky in this 1949 photographed are flanked by Rabbi Morton Cohn of Congregation Beth Israel, left, and Rabbi Monroe Levens of Tifereth Israel, right

The Orlanskys married on January 9, 1949, when Arlene was still a minor, just 17; and Danny was 21. Her parents, Rebecca and Eddie Addleson, had encouraged the union, with Eddy even finding at his pawn shop a diamond wedding ring for Danny to buy for her in case he proposed.

“In those days,” commented Danny, “people got married younger.”

Even so, “everyone was clicking their teeth,” remembered Arlene. “I was very young to get married. I was good in [Hoover High} School and I didn’t go back to school. That was in the ‘high rent’ district; he went to San Diego High School, which was downtown.”

“We lived in a pretty poor neighborhood downtown — 16th Street,” said Danny.

The wedding was held at Tifereth Israel Synagogue, then located at 30th and Howard Streets. (Today it is located on Cowles Mountain Boulevard.) The ceremony was co-officiated by Rabbi Monroe Levens of Tifereth Israel and Rabbi Cohn of Beth Israel. Helen Cohen, Danny’s sister, was Maid of Honor, and her husband, Hal Cohen, was the best man. Today, the Social Hall of Tifereth Israel Synagogue is named for Hal & Helen Cohen, whose daughter Randi is married to Charles Wax, chairman of Waxie Sanitary Supply.

Arlene’s and Danny’s first child, Gary, was born in 1950; their second, Rob, in 1953; a third child, Cory, died as an infant, and their fourth child, Shelle (Orlansky) Belenzon was born in 1959,  the parents recounted.

In the early years of their marriage, Arlene stayed at home, caring for the children and looking after the house, while Danny worked at the store he founded in El Cajon, Daniel’s Interiors. He had a good background in the furniture business because he had worked for his parents, Sam and Dora Orlansky, when they owned Eastern Furniture Company in downtown San Diego, today a historic landmark in the Gaslamp Quarter.

After her two sons were grown and Shelle a teenager, Arlene began working at the store with Danny. It turned out she was very good at selling furniture. “I could sell anything!” confided Arlene, who later became a successful interior designer.

Danny attributed their lengthy marriage to the fact that “we had interests in common — especially  family, a big family on her side.”

“When we would have Pesach dinner, my grandmother would have 35 people over,” Arlene recalled.

“Whereas for me, it was just my mother, father, and sister,” said Danny. Marrying into a big family “became very important to me. I didn’t have any other relatives surrounding me like her family.”

“I loved his sister (Helen Cohen) very much,” said Arlene.

“Helen, Hal, Arlene and I, we went every place together,” said Danny. “We traveled together all through Europe. We would go to the movies together on weekends. We did everything together.”

What factors have sustained their long marriage?

“We kept a Jewish life,” responded Arlene. “We went to Tifereth Israel. I think that had a lot to do it.”

“The community was important to us,” commented Danny. “Community and family.”

And how best to spend a Valentine’s Day?

“With family,” responded Danny.
*

Political bytes

*Ron Klein and Halie Soifer, respectively chairman and executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) say all Democratic presidential candidates support U.S. military assistance to Israel; support Israel’s right to exist in safety and security as a Jewish state; support a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and oppose the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.   They add, “These are the cardinal principles of – what has historically been and should continue to be – bipartisan support for Israel. Some of the Democratic presidential candidates do differ on some issues related to Israel, particularly when it comes to the possibility of conditioning U.S. aid or precluding its use for unilateral Israeli annexation of the West Bank. JDCA has made it clear that we support full funding of aid to Israel, per the U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) negotiated by President Obama in 2016.”

*U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diegohas been honored as the 2020 Champion of Science by The Science Coalition (TSC), which is a nonpartisan organization of more than 50 public and private research organizations.  She was nominated for the award by UC San Diego. “Throughout her nearly two decades in Congress, Congresswoman Davis has been a true Champion of Science, most notably in her work as an original co-sponsor and steadfast advocate of the 21st Century Cures Act,” said Angela Phillips Diaz, Executive Director of Government Research Relations at UC San Diego. “Her votes and leadership clearly reflect that she values the significance of fundamental research in strengthening our national security, growing our economy, fueling technological innovation, and enhancing public health, We are grateful for her fierce advocacy in ensuring that the crucial federal investment by agencies like NSF, NIH, DoD, and NASA continues to support the nation’s scientific enterprise.”

*In the increasingly nasty primary battle in the 53rd Congressional District between former Congressman Darrell Issa and former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, DeMaio accuses Issa in a television commercial of being equivalent to Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) in his disloyalty to President Donald Trump.  Will this have the effect of winning Democratic votes for Issa?

*

Coming our way
*
Holocaust Survivor Rose Schindler will give two talks about her memoir Two Who Survived at the Mission Trails Regional Park’s visitor center at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb 18, and Sunday, March 1.  Tickets and reservations via this website.

*

Recommended reading
*
L’Chaim San Diego Magazine
, in its February issue, has an interview with Yosef Condiotti, the Israeli who is the new regional director of StandWithUs.  He has two aunts wholive in San Diego, Ellen Fox and Beth Palmer. 

*Rabbi Jacob Rupp in the February issue (Page 26) of the San Diego Jewish Journal worries that we may be harming our children with constant barrages of television news during breakfast.

*Don Bauder, who became a columnist for the San Diego Reader after leaving his business editor post at The San Diego Union-Tribune, now is living in retirement in Colorado.  But he keeps up with San Diego news and when he saw an article by Logan Jenkins on Times of San Diego endorsing Mike Bloomberg for President, he decided to email his hearty agreement to contributing editor Ken Stone.  

*U.S. District Court Judge Jack Weinstein has retired from the federal bench at age 98.  Appointed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, he was the longest serving federal judge, NBC New York reported.

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World.  He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com