Bernice Fleischmann, here helping out at an Israeli food festival at Congregation Beth Israel, is being honored as a Woman of Valor by the synagogue’s sisterhood.
Photo by Elaine Durbach
March 27, 2008
Anyone involved with Jewish activities in the Central New Jersey community has seen Bernice Fleischmann. She’s the woman with the Lucille Ball looks and spirited attitude — a vivacious redhead with a ready friendliness, helping out, it seems, with just about everything the community undertakes.
Fleischmann, who lives in Edison, is active in the Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey, Jewish Family Service of Central NJ, the Westfield chapter of Hadassah, and at Congregation Beth Israel in Scotch Plains, among other organizations.
She is usually in a support role, rather than in the spotlight, but that won’t be the case on Saturday, March 29. The sisterhood at CBI, which she joined in 1965, will present her with its Ayshet Chayil, or Woman of Valor, Award.
Despite her preference for behind-the-scenes work, she admitted to being delighted. “It’s very exciting,” she said. “I’m thrilled.”
Of all the contributions for which she is being honored, the most recent is her eight years as financial secretary of the sisterhood. Arlene Feller, the group’s president, said that alone has been very valuable. “I said I’d like to resign this year,” Fleischmann said, “but there was no one else to take it on, and I told them I wouldn’t leave them in the lurch.”
Most people come to community service through their parents, following the example they saw growing up. For Fleischmann it was different; her parents, as she put it, were “radicals,” open about their Judaism but totally non-practicing. But as a wife and mother, she made a very different choice.
Born and raised in Chicago, she met her husband, Peter, on a blind date there in 1947 and they got married three years later. He had come to the United States from Czechoslovakia just ahead of the Holocaust and, like her, had little Jewish education. As the young parents of two sons and a daughter, they were determined to do things differently. They joined Northwest Suburban Jewish Congregation in Morton Grove.
They moved to Scotch Plains in 1965 when their eldest son, Marc, was 12 and approaching the time for his bar mitzva (he lives now in Palo Alto, Calif.) and joined CBI, the local Conservative congregation. Their second son, Stuart, who lives in Scarsdale, NY, and their daughter, Robin, now living in Denver, would later celebrate becoming b’nei mitzva there. Their father followed his children’s example, also becoming bar mitzva — at the age of 63.
“Peter said he ‘needed somewhere to hang his hat,’ and I did too,” Fleischmann said. She joined the sisterhood at CBI. “It was a place that was mine.” She found friends and a way to do good, and a connection to the religion for herself and for her children that had been missing in her own youth.
She also joined Hadassah, where she later served as chapter president, and is still on the board. She became a member of the federation’s Women’s Division and serves on its board as well. And she joined JFS, where once a month she takes delight in helping to pack food parcels for needy families. “We have such a good time doing it,” she said.
Since retiring from her job as an office administrator in 2000, she has become increasingly involved in all those organizations. “I enjoy what I do,” she said simply. “It never feels like hard work, even when you’re peeling hard-boiled eggs or whatever. And each group is involved in different causes.” And all that is in addition to the traveling she and Peter love doing, belonging to book groups, and taking courses in art and music. Oh, and she has her weekly mah-jongg and canasta dates.
For now, though, the sisterhood is front and center. The cherry on top is that although the California contingent of the family can’t make it to the tribute dinner, her other son and her daughter have promised to come and share the excitement with their mom and dad.
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