This program was the first item I viewed from the Heiman Jacobson scrapbooks when Linda and Robert Daniels shared them with me.  I hope you don’t think me maudlin if I admit that I burst into tears when I saw it.  I didn’t believe any copies had survived.

The fiftieth anniversary celebration is notable for being the last with the synagogue’s historian and charter members present (including my great-grandfather).  Occurring at the height of World War II, celebrating the communities success must have been tinged with much sorrow as the community reflected on the situation of their brethren in Europe and their sons who were away fighting.

May our Congregation, now numbering about 250 members, continue to prosper and be an asset to our community and country, and may our boys come home and live happily in this land of the free and home of the brave.

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Committees

Banquet

Louis Fisher…General Chairman
Joseph Frank…Chairman of Arrangements
Bernard Stein…Treasurer
Mrs. J.H. Lembersky…Publicity Chairman
Leon Miller…Assistant Publicity

Tickets

Mrs. Sam Trachtenberg…Chairman
Mrs Nathan Rosenthal, Mrs. Samuel Rosenthal, Mrs. Isadore Glick, Mrs. David Mendelson

Souvenir Program

Joseph Frank…Chairman
Bernard Stein, Samuel Gordon, Mrs. J.H. Lembersky

Officers of the Rodef Shalom Congregation
Isadore Glick…President
Bennie Seiavitch…Vice President
I. Grossman…Secretary
Alex Lembersky…Treasurer
Mrs. J.H. Lembersky…President Rodef Shalom Sisterhood

Board of Directors

Joseph Frank, Barney Hepps, Louis Schwartz, Nathan Rosenthal, Morris Fishman, Sam Zuckerman, Louis Fisher, Eliasz Lefkovics, M.D. Weis, Zolton Smooke, Maz Lazar

Officers of B’nai B’rith of Homestead, Pa.

Mr. Isadore Glick…President B’nai B’rith of Homestead
Mrs. Sam Trachtenberg…President B’nai B’rith Women’s Auxiliary

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PROGRAM

 

National Anthem…Audience
Invocation…Father Burke
Prayer-Hamotzi…Rabbi A.M. Ashinsky (the leading Orthodox rabbi of Pittsburgh)

Dinner
Music…Kramer Ensemble
Welcome…Louis Fisher
Toastmaster…Atty. E.A. Keizler

Presentation of Officers
Isadore Glick…Rodef Shalom Congregation
Mrs. J.H. Lembersky…Rodef Shalom Sisterhood

Remarks
Burgess John J. McLean (a dentist who became mayor of Homestead)
Congressman Samuel A. Weiss (1902-1977, a Polish-Jewish Congressman representing a region west of Pittsburgh)
Hon. Judge L.K. Harkins (Homestead born and bred; judge, County Court, Allegheny County)
Senator J. Fremont Cox (a state senator from Munhall)
Hon. Thomas E. Barrett (a life-long Homesteader, then member of the PA House of Representatives)
Mr. Bert Kline (editor of The Daily Messenger, the local newspaper)
Mrs. F.P. Tarnapowicz (associate state administrator of the U.S. Treasury, with whom the sisterhood was then working to sell war bonds)

Guest Speaker…Hon. Judge Alexander Cooper (1891-1972, a Russian-Jewish common pleas court judge in Allegheny County, probably Harvard ’17)
Hatikvah…Audience
God Bless America…Audience
Benediction…Rabbi A.M. Pinkas