SETH AND SARA – GANEI OMER, May, 2012

The aerospace engineer who became an impresario for ESRA medical lectures

By Sharon Levisohn and Susan Lurie

Many of the longtime ESRA members have heard of the ESRA Rehovot Medical Forum comprising high level and informative lectures presented by a wide range of doctors, scientists and other medical professionals. Starting at the end of 2003 and continuing through 2011, English speakers in the Rehovot area were enlightened on diverse medical and paramedical topics. However, not all are acquainted with Seth Hoffman, materials/chemical engineer from Gan Yavne, a mover and shaker who made it happen.

Seth was born in New York City in 1937 but gravitated to Denver, Colorado in 1955 for his university studies, and remained there to work. That was where he met Israeli-born Sara, his future wife.  She had been referred for medical treatment to the National Jewish Hospital which specialized in respiratory diseases. They met at a Jewish mixer and, fortuitously, Seth was looking for a Hebrew teacher, since he had gotten a summer job through the Jewish Agency at a chemical factory in Haifa. At the end of the summer 1961, Sara returned to Israel.  As fate would have it, she lived in Kiryat Haim, close to the factory where he worked; the rest is history.

Seth went back to Denver after his summer job, while Sara secured a position in Israel as a member of Bureau ’06 which was part of the prosecution team preparing for the upcoming trial of Adolf Eichmann. In Bureau ’06 she served as the chief document-translator and editor from German and English to Hebrew.  She worked with the attorney and military judge Pinhas Dayan. Sara and Mr. Dayan generated a dictionary of the code words that the Nazis had used with regard to their actions, which was essential for understanding many of the 5,000 documents they reviewed before the trial.  Fifty years later, she has spoken about the trial and her experiences there to a number of ESRA chapters and other organizations in both English and Hebrew. Eighteen years after the trial, both she and Seth (and all the surviving members of Bureau ’06) were honored at the home of then President Yitzhak Navon for a special day. More recently, both Sara and Seth attended a symposium commemorating the 50^th anniversary of the trial, where they were the guests of the son of Pinhas Dayan, a high ranking army officer. All three appeared on TV at that time. The 18 months of the Eichmann trial —while Seth was in Denver and Sara in Israel—were very difficult for both of them.  Seth would write an aerogram on an almost daily basis, but he received very few replies. Sara claimed that she also wrote each day but never sent many of the letters. Later, Seth discovered that after rereading her own letters she had decided to destroy them because they were too depressing.

In 1962, after the trial, Sara returned to Denver on a 30-day tourist visa. They were helped by a Denver rabbi, Rabbi Twersky, who, in his capacity as a Justice of the Peace, married them as if in a civil wedding. This enabled Sara to remain in the United States, so that she did not have to leave at the expiration of her visa. Two weeks later Rabbi Twersky, a strict Chassidic Jew, gave them a real Jewish wedding in his house. Their honeymoon was spent in the middle of a fierce snowstorm in the Rocky Mountains, where they were stranded (in their spring-like wedding clothes) on top of the Continental Divide for three hours during the night.  This was a forerunner of the interesting and exciting life they would have together. [SOMEWHERE IN THIS AREA, INSERT THE PICTURE TITLED “Seth and Sara - Denver, May, 1962”]

Seth moved around the US for professional reasons. Their eldest son, Hadas, was born in 1963 in Denver and their second son, Boaz, in Buffalo. They were in Philadelphia in 1965 with Seth working for GE Re-entry Systems (an aerospace company) when Sara’s father in Israel had a serious stroke. Even though Sara was in her ninth month of pregnancy, she insisted on returning to Israel to be with her father, so Seth had to smuggle her onto a plane without the El Al staff noticing her condition. Her father died a few days later and Seth stayed with Sara for the Shiva at his tiny house. Seth had hoped to see his child born, but simply had to return to the US after three weeks away from his job at such sudden notice.  When he arrived back in the US airport, there was a telegram waiting for him announcing the birth of his daughter Tammy, who had been born while he was on the aircraft.  He saw her for the first time two months later when the doctors said she was fit enough to fly. Today, all three children are successful professionals — a rabbi/teacher, a doctor of Chinese medicine and a teacher of autistic children; they are all living in Israel with their families.

In 1971, Seth came to Israel on a 3-year contract for ELTA Electronics in Ashdod, to work on radar and communication systems. The first year in Israel was spent at an absorption center in Lod where the children began their schooling. It was a rough year, which may be familiar to ESRA members who remember their own aliyah and the time spent in absorption centers. Initially, the children had difficulties with local children picking on them, but after some battles, this too was overcome. Seth spent a long time commuting to Ashdod on the company bus each day.

After one year they found a plot of land with a small house in Gan Yavne, and moved out of the absorption center and into their own home. However, it did not come without its own difficulties — the owner was in a military prison and afterwards tried to get more money from them. Among other problems, all the housing records in the local municipality had been conveniently burned, while the previous owner was trying to extort more money. However, they were living comfortably in their home before the 1973 war.  Since Gan Yavne is adjacent to the Hatzor Air Base, they had an early indication that something untoward was happening that Yom Kippur. Seth sat in the first row of the synagogue, and every time he looked around he noticed fewer and fewer congregants.  Outside the synagogue he could look into the base and saw immense activity, at which point he was told what was happening. He was one of a group of new immigrant specialists at ELTA who were called for army service after the Yom Kippur War.

After this "baptism by fire", their life in Gan Yavne was good. A few years later they added a second storey to the house, planted trees and landscaped their yard. Their plot was over two dunams, something that most people now (and even then) could only dream of.  Seth put in a large in-ground swimming pool and built a hexagon-shaped Jacuzzi from treated wood —– both of which were enclosed under a tinted polycarbonate roof. The family had many hours of enjoyment from these, as well as from the large yard where the children and dogs could romp at will.

In 1997 Seth retired from ELTA and Sara joined him the year after. Even before retirement, Seth was attending meetings of Rehovot’s ESRA chapter. After he joined the Board, the chairman asked him to head a committee to develop talks involving medical subjects, to be known as the Medical Forum. The committee never materialized, but Seth picked up the ball on his own and began asking friends, acquaintances and family members for recommendations for speakers. He had a knack for identifying interesting topics and was very persuasive in convincing professionals to find time in their busy schedules to address the ESRA chapter, and over the years, he was very successful in bringing many good speakers to talk to the members. The wide range of talks included Chinese medicine, diseases of ageing, new developments in cancer and stem cell research as well as many others. Attendance was excellent and this series raised a lot of money for the projects of ESRA Rehovot.

Over a year ago, Seth and Sara moved from Gan Yavne to the retirement community of Ganei Omer, outside Beer Sheva. There they hosted an impressive celebration for their 50^th wedding anniversary which was attended by friends and family from all over Israel. [INSERT SECOND PICTURE TITLED “SETH AND SARA – GANEI OMER, May, 2012.] They are both very active and happy in their new home, taking courses (Sara is also teaching), being involved in sports activities and making new friends. In Beer Sheva ,there is an active AACI branch and also an English Speaking Seniors group that meets once a week. Seth has not forgotten the Rehovot ESRA club and has even brought speakers from Beer Sheva to speak in Rehovot. The Rehovot club is honored to have had Seth as a member of the board and expects to continue hearing from him and about him for many more years.

Sharon Levisohn and Susan Lurie are emeritus research scientists from the Agricultural Research Council of the Ministry of Agriculture, and ESRA Rehovot Board members who enjoyed and were edified by Seth Hoffman’s Medical Forum lectures through the years.