Half a Chance: Stories of Jewish Delawareans

While he served in the Army Air Force, Jack Coonin helped develop a radar camera that made it possible to identify military targets from the air. Coonin flew the China-Burma-India theater for 2 1/2 years. He photographed the mushroom cloud following the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, Japan. Coonin learned jewelry making by working at Louis Ferber's shop from 1939 to 1942 and from 1945 to 1947. At Jack Coonin Jewelers on Market Street, he created and repaired jewelry, clocks, and watches for 52 years. Coonin was also an avid gun collector.

Louis Ferber, a skilled jeweler, learned his craft from his brother Maurice in Paris. He opened Louis Ferber Jewelers at 200 1/2 West Second Street after his restaurant in New York City failed during the Great Depression. Ferber taught his trade to other Delawareans including Jack Coonin.

As a skilled cabinetmaker, Morris Tomases found employment with the Pullman Palace Car Company after he left Romania in 1913 to avoid conscription in the czar's army. He also worked at Wilmington's other railroad car and shipbuilding companies. Tomases attended night school and Americanization classes. He eventually became assistant foreman of his division at Pullman.

Max Zutz was considered one of Wilmington's finest tailors. His shop at 311 Delaware Avenue attracted an elite clientele who even brought him fabric from Europe to make their clothes. In Russia, Zutz had been apprenticed to a tailor. When he arrived in New York City at the age of 15, he studied tailoring and received a diploma for advanced study.

Artist Clara Finkelstein was a member of the Delaware Art Center and the Studio Group of Wilmington. N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth, and Frank Schoonover recognized her talent and guided her. She began painting when she was almost 40, and her son suggested that she finish his art course when he went to college. Clara's recognition that local artists needed more exhibition opportunities inspired her husband I.B. Finkelstein, featured in the public service section, to begin the Brandywine Arts Festival.

Photographer and sculptor Cypen Lubitsh came to Wilmington after World War II and established Lubitsh and Bungarz commercial photography, which documented area businesses for some 40 years. As a young man, he studied and worked with Alexander Archipenko. During World War II, Lubitsh was a combat photographer in Europe. His combat films from Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and Germany were used in several films.

Max Neugas was a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware from 1863 to 1865. His detailed drawings provide a priceless record of the life and architecture of the fort. Neugas joined the Confederate Army in South Carolina and fought in numerous Civil War battles. He was captured by Union forces after the Battle of Gettysburg and imprisoned in Fort Delaware. Nothing is known about Neugas after the Civil War.

Architect and contractor David Topkis built the Adas Kodesch synagogue and the Adas Kodesch Center at Sixth and French streets and contributed to their design. He also built the Arcadia and Strand movie theaters and the old Topkis Building at Fifth and Market streets, which later became the Wilmington Dry Goods. Topkis built at least 200 homes in the Ninth Ward and designed several of them.

Rabbi Philip Birnbaum's book, Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, was published by the Hebrew Publishing Company to great acclaim in 1944. The aim of the book, with its modern punctuation, was to make the text accessible to less experienced Hebrew students. During the 1940s, Birnbaum lived in Wilmington and was the director of the Associated Hebrew School, an experiment which brought together students of Adas Kodesch and Chesed Shel Emeth in one school. Rabbi Birnbaum wrote numerous books.

Rabbi Simon Krinsky, a prolific writer in Hebrew, Yiddish, and English, came to Delaware circa 1931 after living in Palestine. For 25 years beginning in 1943, Krinsky was the owner, editor, and publisher of The Jewish Voice, Delaware's only Jewish newspaper. He sold the paper to the Jewish Federation in 1968. Rabbi Krinsky also wrote books of poetry and short stories. He served as rabbi or teacher at all the synagogues in northern Delaware.

Rabbi Lee Levinger and his wife Elma wrote books separately and together. Rabbi Levinger wrote A Chaplain in France, about his experience in France during World War I, and A History of the Jews in the United States among other books. Between 1920 and the 1950s, Elma Levinger wrote more than 27 plays, short stories, and novels for children and adults. The Levingers lived in Delaware in the 1920s while Rabbi Levinger served at Temple Beth Emeth, then known as Temple of Truth.

Jim Rosbrow and Cy Liberman wrote The Delaware Citizen because they believed that "to be an active citizen and take an active part in the government of your community, you must know the rules." They hoped it would become a model for books on every state. Rosbrow served as assistant director of Delaware's Unemployment Compensation Commission, where he helped develop the state's employee merit system. He became Delaware's Secretary of Labor and later worked for the U.S. Bureau of Labor in Washington.

Humorist Emil Cohen, who was included in Who's Who in American Jewry, entertained Jewish audiences all over the world. A strong proponent of Jewish causes, he performed on behalf of Israel Bonds, UJA, and other Jewish organizations, raising tens of millions of dollars. Cohen was the resident comedian at Grossinger's Hotel in the Catskill Mountains for 40 years after World War II until the hotel closed. Cohen said that he had acquired his craft as a storyteller from the immigrants who boarded at his childhood home in Wilmington.

Rae Gerstine was a mainstay of Arden's business and social life for more than 70 years. Dubbed "Mrs. Arden," she was involved in every Arden community activity. She served as treasurer of the Arden Club for many years and was active in many guilds. As a member of the Ardensingers, Gerstine performed in every Gilbert and Sullivan show staged in the village.

Herman Reitzes was well known for his weekday “Sports Parade” radio program which broadcasted play-by-play of Delaware’s home football games. Reitzes was WDEL’s sports announcer during the 1930s. In 1983, he received the first Herm Reitzes Award, presented annually by the Delaware Sportswriters and Broadcasters Association for “outstanding contributions to athletics and sports in Delaware.”

E.M. Budner opened the Delmar News Agency, a wholesale newspaper and magazine distributing business, in 1932. The agency grew to serve 425 newspaper and magazine dealers. Budner founded the Atlantic Coast Independent Distributors Association, serving as president from 1939 to 1943 and again in 1949-50. In 1949, Budner and Alexis I. du Pont Bayard purchased the Wilmington Sunday Star which they published for 5 years. Budner began his newspaper career by selling papers in Milwaukee at age 8.

Veteran News Journal reporter Bill Frank was in the newspaper business for more than 60 years and was employed by every paper published in Wilmington. Frank began his newspaper work after graduating from Wilmington High School in 1923. He became the city editor of the Evening Journal. For a time, he tried radio news broadcasting, but returned to the News Journal as a columnist and reporter. Frank took two trips to Vietnam to report on the war from a local angle. He wrote for the Jewish Voice under the name of Zev Amiti. Frank was one of the founders of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware.

Ben Greenstein was the sports editor of each of Wilmington's newspapers, The Morning News, the Evening Journal, and the Journal-Every Evening, from the late 1910s until his retirement in the early 1940s. At the same time, he was also a sports correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Greenstein went to work in the sports department of the Wilmington Morning News after graduating from high school to help support his siblings after the death of both his parents. His older sister Jennie is featured in the education section.

Ralph Moyed was a reporter and columnist at the News Journal for 42 years. He wrote thousands of news stories, political analysis pieces, and columns about Delawareans. In 1973, Moyed and Jay Harris wrote a series about the heroin trade in Delaware that led to the arrest of 8 dealers. The Delaware State Senate honored Moyed and Harris. They received the Associated Press Managing Editors' Award for public service.

Harris Samonisky was city editor of the Every Evening and later the Journal-Every Evening for nearly 17 years until he resigned in 1943. He was the first Jew and the first person from Delaware City to become grand master of the Grand Lodge of Masons in Delaware. Samonisky was elected national president of the Past Grand Masters Association in 1950. Samonisky was appointed as an information specialist with the Department of State in Washington, D.C., in 1951.

Morris Berger's popular dance band was a regular at the Grille Room in the Hotel du Pont, the Starlight Room at the Hotel Rodney, the DuPont Country Club, and the Wilson steamship line beginning in the 1940s. Berger also played bass in the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra. As the owner of Wilco Window Cleaning Company, Berger walked up and down Market Street every day beginning at 6 a.m. to supervise workers and collect money. He was dubbed "the mayor of Market Street" because everyone knew him.

Estelle Frankel brought the Suzuki method, a way of teaching very young children to play the violin, to Delaware in 1965. She taught violin in the Wilmington public schools for more than 36 years and gave private violin lessons for more than 60 years. Frankel was the first woman to play in the Wilmington High School Orchestra.

Manny Klein, the jazz and pop pianist who entertained Delawareans for decades, began performing professionally at about 14 years of age. His orchestra played at the Rodney Square Club, most area country clubs, and numerous charity benefits as well as at bar mitzvahs and weddings. Klein served as president of the Musicians Union from 1975 to 1983.

Dr. Isadore Slovin made a violin that the International Violin Makers Association judged best in show in a 1977 contest. His lifelong interest in music began when he started playing the violin at the age of nine. He played in the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra and the Jewish Community Center's orchestra. Isadore Slovin was a prominent Wilmington physician and surgeon.

In the 1940s, Saul Cohen led the effort to found the Brandywine Country Club because Jews were not allowed to be members of any private country clubs in Delaware. Believing that "if you were lucky enough to be born in the United States, you should give something back to the country," Saul Cohen became an active civic leader, serving on the boards of Blue Cross, Wilmington General Hospital, United Way, Jewish Community Center, Jewish Federation of Delaware, and as chair of Wilmington Draft Board 4, to name a few. In 1959 he received the National Human Relations award from the National Council of Christians and Jews.

World master Evelyn Levitt was one of the United States' outstanding bridge players. She won the North American bridge championship five times between 1978 and 1986. Levitt earned some 7,800 master points, more than any woman player in Delaware. She taught bridge for 17 years at the Wilmington Country Club and the DuPont Country Club.

Hymie Swartz, an accomplished swimmer and diver, was inducted into the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame in 1988. Swartz won the Delaware indoor swimming title from 1932 through 1937. He also won four indoor and six outdoor diving championships. He was most proud of the thousands of kids he had instructed and coached at the Jewish Community Center, the YMCA, and the American Red Cross.

Chemist David Breslow was named one of the top 10 scientists in Delaware in 1960. Breslow served as president of the state's chapter of the American Chemical Society and as a regional director of the American Chemical Society. Breslow worked for Hercules for thirty-seven years and held some eighty U.S. patents as well as foreign patents. With a lifelong interest in academia, he also taught chemistry at the University of Delaware and the University of Florida, as well as in Munich and China.

David Katz loved science and held numerous patents, although he earned his living as a patent attorney for the DuPont Company. His notebooks demonstrate the creativity involved in science. One of his more notable inventions was a way to obtain salt-free water from air. During the 1960s, he corresponded with Israeli leaders about his invention.

Dr. Leo Zeftel worked on the Chemical Weapons Convention, which banned chemical weapons, for more than a decade. He wrote the section on verification and inspection of chemical plants, became the foremost expert on the Chemical Weapons Convention Industry Inspections, and was honored by the establishment of a lecture series in his name. Zeftel served as president of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, the Jewish community's central fund-raising and planning organization.