By Rabbi Lawrence Troster
When I am called up for an aliyah (the honor of saying blessings over a part of the Sabbath Torah reading), I am called by my Hebrew name: Eliezer ben Yaakov Meir ve-Leah. My family follows the Ashkenazi custom of naming children after deceased relatives and I am named after my great-uncle Eliezer.
So who was Eliezer? His real name was Lejzor Trajster (the original Polish/Yiddish spelling of my family name: pronounced Lazar Treister) of Lagow, Poland, and he was one of my grandfather's older brothers. I have a picture of him on a postcard sent from Lagow to Toronto in the 1930s to the all the relatives of the Jewish community who had immigrated in the previous decades -- my grandfather came to Toronto in 1905 -- to ask them for contributions before the High Holidays for the Free Loan Society (Gemilut Hesed Casa) which gave people interest-free loans to help them make a living. This was the highest form of tzedakahaccording to traditional Jewish ethics. He was a member of the governing board of the society (see the postcard below; he is No. 5), and I have also learned that he was a member of the Kehilla's (Jewish communal organization) board of directors in 1932, who were charged with raising money for food to help the poor who constituted a significant percentage of the community.
What happened to Lejzor? He was murdered along with his wife Golda Hershenhorn and their two children sometime after Oct. 27, 1942, when the Jews of Lagow were sent first to the ghetto in the larger town of Kielce and then to the Treblinka death camp (...)
What happened to Lejzor? He was murdered along with his wife Golda Hershenhorn and their two children sometime after Oct. 27, 1942, when the Jews of Lagow were sent first to the ghetto in the larger town of Kielce and then to the Treblinka death camp (...)