Community Spotlight: Meet (Virtually) Sarah Spero

Moving presents challenges at any age, but moving later in life – which includes reinventing oneself in a new community – is the hardest. Still, many older people are moving these days to be closer to their children. Among them is Sarah (Moses) Spero, one of our newest community members. Sarah and her husband, Dr. Abba Spero, moved to Baltimore four years ago after living in Cleveland for many decades. This is not the first time that this wife, mother, simcha creator, writer, and ultimate people-person, has reinvented herself. And Sarah – with her customary wit and charm – enthusiastically shared her story with me.  

*  *  *

“My father was a rabbi, and we were preacher’s kids. Name a city, and we lived in it!” begins Sarah, whose Holocaust-survivor parents were both the sole survivors of their immediate families. She was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia and her sisters were born in Bangor, Maine, and Los Angeles. From a very early age Sarah went to every fledgling day school along the way; in between, she went to public school.

“This was before prayer was banned from public school,” shares Sarah, “and I am the only person I know who can recite the Lord’s Prayer. I was not the only Jewish child in class, but I was the only one who was excused from saying it on her knees.”

From the age of 13, Sarah went to Yavne High School/Hebrew Academy in Cleveland though her parents lived in Pittsburgh at the time. After high school, she attended Yavne Seminary, where, aside from her studies, she met her future husband. “Abby was pursuing a Ph.D. at NYU at the time, and we waited until he finished his coursework to get married,” says Sarah. “He got a job in Cleveland right away teaching accounting at his alma mater, Case Western Reserve University.”

An Event-Full Life

The Speros raised their children in Cleveland and were active members of the community. Sarah also worked for many years as an event planner, helping clients with simchas like weddings and bar mitzvas, as well as organizational dinners, conferences, and conventions.

“I actually started as a calligrapher,” reveals Sarah, who also provided invitations as part of her event services. “It was about 30 years ago, at the cusp of the computer graphics and desktop publishing revolution. I was running to one place to fax and another to typeset, and my little European Rebbetzin mother, who encouraged me in my new mid-life career, said in Yiddish, ‘If you don’t learn how to typeset and you don’t learn how to fax, you are not going to have a business.’ But I didn’t even know how to turn on a computer.” That was the impetus for Sarah to attend community college where she took courses in computer graphics and desktop publishing.

The road from invitations to event planning was natural. I asked what event planning entails. “Someone once asked me what I do,” she explains, “and I answered, ‘I hold your hand from the minute you hire me until you kiss me goodnight at the end of the simcha. I treated my clients the way I would want to be treated if it were my simcha – and they were all my “own” simchas.

Sarah was careful to work within individual budgets and preferences. “Event planners have to keep in mind that the event is not theirs, but their client’s,” she continued. “These were their decisions, not mine. It was my responsibility to help them make the best decisions they could.” She prided herself on making sure that the events started and ended on time, and that the tone of the event was maintained. “When you are celebrating a simcha your heart is full, and it is often difficult to keep a proper perspective. Sometimes that means reminding the chassan and kallah that their guests are waiting, and sometimes it means removing an item from the menu that the guests will not have time to eat.” Often, she would help clients choose a venue as well as caterer, florist, photographer, and musicians. “It is very important to work with the client,” notes Sarah. “Experience teaches you that what works for one client and one set of circumstances does not necessarily work for another.”

To Russia with Love

As Sarah and I spoke, more of her exciting life experiences were revealed – like going to Communist Russia 31 years ago, under KGB surveillance.

“One night, Abby came home from shul and said they were looking for women to go to Russia,” reminisces Sarah. The Speros davened in the Hebrew Academy branch of the Young Israel of Cleveland, whose rabbinic presence was Rabbi Doniel Neustadt. His parents, Rabbi Mordechai and Alice Neustadt, had started the organization Vaad L’Hatzolas Nidchei Yisroel in conjunction with the national Agudath Israel to help Jews behind the Iron Curtain.

“When I called Mrs. Neustadt to inquire about it, she said, ‘I’m just warning you that if you go, you have to be prepared to lose a few pounds.’ I offered to stay for a month! How much better does it get?” With Abby’s encouragement, Sarah signed up for the 10-day program, traveling with Mrs. Leah (Ausband) Bursztyn. They were there for Parshos Bo and Beshalach, together with Rabbi Moshe Eisemann, Rabbi Paysach Diskind, and Rabbi Naftoli Zucker, who later went on to start his own organization.

“We went just when the Berlin Wall came down, and we did something that had not been done before,” says Sarah. “Instead of traveling from place to place, people came from all over the former Soviet Union to a seminar, which was held in Jurmala, just outside of Riga, in Latvia. The seminar was held in a closed tavern/bar, and we slept about a mile away. We were very fortunate that the winter weather was beautiful at this seaside resort on the Baltic Sea.”

Sarah and her companion knew that the KGB had infiltrated the group. “When Leah and I walked the room where we were staying, I saw a little receiver up in the corner; I just pointed to it. We knew it was a listening device, and we weren’t even sure it was connected, but I wasn’t afraid of that. Sometimes you do things because you really don’t know any better – and thank G-d you don’t know any better! Otherwise, would you really have done some of those things?”

They smuggled in mezuzas as if they were money, completely unwrapped and in their wallets. They also carried tefilin. “I figured that if they asked me what I needed them for, I would say, ‘I need one for Monday, I need one for Tuesday, I need one for Wednesday…,’” says Sarah.

The women brought their own food, which quickly disappeared as soon as they arrived, given to those in charge of the kitchen. They were only allowed two suitcases, and one-and-a-half was filled with food.

“We also brought contraband. I bribed my way through the trip with cigarettes, nail polish, and lipsticks – you can’t imagine how far a lipstick went – stockings, and mascara,” remarks Sarah. “That’s how we got places. If we wanted to go somewhere we would go to a crosswalk, where we stuck our hands out with a pack of cigarettes, and the taxi stopped.”

Sarah is grateful for having had this life-changing experience. “We went to teach, but I learned more than I taught,” she says. “I was so moved and inspired by the commitment of these Russian Jews to Yiddishkeit and to the truth. I saw it in its most beautiful and innocent form – in the hearts and minds of the people I met there, who wanted nothing more than to serve the Creator. You have to respect what these people were, what they wanted. I am still in touch with some of them. I consider them true unsung heroes in every sense of the word.”

Baltimore Bound

So what brought the Speros to Baltimore? Since none of their children live in the Cleveland area, and there was very little likelihood of their moving back, Sarah and Abby moved to Baltimore. Sarah remarks, “What’s the expression? You’re supposed to ‘move before you have to.’ So, we did. We didn’t move because we wanted to. We didn’t move because we had to. We moved because it was the right thing to do. My four sons – who live here in Baltimore – married the most incredible young women, and my daughter is married to an amazing young man. Four out of five are married to Baltimoreans.

The Speros’ son Chaim is married to Rebecca Reches, daughter of Susan (and Mark, z”l) and Avrahom Landesman; their son Yechiel is married to Chumi Lefkovitz, daughter of Rabbi Yehuda and Nusy Lefkovitz; their son Moshe is married to Gila Prero, daughter of Aaron, z”l, and Susan Prero; their daughter Chavi, who lives in Lakewood, is married to Shabsi and Sima Schneider’s son, Chesky; and, their son Yehuda is married to Tova Kranz, daughter of Alex and Evette Kranz from Monsey.

“It is so wonderful to be able to celebrate all the beautiful family celebrations,” reflects Sarah, “without driving back and forth across the Pennsylvania Turnpike!”

Her Latest Career

Mishpacha readers may recognize Sarah’s name from the pages of Family First. I wondered if this, too, was a midlife career reinvention.

“I always wrote – sometimes it was a letter or an essay in our local Cleveland Jewish News –and if someone needed something, I would ghostwrite it,” Sarah clarifies, “but my writing never went anywhere. When we moved here, I read an article in Mishpacha about moving, and I sent a letter to the editor about it. Family First editor Bassi Gruen contacted me and said, ‘We like the letter so much, would you please consider expanding on it and write an article?’ I did that and they liked it. No one was more surprised than me!”

In closing, I asked Sarah how she was coping during Covid-19. True to her ever-upbeat, appreciative personality, she responds, “I’m very grateful. I think there are many things that we choose and some things that are chosen for us. We don’t always have a choice on what happens; we certainly have a choice on our reaction.”