My mother, Mrs. Paula Eisemann, a”h, passed away yesterday, Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Lakewood, New Jersey, where she was in a rehab unit recovering from a fall at the end of December. Today is the first day of shiva, and I would like to share some thoughts about my mother’s life. Each person is unique, and I want to share the uniqueness of my mother.
My mother was born in 1932, in Germany, where her father was a rabbi in Berlin. The family escaped from Germany after Kristallnacht, right before the war started. They first went to Switzerland but eventually settled in England, in a small town near London called Dorking. Her mother supported the family by running a boarding house in that small town. My mother’s marriage to my father came about through that boarding house. My father’s family used to frequent the boarding house for vacations, and one of my father’s sisters thought that my mother would be a good match for her brother.
My father was studying Torah in Lakewood under Reb Aaron Kotler, zt”l, so after they got married, my mother came to Lakewood with my father. The kollel lifestyle was not a familiar one to my mother, but she followed my father to America to live a learning lifestyle, even though he told her that they may not always have enough food to eat because he would not be earning money. It was also a big adjustment to leave her parents.
My mother was a very giving person. She was driven by an insatiable desire to always be giving to other people and, by extension, to all living creatures. My mother was even careful to carry bugs that found their way into the house outside, rather than just killing them. There is an old family story which has turned into a legend about my mother’s rachmanus to a raccoon. Once, she was sleeping and heard a rhythmic banging coming from the garbage dump outside her window. She realized that there was a raccoon stuck in the dumpster. In the morning, the garbage men were going to come, and the raccoon would be crushed, so she got out of bed, grabbed a broomstick, and opened the top of the dumpster so that the raccoon could escape!
She took great pride in preparing delicious food for her family and guests. Many people remember the delectable fruit platters she arranged for breakfast for my father and everyone else who came over. One year, my daughter taught at Bais Yaakov together with my sister. I was busy with a large family and did not always prepare lunches for my daughter. Instead, my mother sent beautifully prepared sandwiches and cut-up fruits and vegetables to my daughter every day. Her giving nature extended to her grandchildren in a very practical way.
Not only did she give to her own immediate family, her family expanded to include many other people. Over the years, my parents brought up in their home a number of children who were not born to them.
My mother was a kindergarten teacher in Bais Yaakov for many years. One year, she had a student who had recently come from Russia with her mother. The mother had a job as a night nurse and needed someone to watch her daughter. Of course, my mother volunteered, and that five-year-old eventually became part of our family. Some of my readers may know her. Her name is now Naomi Bhatia, and she and her family live in Lakewood.
When teenagers were escaping from Iran, Fareeba Shoub, lived with my parents for a number of years, and they walked her down to the chupa when she got married before her parents were able to come from Iran.
There were many others as well.
In the 80s, my father became very involved with Russian Jewry and was in charge of a school in Kishinev. I once asked my father how he could have brought so many children to the United States and taken responsibility for them. My father answered me only half in jest by saying, “I was a fool.” He meant that if he had have really thought about it and understood how huge an undertaking it was, he might not have done it. He did it because of his love and desire to teach Russian children about Judaism, and he did not dwell on what the future would bring. My mother went along with all this “foolishness” and helped him, even though I am sure she worried about the details. She was a very practical person, but she supported my father despite her worry.
My mother was involved in the care of the children who came to America. A few children actually lived with my parents. Some of the girls told me how nurturing and caring my mother was to them. One girl, Aliza Levin, now living in Lakewood, explained. “When I first came to Baltimore, I did not live with your parents, but your mother still took care of me. I was very homesick, and I often didn’t feel well. I remember your mother taking me to her house and giving me TLC. I remember her standing by the stove cooking me oatmeal and asking me if I know the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
Yehudis, another girl who lived at my parents’ house for three years when my mother was in her 70s, marveled at the ultimate of surrogacy parenthood: “Your mother actually went to my PTA meetings,” she said. My mother left some diaries, and I read in one of them her description of going to the library with some of her surrogate children to help them choose books for their book reports.”
My father wrote books to raise money for the school he was running in Kishenev. The books brought in a lot of money but counting up the checks and depositing them involved a lot of work. In my mother’s diaries, she writes, for example, “Today we got 250 envelopes. All those checks had to be opened, recorded, and deposited.”
My father traveled to Russia for kiruv purposes during the Communist era. In those days, there were no cell phones, and my father often traveled to dangerous places. My mother let him go and lived with the stress of worrying about him and where he was. My father used to bring things to Russia for the refuseniks to sell, and my mother and he would spend many hours planning, shopping, and packing for his trips.
My parents had guests for Shabbos and Yom Tov all the time. My mother’s mindset was always, “Who needs us? Who will it make happy to get a Shabbos invitation? If it will make them happy, I will invite them.” If they ever had a Shabbos without guests, she would worry that she was missing out on helping someone. I remember that, one year, for some reason, there were no guests for the seder. My parents felt so bad that they actually went to a near-by university and put up a sign inviting students to their seder. I think they ended up with three students. Many, many people became bnei bayis at my parents’ home after becoming regular guests at different times of the year.
My mother also spent a lot of time visiting elderly people and shut-ins. She became very close to the people whom she visited. Many years ago, she, along with others in the community, befriended an elderly childless Russian couple, Mr. and Mrs. Fishman, who had come to live in Baltimore. When the husband died, my mother called me and asked me to name my soon-to-be-born child after him. That is how my son Shlomie got his name. My niece in Israel is named Malkie, after Mrs. Fishman. When Mrs. Fishman was sick in the hospital, my mother, together with other woman in the community, made a rotation so that she would never be alone.
After she retired from teaching, my mother continued to visit people regularly. She would take a book along and read to them, in case there would be difficulty in making conversation. Ironically, in her old age, when she suffered from a speech difficulty, one of her greatest pleasures was having people read to her.
My mother devoted her life to others. She took great pleasure in working hard to help everyone she came into contact with in a warm, caring fashion. Her greatest desire was to fill her life with purpose and do good for others. She will be very much missed by her husband, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and community.
