[Magdalen] R.I.P. Michael-Yitzhak Kolberg

[Judy Fleener]

what a loss, Jay. I'm sorry.

On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:47 PM, Eleanor Braun <eleanor.braun at gmail.com>
wrote:

> What a fascinating person.  How lucky you are to have had him as a friend.
>
> Prayers of comfort for all who loved Yitzhak.
>
> Eleanor
>
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Jay Weigel <jay.weigel at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > This morning I learned via a Facebook post from his son Yishai  that my
> > dear Israeli friend Yitzhak died this morning. I am still in shock. I
> > hadn't spoken with Yitzhak for a couple of weeks, which wasn't unusual,
> but
> > I was aware that he'd been pretty frail recently, also not an unusual
> > occurrence in the winter. A few moments ago I found on his page some
> posts
> > between Yishai and another mutual friend that explained what happened.
> > Apparently Yitzhak fell a couple of times last week and seemed confused,
> so
> > they took him to the hospital, He was found to have some kind of virus
> > (Yishai didn't say what but I suspect viral pneumonia for reasons which
> may
> > become clear in a moment). He was in ICU and the doctors tried their best
> > but it wasn't enough (Yishai's words). Yitzhak died this morning, Dec.
> 30.
> >
> > Yitzhak was my first online friend. We met in a now-defunct gardening
> chat
> > on a long since gone network and struck up a conversation. On learning he
> > was in Israel, I was immediately fascinated and wanted to know all about
> > gardening there as well as many other things.We became fast friends,
> > nothing more than that, and conversations ranged far and wide. I
> considered
> > him sort of another brother, and he became friendly with my late ex also
> He
> > was an honorary godfather to our Isaak, having the same name, and sent
> him
> > a small baby gift which his mama still treasures, a "hamsa" crib charm
> that
> > is hung over a baby's crib or cradle in Yemenite Jewish homes and bears
> > five wishes for the child, which IIRC are health, wealth, happiness, a
> good
> > marriage, and long life. In 2003 he came to see us when he visited the US
> > and we all enjoyed his company. He was amazed at how green everything is
> in
> > Tennessee, and I told him, "You may live in the Promised Land, but this
> is
> > God's country and don't you forget it!"
> >
> > He was a fascinating person. Born in Shanghai to Russian Jewish parents
> > (his mother's family had a business there since 1905; his dad escaped the
> > Russian revolution as a very young teenager by going east), he lived
> there
> > until the family picked up stakes and moved the business to Japan in
> 1951.
> > He was educated in Canadian schools there because his parents wanted him
> to
> > speak English. He left Japan at the age of 19 because the government
> threw
> > him out, basically, on account of his association with anti-Vietnam War
> > activities. As a stateless person, he didn't have a lot of options, but
> > being Jewish, one of those was Israel, so that's where he went. "A funny
> >  way to make aliyah," he said. He could read in four languages with 4
> > different alphabets (English, Hebrew, Russian, and Japanese) and speak
> > fluently in the first three but had forgotten a lot of his Japanese. He
> > loved his adopted country but detested Netanyahu; he was an old-line
> > socialist and revered Ben-Gurion, Golda, and even Yitzhak Rabin and
> > predicted that that country would "go to hell" after Rabin's
> assassination
> > (as it seems to be doing). He had no use for their religious right. He
> was
> > a strong believer in the kibbutz movement and had lived on a kibbutz
> since
> > his aliyah.. He loved dogs and always had at least one, besides which
> every
> > dog in Kibbutz Lahav who needed affection and attention came to him. He
> > read voraciously, mostly history and science fiction, was fascinated by
> the
> > American Civil War, and knew more about the Second Temple period than
> > anyone I ever met. He loved his three sons and his two granddaughters and
> > other people's small children, and in his later years after he and his
> > sons' mother were divorced (but discovered they could be quite good
> > friends) he became a foster grandfather in a home for troubled teenagers.
> >
> > I'm going to miss him. A lot.
> >
>



-- 
Judy Fleener, ObJN,SSH
Western Michigan