Ellen Mendel, The Matriarch of Habonim!
Ellen Mendel is our First Humans of Habonim feature!
She was nominated by her friend Renée Edelman. Renée shared Ellen’s story and we feel that her words capture Ellen’s story perfectly so we will leave you with a few pieces of wisdom from our interview with Ellen.
On my journey of life what I have learned is that if you stay open it’s never too late and that you have to stay open to life. I have a list of things I’ve done and you too have a whole list of things to do.
Be involved in your community, stay positive, be curious, be open, and stay connected. Say yes to the things you want to do and no to the things you don’t.
And most of all, she hopes to see everyone at her 90th Birthday Party this September at Habonim!!
Ellen Mendel is the Matriarch of Congregation Habonim. She has been a member of Congregation Habonim since childhood, attended Hebrew School, and was confirmed when she was 13 by the founding clergy, Rabbi Hugo Hahn and Cantor Erwin Hirsch. She was one of the first women at Congregation Habonim to receive an Aliyah and read from the Torah. She had a Bat Mitzvah when she was 80.
Ellen was born in Essen, Germany on September 22, 1935. Ellen, her father, Ernest, a doctor, and mother, Jella, all escaped Europe 15 months after Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938. They had to wait for their American quota number. She said goodbye to her grandparents and some of her mother's closest family in Amsterdam, Holland before boarding a steamship in Rotterdam for the U.S. The journey across the Atlantic Ocean, which was mined, took 12 days. Ellen and her parents arrived in the U.S. on February 4, 1940--just four months before the Germans launched a surprise invasion of Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. A short while later her grandparents and some of her mother's closest family members were sent to their deaths.
Ellen took on her father's love of Judaism. She loves to sing and dance, laugh, and socialize with synagogue members. She served on Congregation Habonim's board of trustees and many committees. She is a "regular" at Shabbat services.
Ellen is glad that she has been able to speak to students from all over the world, including at Congregation Habonim, as a survivor of Nazi Germany. She has received 200 letters from these young people. Ellen is finishing a book about her life. Her goal has always been to make the world a better place than the one she found.
Ellen is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City and loves working with her clients. She is proud of serving as president of the Alfred Adler Institute of New York.
