Kadimah Academy Annual Dinner
Honoring Dr. Sol Messinger
Monday, June 11th at 7:30 PM
Acqua
2192 Niagara St. Buffalo, NY
Kadimah Academy, Buffalo’s community Jewish day school for almost 60 years, will commemorate its unbreakable connections to Israel at its Annual Dinner on Monday, June 11, at Acqua Restaurant on the Niagara River. The school’s annual event and major fundraiser brings together parents, alumni, staff, donors, community leaders and other supporters from all segments of Jewish Buffalo for an evening of camraderie and rededication to the future.
This year’s program will honor Dr. Sol Messinger, a prominent and generous benefactor of the Buffalo Jewish community. Dr. Messinger has been a beloved longtime supporter of Kadimah. He has always been one of Kadimah’s most consistent and generous supporters, both financially and vocally, expressing his ardent belief in the importance of day school education for our community’s future.
“A Kadimah education is extremely important in the United States in making children aware of their Jewish heritage and making them aware of the importance of Israel in Jewish lives everywhere in the world,” said Dr. Messinger.
The Annual Dinner will also feature several alumni, who will share their personal connections to Israel, formed and shaped as students at Kadimah. Celebrate Kadimah’s Unshakeable, Unbreakable Unfake-able connection to Israel – join with the Kadimah Academy community and all of Jewish Buffalo at the school’s largest single fundraiser of the year.
Tickets are $125 per person, and tables of eight can be purchased for $1,000. Or join Kadimah’s larger philanthropic efforts as a leading supporter of Jewish education with a larger direct gift to the school that will help ensure a vibrant day school for future generations.
To purchase tickets for this year’s Kadimah Annual Dinner, to make other donations, or for more information, please contact Kadimah Academy Head of School Einav Symons at: 716-836-6903 or visit the website at www.kadimah.org.
– Article provided by The Jewish Journal
Dr. Sol Messinger was born Salo Messinger, the only child to Paula and Zolman “Sam” Messinger on June 16, 1932, in Berlin, Germany. Sol’s parents were Polish immigrants who came to Berlin a few years before the war because of declining economic conditions and the spread of Antisemitism in Poland. Sol’s father worked as a tailor.
Sol recalled that when he was six years old, in 1938, he first became aware of the existence of Antisemitism because of the dramatic changes in his family’s life and surrounding community. On October 28 of that year, Sol’s father, along with thousands of other Polish-born Jews, was arrested and deported to Poland.
A few weeks later, during the Kristallnacht Pogrom, the synagogue that the Messinger family attended was burned down. In 1939, while awaiting a visa to the United States, Sol’s family obtained a visa to Cuba and departed Germany onboard the MS St. Louis. Upon arrival in Havana, Sol’s family and hundreds of other Jewish refugees were told that their visas were invalid and that they would be sent back to Germany.
After requesting entry into other countries on their return journey, Sol remembers one day before they were to land in Hamburg, the passengers were informed that Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands had each agreed to allow a percentage of the refugees to enter their borders. Sol and his parents were sent to Belgium in June 1939, where they settled in Antwerp and later moved to Brussels.
When Germany invaded Belgium in May 1940, Sol and his family fled to France and took refuge in the Spanish-border town of Savignac, which later became part of the territory controlled by the Vichy government. In October, Sol and his family were arrested by the French police and taken to Agde, an internment camp in southern France near Montpellier.
With the assistance of an underground movement, Sol and his mother escaped on December 24, 1940, and returned to their village to await Sol’s father, who arrived several days later. Sol’s father became the village tailor and Sol attended school in a one-room schoolhouse. Two years later, Sol’s family obtained documents to immigrate to the United States and in Lisbon, Portugal boarded a ship that arrived in New York on June 24, 1942.
Shortly after, Sol and his family moved to Buffalo, New York, where Sol finished his secondary education, attended the University of Buffalo, and obtained his medical degree to become a physician. Later, Sol served as a pathologist in the United States Army.
In 1989, Sol participated in the 50th reunion of the passengers onboard the St. Louis and later became involved in Holocaust education by speaking at schools and taking part in documentaries.
– Article provided by the Holocaust Resource Center of Buffalo, NY