George Posener loved to go to synagogue on Yom Kippur. He loved ending the annual fast with fellow congregants at his synagogue — so much that he donated money to support buying the food every year for the big feast. In turn the synagogue named the annual meal after him.
Posener — a self-made man who early in life lit street lamps in New Haven, then became a successful insurance agent and donor to local causes — didn’t make it to synagogue or the fast for Yom Kippur last weekend. He passed away the night of Yom Kippur, less than three months before his 100th birthday. Following are excerpts from Rabbi Jon-Jay Tilsen’s eulogy at Posener’s Monday afternoon funeral at Congregation Beth El Keser Israel in Westville.
George G. Posener was born on 25 December 1911 to Israel R. and Annie R. Posener. He was named after his paternal grandfather, Gershon Posener, who was a street match seller in London, England. George’s father was a railroad conductor. They owned a home valued at $16,000 at 226 Union St. in West Haven before the Great Depression, when George was a teenager. George grew up surrounded by the love of his older sister Ida, and younger siblings Gussie (Augusta), Mildred, Morris and Gertrude.
His siblings and their families were always dear to him and very important to him.
During his long life, George held many jobs, including lighting the street lamps in New Haven, delivering dry cleaning, a construction engineer at Yale, and a weapons production specialist in WWII, for which he received a citation. Together with his brother Morris, George built a successful insurance business. His sincere concern for the well-being of others, his warmth and personal kindness were among the qualities that made him not just a great friend, but a great insurance salesman. When one of his clients had a claim, George went to bat for them. The same held for
his friends.
George had a loving relationship with his wife Leah, of blessed memory. He often spoke of her and her family, and he treasured his home as a memorial to her beauty and grace.
During the years that I knew George, he enjoyed a special friendship with Betty Zelen. They met at our synagogue, Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel. Both were attending a Sunday morning service and were saying qaddish for their loved ones.
As it turned out, Betty had the same birthday as Leah. Even more strikingly, it was later discovered that Betty suffered from the same rare blood disease that had claimed Leah Posener. Because George was experienced with dealing with polycythemia, he helped Betty to get the finest medical help available in the world.
George’s support for medical research and training at Yale was not just a matter of the prestige of supporting a world-class institution. It was an expression of a deeply-held and characteristically although not uniquely Jewish value and outlook, a way of being in the world. In short, George reacted to the suffering of this rare blood disease, and the deaths of his boys, by trying to find the cure.
George has long been a supporter of Jewish education for youth, and was among the founders of the Hebrew School Endowment Fund at BEKI in 1983.
Here are George’s own words:
As a youth, I was one of six children residing in a small town with no synagogue and no rabbi. My Hebrew education came from my observant parents. As I recall, a travelling rabbi from the big city would pick up the “pushka” [charity box] every week and leave one for the following week. The only means for his transportation, weather permitting, was by trolley car. I was too young to travel alone to the big city, but as the time came closer to my Bar Mitzva, my parents felt I was now a man and able to travel by myself to Sunday school to be confirmed.
As I became older and moved to the city and attended synagogue, I realized how much I had missed by not attending Hebrew School. I also realized if I could help any Jewish child receive a Jewish education, which I missed, I would share whatever funds I could spare to assist them.
Through the management of the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven, the interest from my endowments will provide now, and in perpetuity, an annual income to Congregation Beth El – Keser Israel for the [Religious] School, enabling all students to acquire a liberal Hebrew education.
Ever since the Hebrew School was established, it has been my great pleasure to give each child from each grade a gift upon promotion and graduation. The “smiles and thank-yous” I received is unforgettable!
I was thrilled to talk to many of the children’s parents who go all out to make sure their children are educated in the Jewish faith, which the School enables.
These children are the future of our Synagogue and I am very proud of them. While I may forget all their names, I am sure they will not forget me.
George was also the first recipient of the Congregation’s Distinguished Service Award in 1995 in recognition of outstanding volunteer service to the Congregation.
George established several funds at the Jewish Foundation of Greater New Haven to benefit Ezra Academy and our congregation. He also supported Camp Ramah.
Everyone in our congregation is familiar with The George G. Posener Family Memorial Yom Kippur Break-Fast, which was established by George G. Posener in 2001 to create a lasting memorial at the time of the yahrzeits of his family members. You see, most of his family members died around the High Holy Days. Proceeds from this endowment provide for an extraordinary community gathering at the end of Yom Kippur, an annual event second only to his birthday in significance to him.
It was of course on that very day, Yom Kippur, that George drew his final breaths, which means that each year his own Yahrzeit will be on Yom Kippur, insuring that the Congregation will remember and memorialize him for generations.
George personally trained Clarence in specific building maintenance procedures, and he was in his late 80s when he was still climbing onto the roof himself for inspection and repairs. The only way we could get him to stop was to threaten him with excommunication.
While George was one of the most generous people you’ll ever meet, he was also among the most frugal. He liked to tell the story of how he got floor wax salesmen to polish the floors and leave samples, a la Tom Sawyer.
George made a point to record every contribution he ever made – he was in the first place an inveterate keeper of financial records of all sorts – but he did so to fulfill a particular dictum:
Rabban Gamliel taught: “Do not make a habit of tithing by estimation” (Avot 1:16).
George knew what researchers have recently demonstrated, which is that most people tend to over-rate or over-estimate their own generosity. George did not estimate: He kept track, down to a $2 donation in 1974. He was generous, and he knew it.
George loved helping children get a good Jewish education, and he loved promoting the mitzva of tzedaqa, of the responsibility to financially support communal institutions.
I had the great pleasure and honor of knowing George over these past 18 years in the context of his life in the congregation, as well as his part in the Ezra community of which I am also a part; I stood on the porch of the bunk at Camp Ramah that he dedicated, and enjoyed several tributes to him at the Yale School of Medicine.
George was always kind and supportive of our work at the synagogue.
George was charming, warm and intelligent, and was always positive in his outlook. He’d say things like, “Today is a gift; that’s why it’s called ‘the present.’” And he ended his conversations with “I love you” or sometimes, “God bless America.”
In these last few years, George enjoyed the admiration and devotion not only of our communities, but of some special individuals in his life. I can’t mention all of his friends, like Bea or Lewis or Yael, as well as a number of medical professionals like Dr. Steve Wolfson, or people like Lisa Stanger at the Jewish Foundation, or the many people in his life that he loved to be with and talk about. And of course Sydney Perry and Shelley Kreiger.
But I must mention the kind, gentle, respectful, loving and competent care, the companionship and friendship that Evelyn Brown provided to George during the last part of his life; she treated him with the greatest dignity to the last moment. There is no one here who can fully appreciate the depth of her patience and kindness, but some of us saw glimpses.
Likewise, the constant and helpful acts of Harold Miller in seeing that necessary arrangements were made to assure that George’s interests and needs were met.
And the loving attention that Dr. Ferdinand & Susie Montegut — George’s next door neighbors — paid on a daily basis to George’s medical and other needs.
I must also mention the special role that Steve Wizner played in providing for George’s needs and looking out for his interests; some of the words I share today are Steve’s. Steve and Harold were the kind of men that George had wanted his sons to be.
In the end, George lived a long and happy life. He gave everything he had to promote the well-being of the children of this community, who were for him his own children.
Burial service will take place at Fitch Street.
This evening (Monday 10 October) there will be a brief memorial to George between the minha & Maariv services, from 5:45p to 6:30p, at Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel, 85 Harrison Street, New Haven (across from Mitchell Library).
