Features
The Dark Side of Albert: Einstein and Mileva Marić, his First Wife
By DAVID TOPPER Albert Einstein was the most photographed scientist of the 20th century. The scope of emotions depicted range from the serious to the silly: from looking like a secular saint with hands folded and deep in contemplation of supposedly solemn thoughts, to the image hanging in front of me on the bulletin board over my computer table, showing him sticking out his tongue at the cameraman. Living during the heyday of the development of the film camera, he and the press surely took advantage of it. The positive persona of the genius was formed out of these visual images. This visual disposition was supplemented with endless quotations on not only science and the universe, but also with homilies on life and how to live it, with much of that which you will find quoted, being things he never said. Overall, the general image of him and his personality has him coming out seemingly squeaky-clean.
Nonetheless, those of us who have looked into the man in more detail are aware of episodes of less than saintly behavior by Albert – the famous scientific idol. If, for example, you read any of the half-dozen or so lengthy biographies about him, you will find scattered therein stories of him speaking inappropriately or behaving, one might say, as a jerk. Having read all those books, and others – and even written three books on him myself – I knew this. So when I started reading a recent long biography of his first wife, Mileva Marić, I had no reason to think I’d be shocked, since I had already read a lot about her, including a book of letters to and from her best friend, which also contained a brief biography. But to my surprise, I was staggered in reading over 400 pages of his nasty behavior concentrated around this one woman – a woman whom he fell in love with as a university student, and who was the only mother of his children.
Here is the sad – and probably surprising to most readers – story of Mileva and Albert.
Mileva Marić was born on December 19, 1875, into a Christian Orthodox Serbian family. With a dislocated left hip, she walked with a limp throughout her life. (Her sister, Zorka, had the same congenital condition.) Forced to wear an orthopedic shoe, she was teased and mocked in school. Nonetheless, this very bright girl filled her lonely childhood with her studies (she was especially good at math) and piano lessons. Encouraged by a very loving father, she excelled in school, and was the first girl to attend high school physics courses in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After graduating in 1896, she applied to the prestigious Zurich Polytechnic, since in Switzerland women were admitted to all classes. She passed the entrance exam and majored in mathematics. It was a small freshman class of about two-dozen students, she being the only woman. That’s where she met, in the even smaller physics course, fellow student, Albert Einstein.
One of the earliest pictures we have of Mileva is dated 1897. In this portrait, I see a very serious, confident, determined woman with large penetrating eyes, a full crop of dark wavy hair and full lips. I would call her plain but attractive. I say this, because I was shocked at several instances when someone, upon first meeting Mileva, is quoted as describing her as “ugly.”
As a fellow student, Albert Einstein was attracted to her, and they quickly became a couple. He probably was the first male to take a romantic interest in her, overlooking her “handicap.” I suspect he was attracted to her gutsy attitude and her smartness. Plus, being Serbian, Mileva exuded an exotic “otherness” to the “German” in Albert. They spent most of their free time together, studying and falling in love. She did well in her courses, initially passing all of them, as Albert did too (of course). That is, until she was pregnant – a fact she tried to hide until she could not. And so she went home to her parents to inform them of this, and eventfully to have the baby.
Her parents were very supportive, which was unusual for the times. A girl was born early in 1902; they named her Lieserl (probably a Yiddish diminutive of Liese, a shortened Elizabeth). Albert stayed in Zurich and never saw his daughter; she was raised by Mileva’s parents, as Mileva returned to Zurich to continue her studies. No one knows what ultimately happened to Lieserl; she has seemingly vanished from all records. She may have died from Scarlet Fever as a child; or, she may have been adopted and grew up. One thing I do know: Mileva never forgot her. I believe that the loss of Lieserl is the major reason for Mileva’s depression and lingering melancholia throughout her life – as will be seen. As a result, she didn’t take care of her grooming and was a bit overweight – as seen in photos of her later in life. This, I suspect, may be a source of her “ugliness.”
Back to Zurich in the late 1890s and her studies: she passed all her courses over the first three years, and in her fourth year she started her thesis, hoping for a diploma and further work toward a PhD. But in 1900 she failed her final exams, while the other male students all passed. In July 1901 she repeated her final exams and flunked them again. I find it hard to believe that this sudden change in her performance was due to the tests being too tough for this woman, in light of all we know of her up to this time. Look at the last date above: she was pregnant with her child. I’m convinced that she just couldn’t concentrate on her studies. Albert passed, graduated, and started looking for a job – as well as working toward his PhD.
On January 6, 1903, they were married in a small civil ceremony. Mileva became a housewife; no more thinking of going any further in her studies. She then became the mother of two boys: Hans Albert (born in 1904) and Eduard (nicknamed Tete; in 1910).
All that promise came to nothing, not even a university degree. If she had not met Albert, who knows what she would have achieved? But that was not the path taken, and since she married what became the most famous scientist of the 20th century – if not the most famous person, as Time Magazine said at the end of the millennium – that’s why there is a plethora of documentation about her life, terribly sad as it was.
Now briefly fast forward a century or so, to around 1987, and the publication of the early love letters between Albert and Mileva, which had only been known by a few, and purposely suppressed. For example, Hans Albert, who had the letters much earlier, had wanted to publish them. But he was thwarted by Helen Dukas and Otto Nathan, who threatened litigation. Dukas was Albert’s lifelong secretary and Nathan was an economist and close friend, who eventually was the executor of Einstein’s will. And so, the letters never surfaced until Dukas and Nathan were both dead.
Even today, writing about these letters is an ideological minefield. Here’s why. The letters date from 1899 to 1903, when a new theory of physics was brewing in Albert’s mind. The result, in the so-called miracle year of 1905, was the publication of five papers that changed physics forever: two on what became his Theory of Relativity; one on a particle theory (much later called a photon) of light, as part of the emerging Quantum Theory; and two supporting the reality of atoms, which were still only hypothetical entities at this time. Knowing this, how much can we read into the love letters when Albert, in talking about his scientific ideas, uses “we” and “our work”? Well, it seems, a lot; for the initial response from primarily feminist quarters was that Mileva should at least be seen as a co-author of the famous papers, since it seemed that they conceived of the theory together. Given, as we will see, Albert’s shabby treatment of her later in life, then all the more sympathy was directed toward Mileva and her plight by history. Indeed, some went so far (you will still find websites saying this) that Albert stole the theory of relativity from Mileva. Nonetheless, after that initial flurry of debate, the consensus has moved away from this viewpoint, so that today the select scholars looking over the Einstein Papers Project in Pasadena, California assert unabashedly that Mileva made no input to Albert’s theory.
Nonetheless, I am one of the few “Einstein scholars” (if I may call myself such), who gives Mileva some credit in the 1905 marvel. She was good at mathematics, she had patience in her life and work, and she was a thorough researcher – all qualities severely lacking in Albert. Let me put it this way: over his life as a physicist, Einstein hired a series of companions (whom he called “calculators”) to do the tedious and complicated mathematics required for his theory, especially as it developed over the later years with the use of tensor calculus in his General Theory of Relativity. All were men; except, famously, his last calculator was the Israeli-American woman, Buria Kaufmann – about whom you will read in the literature as his “first female calculator.” (Incidentally, there is a website giving her credit for Einstein’s later theory, which is complete fiction.) I, however, would assert that Buria was the second woman; for Mileva was Albert’s first “calculator.” She was also his researcher and proofreader. Since she knew the physics, as we know from the letters, she also was his sounding-board – Albert bouncing ideas off of Mileva, as they say.
So, what about Albert speaking of “we” and “our work”? Let me put this into context by quoting from some of the letters in chronological order. In a letter Mileva wrote to Helene Savić (née Kaufler), her closest and longest friend throughout her life (they roomed together in a boarding house in Zurich when they were students), she speaks of a paper “written” by Albert that will be published soon that is “very significant.” She then says that “we” sent it to an important physicist – revealing how much she was involved with Albert’s work. Later in a letter from Albert to Mileva, let me quote from the opening lines to give you a trace of their intimacy: “Thank you very much for your little letter and all the true love that’s in it. I kiss and hug you for it from all my heart, exactly the way you would want it & are entitled to, love.” He then goes into a discussion of other people, followed by his going back to how much they love each other, and ending with this key sentence. “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion.” I put in italics the famous (or is it infamous?) phrase: our work. But there’s nothing more on this, although a bit later in the letter he goes on to talk about another physics problem he is working on: specific heats. He discusses the physics problem in detail, with equations and his proposed solution, and he ends the topic with this: “Don’t forget to look up to what extent glass obeys the law of Dulong and Petit.” My guess is that it was this sort of task that was part of their work together. The letter ends where it began. “Tender greetings and kisses, my dear little dumpling, from your … Albert.”
I’ll leave the topic there, nonetheless aware of the possibility that Mileva did help Albert in even more significant ways, and that hence she’s been slighted by history.
Back to Zurich in 1903. Initially, their life together was harmonious, a reflection of the camaraderie in the love letters, as she kept house and raised her boys. But by around 1909, when Albert was being seen as an important physicist, there clearly was a severe strain on the marriage. For example, in a letter that year to Helene, she says that Albert “lives only for his work” and the family is “unimportant to him.” By 1914, when they moved to Berlin for Albert’s prestigious position at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics, their marriage entered a new phase. In fact, Albert had been having relations with a divorced cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who lived in Berlin. Moreover, Albert made it clear to Mileva that their previous relationship was over. He went so far as to give her a list of demands: that she do the laundry, prepare him three meals a day, and keep his office clean – all without any personal relations. No intimacy in the house, and no being together in public. It was degradingly cruel: Mileva’s role was reduced to being a maid and cook. She tried to accept it, but quickly found that she couldn’t endure the humiliation; and so she took her two boys back to Zurich, where she remained for the rest of her life.
They officially divorced in 1919, and Albert immediately married Elsa – all in the same year that he became the world-famous scientist, because of the solar eclipse experiment that proved that light from a star is bent around the sun, as predicted by his theory. He got the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1921 and transferred the money to a bank in Zurich for the support of their boys, where Mileva had access to the interest in the account.
What happened after all that infatuation seen in the love letters and in their early life together? In retrospect, Mileva surely realized that she had ignored or overlooked what we might call the dark side of Albert. As a student he was overly sarcastic, often mocking and even degrading people whom he saw as inadequate or not too smart. He even teased her in ways that revealed an underlying hostility. When she pointed this out, he would laugh it off – and she’d forgive him. In a letter to Helena in 1900 she writes of Albert’s “wicked words with deeds! What an insolent boy he is, and yet I love him so much!” Telling words. Even after the acrimonious divorce, she still, as will be seen, was under Albert’s spell. I believe that she never got over that initial infatuation when they were students. It became a pattern: she was always trying to get on his good side.
Overall, Albert was very much a 19th century male chauvinist in his attitude and communications with women. Here are some of his words about women that reveal his overt misogyny: they are “passive, insecure, needy, and wanting to be dominated.” I knew that he liked to flirt with women throughout his life. But seeing him do so with other wives, with Mileva present, made it less frivolous and more malicious. In short, he was a cad and a rake, rolled into one.
The turnaround in their relationship seemed to bring out the worst in him. He was petty and vindictive, and especially very cruel towards her. There is no direct evidence of any real physical abuse. However, there was an incident in the spring of 1913 when a friend reported seeing Mileva with a badly swollen face, which was attributed to a “toothache” – and hence she and Albert missed some social events. Possibly the swollen face was a sign of something more malevolent, but we will never know the truth. Nonetheless, pondering this, I wish to quote something Albert wrote in a letter in 1925: “Not only children need a bit of thrashing, but also grownups and especially women.” And I’ll leave it there.
After the divorce, he accused her of poisoning his relationship with the boys – a common trope between divorcing couples. But it got more vicious as her financial situation became grave, and she asked for more money. She made some extra money tutoring students in math and giving piano lessons. But it wasn’t enough. Albert’s letters to her contain nasty personal attacks: saying she is “abnormal,” a “nonentity,” and that her pleading is “rubbish.” I can only imagine how Mileva felt being called this. At the time, she was in severe physical pain with chronic back problems, often forcing her into bed for long periods, even stays in hospital, when she was trying to raise two boys alone. Moreover, all this was exacerbated by problems in her Serbian family. Her sister Zorka was diagnosed as schizophrenic and was in and out of asylums; her only living brother disappeared into Russia after World War I; and her parents had serious financial problems.
Could it get any worse? It could. And it did. Tete became a handful. He was very bright and creative; he had musical talent on the piano, and he wrote promising poems and stories. But he was also prone to falling into depressive episodes, for apparently no reason – anger fits, throwing things, being out of control. I suppose Mileva saw this coming: Tete, like her sister, eventually was diagnosed as schizophrenic.
Albert, of course, knew all this, but being in Berlin, he didn’t have to deal with it. He did make occasional visits and took summer trips with the boys (giving Mileva short breaks), all while he was still living in Europe. But when he moved to Princeton, N.J., in 1933, with Hitler in power in Germany and Einstein’s name being high on a hit list, their meetings were over; until 1938, when Hans Albert (now with a wife and two children) moved to the USA. The last meeting between Albert and Tete is recorded in a 1933 photograph that bears a close look. Both are seated in a room, with Tete looking over a large, open portfolio – perhaps reading it. Albert is facing in a different direction (about 90-degrees away), holding a violin and bow, and staring off into space. It may be that Tete is reading to him, but more likely they are inhabiting two different worlds.
In the years during World War II, living in Zurich, Switzerland (a country surrounded by a Nazi-occupied Europe), Mileva was terrified that the Nazis would swoop up this last free space. Moreover, she knew that they were rounding up Jews by the trainloads and moving them to Concentration Camps. She was somewhat safe as an Orthodox Christian, but Tete was “Jewish,” being a child of Einstein. She wrote pleading letters to Albert, asking him to take Tete to the USA. She even contacted the Red Cross, and they agreed that the best bet was to get Albert to sponsor him. “Bring us to safety,” she wrote. But being Mileva – ever still the dutiful wife, even though they had been divorced for two decades – she added (and I assert that she was not being sarcastic in saying this), “[I am] not intending to disturb your peace and freedom.” Petrified that “Tete is in danger because he is your son,” she concluded: “you can’t just leave him in the lurch.”
In fact, Einstein, Dukas, and Nathan were diligently rescuing Jews from Europe by using Einstein’s name to get emigration papers and such. Albert once spoke of this, saying that they were running a little refugee office over his cluttered “lawyer’s desk.” And they did save lives. Relevant here is a 1939 letter from Albert to Helena on this very topic. Helena’s father was Jewish, and she had numerous relatives whose lives were in peril, and so apparently, she was asking Albert for help. He wrote in response. “How gladly would I help! But I am desperately trying to at least get younger people out. Relocation of old people must under present horrible conditions be set aside.” In the end, we know of two aunts of Helena who died in gas chambers. Interestingly, in this same letter, Albert mentions that Hans is now in America, but that Tete is with Mileva in Zurich, saying that Tete is “incurably mentally ill.”
So, what about Tete? And Mileva’s pleading letters? As far as we know, these pleading requests were never answered. Albert, it seems, did leave his son “in the lurch.” My guess is that he just couldn’t fathom the chaos in his life of dealing with someone with such a severe mental illness. Listen to what he later wrote to Hans about Tete after learning of Mileva’s death. “If I had been fully informed [apparently referring here to what he saw as a genetic mental illness in Mileva’s family], he [Tete] would never have come into the world.” I can only imagine how Hans must have felt after reading these appalling words from his father about his beloved brother. Sometimes Albert’s behavior is plainly pathetic. Fortunately, the Nazis never invaded Switzerland.
Much of Mileva’s adult life was centred on Tete, as she watched him descend into the depths of mental illness. Overweight and chain-smoking, he was in and out of mental institutions. For Mileva, he was a full-time job. She, being the caring mother, was obsessed with making sure he would be safe after she died. And she succeeded; for seven years after his mother died, he lived in the renowned Burghölzli psychiatric clinic in Zurich. He was 55 when he died.
I believe Mileva never got over two things: the loss of Lieserl and her infatuation with Albert. We don’t know what happened to Lieserl; but Mileva surely did, and it haunted her all of her life; as seen, she flunked her final chance for a university degree because of it. Lieserl was a source of her constant despondent behaviour and possibly her so-called “ugliness.” In a letter to Helena in 1925 she wrote of “my unfulfilled desire for a daughter”– another telling phrase, since she had a daughter, but was forced to abandon her.
Regarding Albert, no matter how abusive he was, Mileva still was open to forgiveness. She once asked herself this question: “When has a man ever listened to reason, when a woman is involved?” She should have listened to her own words.
Mileva Marić died on August 4, 1948, at the age of 72.
This story of Albert falling in and out of love with Mileva was not the first such episode in his life. It was previewed by and even overlapped with his first sweetheart: Marie Winteler.
In 1895 he spent a year enrolled in the cantonal school in the town of Aarau, near Zurich. He had taken the rigorous entrance exams for the Polytechnic (which Mileva later passed) and had flunked the non-science and non-math parts. But since he did so well on the science and math parts, it was recommended that he do a year of make-up in Aarau; plus, he was applying at age 16, a year early. He boarded with the family of Jost Winteler, a teacher at the school. Jost and Pauline had three daughters, the prettiest being Marie, two years older than Albert. Albert quickly fell for her, and she for him. She was an accomplished pianist, and so their love interests were supplemented with piano and violin duets. After that year, and after passing the entrance requirement at the Polytechnic, Albert moved to Zurich – where he met Mileva, and then broke off with Marie. In short, he jilted her, as he would later do with Mileva.
Marie, however, thought the relationship was to be forever, and wrote pleading letters when he stopped writing to her. After all, he was still mailing her his dirty laundry to wash and send back. (I am not making this up.) Being deeply hurt, she fell into a depression that (may have) plagued her throughout her life. She became a schoolteacher (whose records show that she missed a lot of classes due to sickness); in 1911 she married a man whose first name was Albert. They had two boys, but divorced in 1927. We also know that she tried to reach the first Albert in the 1940s about emigrating to the USA, but there is no record of his having received her letters. (Albert’s secretary was known to censor his mail.) She died in a mental institution in 1957, two years after Einstein died.
I mention this for two reasons. One, the obvious – this being a preview to the story of Albert’s shabby treatment of Mileva and the parallel terrible consequences. The other reason is the dirty laundry. This, also obviously, needs to be explained.
In 2019 I published an historical novel on Einstein’s life, called A Solitary Smile. In it, Marie is one of the characters, especially near the end and in a dream sequence that has Einstein recalling their time together, where he realizes how he hurt her. In recalling this part of my book, while writing this story of Mileva, and now Marie again – I suddenly realized that I didn’t include the dirty laundry bit. Why? I knew it then, as I do now. So why not mention it? Ruminating on this, I can only surmise that I was subconsciously protecting Albert from more scorn. Why dig up all the dirt (seemingly, literally in this case). How interesting this is. Me, being part of the problem. Protecting Albert’s image.
Well, I caught myself. And here I acknowledge my error – to supplement my saga on the dark side of Albert Einstein.
* * *
Readings: Mileva Marić Einstein: Life with Albert Einstein, by Radmila Milentijević (United World Press, 2010). In Albert’s Shadow: The Life and Letters of Mileva Marić: Einstein’s First Wife, edited by Milan Popović (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). A Solitary Smile: A Novel on Einstein, by David R. Topper (Bee Line Press, 2019).
Features
Japanese Straightening/Hair Rebonding at SETS on Corydon
Japanese Straightening is a hair straightening process invented in Japan that has swept America.
Features
History of the Winnipeg Beach Synagogue: 1950-2025
By BERNIE BELLAN The history of the Winnipeg Beach Synagogue is a fascinating one. We have had several articles over the years about the synagogue in The Jewish Post & News.
In June 2010 I wrote an article for The Jewish Post & News upon the 60th anniversary of the synagogue’s opening. Here are the opening paragraphs from that article:
“Sixty years ago a group of Winnipeg Beach vacationers decided that what their vacation area lacked was a synagogue. As it happened, a log cabin one-room schoolhouse in the Beausejour area happened to be available.
“In due course, the log cabin was relocated to the corner of Hazel and Grove in Winnipeg Beach, where it stayed for 48 years.”
In December 1994 my late brother, Matt, wrote a story about the spraying of antisemitic grafitti on the synagogue which, at that time, was still situated at its original location on the corner of Hazel and Grove in the town of Winnipeg Beach:
“Two 16-year-olds spraypainted slogans like ‘Die Jews,’ ‘I’ll kill you Jews,’ and other grafitti in big letters on the beach synagogue.
“Jim Mosher, a news reporter for the Interlake Spectator in Gimli, said last Halloween’s vandalism against the synagogue wasn’t the first. In the late 1980s, he claimed, it was spraypainted with swastikas.
“Jack Markson, a longtime member of the Winnipeg Beach Synagogue, last week also said he could remember finding anti-Semitic grafitti spraypainted on the synagogue ‘a few years ago,’ and at least twice in the 1970s, when the cottage season was over.”
My 2010 article continued: “In 1998 the Town of Winnipeg Beach informed the members of the synagogue that the building would have to be hooked up to the town’s sewer and water system. Rather than incur the cost of $3-4,000, which was thought to be ‘prohibitive,’ according to longtime beach synagogue attendee Laurie Mainster, synagogue goers looked elsewhere for a solution.
“As a result, the board of Camp Massad was approached and asked whether the synagogue might be relocated there, with the understanding that the synagogue would be made available to the camp at any time other than what were then Friday evening and Saturday morning services.
“Over the years the ‘beach synagogue’ had come to be a very popular meeting place for summertime residents of Winnipeg Beach and Gimli. In fact, for years minyans were held twice daily, in addition to regular Saturday morning services. Of course, in those years Winnipeg Beach was also home to a kosher butcher shop.
“While the little synagogue, which measured only 18 x 24 feet, has gone through several transformations, including the move to Camp Massad, and the opening up to egalitarian services in 2007 (The move to egalitarian services was as much a practical necessity as it was a nod to the equality of women – the only Kohen present at the time was a woman!), it has always remained cramped at the best of times.
“In recent years the synagogue has seen the addition of a window airconditioner (although to benefit from it, you really have to be sitting just a few feet away), as well as a fridge that allows synagogue attendees to enjoy a regular Saturday morning Kiddush meal following the service.
“According to Laurie Mainster, the Saturday morning service has continued to be popular, even though many of the attendees now drive in from Winnipeg, as they have sold the cottages they once maintained.
“On the other hand, one of the side benefits to being located on Camp Massad’s grounds has been an infusion of young blood from among the camp counsellors.
“Since there is no longer a rabbi available to conduct services (Rabbi Weizman did lead services for years while he had a cottage at the beach), those in attendance now take turns leading the services themselves.
“Anyone may attend services and, while there are no dues collected, donations are welcome. (Donations should be made to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, with donors asked to specify that their donations are to be directed to the beach synagogue.)
“Mainster also says that the beach synagogue is now undergoing an expansion, which will be its first in 60 years. An entirely new space measuring 16 x 18 feet is being added – one that will allow for a real Kiddush area. (Until now, a table has been set up in the back of the synagogue and synagogue goers would help themselves to the buffet that is set up each Saturday during the summer. While pleasant enough, it will certainly be more comfortable to have an actual area set aside for the Saturday afternoon after service lunch.)
“As for dress, longtime attendee Abe Borzykowski (in an article written by Sharon Chisvin for the Free Press in 2007) remarked that ‘I don’t think there are many synagogues where people can attend in shorts, T-shirts and sandals and not feel out of place.’ “
As mentioned in that 2010 article, the beach synagogue at that time was about to undergo an extensive remodelling. Here is an article from a January 2011 issue that describes that remodelling process. The article was written by Bernie Sucharov, who has been a longtime member of the beach synagogue:
“The Hebrew Congregation of Winnipeg Beach made a major change to the synagogue this past summer. With the help of many volunteers, Joel Margolese being the project manager, the synagogue was expanded and an addition was built to handle the overflow crowds, as well as to add more space for the kiddush following services.
“The volunteers spent many Sundays during the summer months building the addition. Bad weather caused many delays, but finally the addition was completed one week before the official summer opening.
“The volunteers were: Joel Margolese, Gordon Steindel, Sheldon Koslovsky, Viktor Lewin, Harvey Zabenskie, Nestor Wowryk, Kevin Wowryk, Victor Spigelman, Jerry Pritchard, and David Bloomfield.
“On Sunday, June 25, 2010 a special ceremony was held to affix a mezzuzah to the front entrance door. Gordon Steindel had the honour of affixing the mezzuzah, which was donated by Sid Bercovich and Clarice Silver.
“Refreshments and food for the day were prepared by Phyllis Spigelman, also known as our catering manager. Throughout the summer, Phyllis, Lenore Kagan and other friends prepared the food for our kiddush.
“A sound system was donated by Arch and Brenda Honigman in memory of their father, Sam Honigman z”l. “The system was installed by Joel Margolese and Stevan Sucharov. This will allow the overflow crowd to hear the service in the new addition.
“There were also generous donations of 50 chumashim and an air conditioner. The chumashim were donated by Gwen, Sheldon and Mark Koslovsky. The air conditioner in the new addition was donated by Joel and Linda Margolese.
“The official opening of the synagogue for the summer took place on July 3, 2010. We had an overflow crowd of 70+ people.”
Since that 2010 major addition to the synagogue, it has also added a wheelchair ramp (although I’ve been unable to ascertain exactly when the ramp was built). Also, the synagogue also has its own outdoor privy now. (Attendees used to have to use facilities in Camp Massad.)
And, as already noted in article previously posted to this site (and which you can read at Beach Synagogue about to celebrate 75th anniversary), in recognition of that occasion, on August 2nd members of the synagogue will be holding a 75th anniversary celebration.
As part of the celebration anyone who is a descendant or relative of any of the original members of the first executive committee is invited to attend the synagogue that morning.
If you are a relative please contact Abe Borzykowski at wpgbeachshule@shaw.ca or aborzykowski@shaw.ca to let Abe know you might be attending.
Features
Kinzey Posen: CBC Winnipeg’s former “go-to guy”
By GERRY POSNER If former Winnipegger Lawrence Wall was the CBC go-to guy in Ottawa, CBC Winnipeg had its own version of a go-to guy for many years with none other than the very well known Kinzey Posen. Of course, many readers will recognize that name from his career with Finjan, the Klezmer group so famous across Canada and beyond. It has been written about Posen and his wife Shayla Fink that they have been involved in music since they got out of diapers. And, as an aside, their love and ability in music has now been transmitted to the next generation as in their son, Ariel Posen (but that’s another story).
Kinzey Posen (not to be confused with Posner, or maybe we are to be confused, but who knows for sure?), was a graduate of Peretz School, having attended there from nursery right until Grade 7, graduating in1966. That was followed by Edmund Partridge and West Kildonan Collegiate. Musically, he was in large part self taught. However, he did have some teachers along the way. After moving to Vancouver – from 1974-78, he had the chance to study acoustic classical bass with a member of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. When Kinzey lived in Vancouver, he also worked as a jazz musician.
Upon returning to Winnipeg, Kinzey enrolled as a mature student at the University of Winnipeg, where he obtained a Bachelor of Urban Studies degree. Although the degree was in no way connected to the career that followed, his attending the University of Winnipeg was critical to his connecting with the CBC. Why? you ask. Kinzey had a position after graduation working for the Institute of Urban Studies. While there, he met someone who invited him to work for the Department of Continuing Education as one of their program directors. At the time the Department of Continuing Education was located at 491 Portage Avenue, which was also known as the TJ Rice Building. The CBC also leased some space in the same building. According to Kinzey, the CBC part of the building “included HR, different shows and other support offices. Continuing Education was located in the basement and main floor and that’s where I worked.”
KInzey had long had an interest in the CBC, which made the fact that the CBC had some offices in the same building where he was working serendipitous. That Kinzey might be interested in visiting the CBC was not an accident. As a young boy he had a nightly connection to CBC, as it was his ritual to listen to CBC Radio (as well as all sorts of other radio stations across the USA) on his transistor radio every night in bed. He became enamoured of one particular CBC host, Bill Guest, so that when going to sleep, he imagined that he was Guest doing interviews with imaginary guests. That dream of working for CBC became a reality when he had a chance to do a one week gig with Jack Farr’s network program.
Kinzey took a week off from his Continuing Education job and spent five days at the CBC. That week was a training session for Posen, as he had to create ideas, research, pre-interview, write the script, and set up the studio for Farr’s interview. He was almost in his dream job – although not quite – since it was only for one week. His opportunity, however, came in 1988, when he was offered a one-year term as a production assistant – the lowest guy on the ladder, for a show called “ Simply Folk,” with the late Mitch Podolak as the host. Although he was indeed at the bottom as far as those working on the show were concerned, he took a chance and gave his notice to the U of W. The rest is history. In his new job, Kinzey learned how to become a producer. Lucky for him, at the end of the year, when the person he replaced was supposed to come back, she never returned (just like the song, “MTA,” by the Kingston Trio). At that point, Kinzey was hired full time at the CBC.
Kinzey was a fixture at the CBC for 27 years. During those years, Kinzey had the chance to work with Ross Porter, a respected former CBC host and producer, also with Karen Sanders – on the “Afternoon Edition.” One aspect of Kinzey’s job on the Afternoon Edition was to come up with ideas, mix sound effects, arrange interviews and music, to create a two-hour radio experience. In addition, he covered jazz and folk festivals and, as a result, was exposed to some of the best musicians in the world. With Ross Porter in the 1990s, he worked on a network jazz show called “ After Hours,” which was on from 8-10 PM five nights a week. Kinzey was involved with writing the scripts, picking the music, and recording the shows, as well as editing them and then presenting them to the network for playback.
Of course, over his career, Kinzey had many memorable moments. He told me about one of them. The story revolved around the National Jazz Awards one year in particular. The awards were to be broadcasted after the National News which, in those days, began much earlier in the evening, and were over by 8:00 pm. The legendary Oscar Peterson was lined up to play a half hour set at the awards, starting at 7:30. But, as Kinzey told me, Oscar Peterson had a “hate on” for the CBC ecause one of his recorded performances was wrongly edited and he refused to appear on CBC under any circumstances. As the time neared 8:05 PM, which was when the CBC was to begin its broadcast of the jazz awards, it became apparent that Oscar was not going to finish on time. As the producer of the awards show, Kinzey was tasked with telling Oscar Peterson to wrap it up and get off the stage. There was Kinzey Posen, a huge fan of Oscar Peterson, now faced with the prospect of telling Oscar – while he was still playing – with 500 people in the audience, to stop and get off the stage. Not often was or is Kinzey Posen frozen, but that was one such moment. There was one loud “Baruch Hashem” from Kinzey when Oscar completed his set literally just in time.
Clearly, Kinzey was part of a very successful run with After Hours as it was on the air for 14 years. It was easily one of the most popular shows on CBC Radio 2, and a winner of several broadcasting awards. Kinzey also played a major role in producing a two part documentary about legendary guitarist Lenny Breau.
When After Hours ended, Posen became one of the contributing producers to Canada Live and specialized in producing live radio specials for the network, such as the Junos, for CBC Radio One and Two. Needless to say, his career planted Posen in the world of some top notch musicians, including his time spent working with Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Dave Brubeck, Randy Bachman, Chantal Kreviazuk and a list of prominent names in the Canadian, American and European music spheres. Locally, the CBC came to refer to Kinzey as the Jewish expert. I would add music expert to that title.
After his 27 year run at the CBC – and before he fully retired, Kinzey went on to work for the Rady JCC as a program director for a year and a half. Of course, to say that Kinzey Posen is retired is a major contradiction in terms. You really can’t keep him down and he has his hand in a variety of programs and projects – most of which he remains silent about, as is his style.
When I realized the full depth and talent of Kinzey Posen, I quickly concluded that he must certainly be related to me. Even if he isn’t, I now tell people he is.