Yahrzeits

Yahrzeits, other years.

In Memory of Marcel

with love from Joy

For Marcel's 13th yahrzeit that fell during the winter holiday season on 12.25.18, Aviva was away with family. 

Aviva made sure while away with friends to have a minyan to say Kaddish. 

We both posted photos and memories of Marcel on FaceBook to share with our friends, and say Kaddish. 

I've posted Marcel's ancestors' Horowitz family tree, hand calligraphed. 

And of course, I have a candle lit and I went to Marcel's grave and left a stone. 

Sadly, winds must have blown over dozens of stones that I regathered and placed again on matzeivah.  

While I visit cemetery, I call our kids so that they too can say, "Hi".  - Joy

Added the following to FaceBook for Marcel's yahrzeit:

For Marcel's z"l, 13th yahrzeit, I share his hand-calligraphed Horowitz rabbinic family tree for 17 generations that ended with his maternal grandfather. Marcel, too was a 'yeshivah bocher', as were his father and brother, Charles, z"l. His mother loves learning.

For 18 years, Marcel served as Ba'al Koreh (Torah chanter) at two synagogues, every Shabbat; One, a Chabad and another, a traditional minyan. Marcel continued his Talmud studies all his life. Not long before he died, Marcel had a siyyum at a Young Israel following his 14 years of Gemorah study with the rabbi. Marcel used his studies in Jewish medical ethics to teach others in medicine. When Marcel was paralyzed, I asked Marcel about his prayers with the little bible that always was with him, and he said he didn't need it, because the siddur was memorized. I gave the little siddur to our daughter. I had Marcel buried in his tallit with cut-off tzitzit, and his baseball cap, and favorite teddy bear that went everywhere with him– to all hospitals during his 18 years of disease. 'Oatmeal' had disappeared when hospital sheets were changed and sent out, and I had the hospital chase down Oatmeal through the streets of LA until the bear was found...

For countless years in his 23 years as UCLA Professor of Medicine, Marcel was voted by all medical students, housestaff, as #1 Professor. His goal was that he wanted to be as good as his best professors who had taught him. Recently I met a newly ordained rabbi MD who said that Marcel had earlier been his best medical professor.

- Joy Krauthammer

Marcel's maternal rabbinic Horowitz family tree with 17 generations.