In Memoriam of

Binyamin Siegel Ish-Horowitz

Binyamin Siegel, retired police commander, passed away a few weeks ago. He was a member of the Horowitz families Association, and attended our national conventions. We asked him to join the management of the association, but he excused himself due to his bad health condition, that would have made it difficult for him to carry out the position. In his will, he asked to inscribe on his gravestone his full name as Ish-Horowitz.

Binyamin Siegel was born in Poland on 1922, and immigrated to Israel on 1948. A short while later he joined the police, and worked as an investigator in the Tel-Aviv district. From there, he moved to the national headquarters , and operated in the investigations department first, and then in the organization and men-power section. In the mid-seventies, he established the national unit for fraud investigations. Siegel led the fight against corruption, for the purity and innocence of public services employees. He fulfilled this mission fearlessly and impartially, yet with sensitivity and respect. On 1985 Siegel was appointed president of the Israeli Police Discipline Court, and served in this role until his retirement on 1987.

May his memory be blessed along with other Horowitz family members who contributed, each in his field, to the foundation of the country and the shaping of the nation.

Leah Agroskin (nee Gurevich) 1923-2001

We regretfully announce the death of our member and dear friend, Leah Agroskin (nee Gurevich), on July 7, 2001 at the Jerusalem Shaarei Zedek hospital.

Lea was born in Moscow in 1923 into the family of an acclaimed Russian Soviet drama and film writer, Itzhak Gurevich (penname Natan Zarkhi). Her formative years were marked by the dramatic events of early Soviet history - the Stalinist purges of the 1930s - 1950s and the outbreak of World War II. She never joined any communist organizations, and her family home in Moscow served as a meeting place for liberal Jewish artists and intellectuals - from Moscow actors of the nascent Hebrew-language Habima Theater to Yiddish poets and actors associated with the Moscow Yiddish theater and cultural institutions. She graduated from high school on June 22, 1941 - the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union. During the war years, she worked on the construction of Moscow city defense lines and subsequently, at a defense industry plant in the Urals. After returning to Moscow in 1944, she received an advanced degree in English-language teaching and was later appointed Assistant Professor of English at Irkutsk University in Siberia. In 1949, she returned to Moscow and married a reputable otorhinolaryngologist, Dr. Shmuel Agroskin, whose patients included members of the Soviet political elite. During the so-called Doctors' Plot (1952-53) Lea and her family lived under constant threat of arrest. In 1957, she resumed her professional teaching career. Until her emigration to Israel in 1977, she taught English at Moscow University and at the Naval Department, where she earned the reputation of a most popular and well-loved teacher. In 1977, Lea and her 73-year old husband gave up their successful careers and comfortable lives to make Aliya to Israel. She settled in Jerusalem and lived there until her death on July 7, 2001. She worked as an editor and proofreader of Russian-English translations, while continuing to serve as an informal educator and English teacher to neighbors and friends in her community. Lea learned Hebrew and felt a close emotional connection to Israel, its history, values and people. She helped dozens of new immigrants, relatives and friends to establish themselves in their new homeland. Lea was a beautiful, delicate woman, a refined, cultivated lover of poetry, classical music and the arts, as well as an excellent story-teller. At the same time, she was a generous person who extended her kind and helping hand to people in her community in Kiryat Yovel, Jerusalem, irrespective of ethnic origin or level of religious observance. A woman of extraordinary memory at 78, Lea kept alive the stories and memories of her branch of the Gurevich family currently residing in Israel, as well as Riga, Latvia and St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia. She is deeply missed by her daughter and son-in-law, Natalie and Steven Hassman, as well as by her extended family in Israel, the US, England, Latvia and Russia.

May her memory be a blessing!