On Wednesday morning not very long after day break, on the eve of Tu b’Shavat, the new year for the trees, Michele said goodbye to this world. She left this world as she lived in it, unafraid and resolute and practical and also with a keen sense of loss for the sweetness she was leaving behind.
Michele Rodri z”l was a vital and dynamic woman, elegant, funny, devoted to the Jewish people, to her family, her friends, to life, until her very last breath. Courageously honest, deeply, deeply human, warm and emotionally generous, she was a good friend and one of the finest, most loving mothers and matriarchs I have known.
For the last 20 years she gave her time sharing her story of survival and perseverance with young people across the city and virtually across the country, and across the world.
She shared how as a child she was daringly rescued from an internment camp by her brother, spoke of her life in a convent and later, under difficult conditions, with a family. She shared and carried forward the memory of over 200 family members: Aunts, uncles, first and second cousins, of her dear brother Maurice, his life cut short, so cruelly, so young, so heartbreakingly murdered by the Nazis before his life even blossomed in fullness.
She shared how she thought of him every single day. She was keenly aware of the delights and pleasures and joys he would never know.
She lived with that sadness but it did not disable her capacity for infinite joy, laughter, and love.
The way she laughed, how her beautiful eyes lit up, how her enchanting smile revealed itself spread across her radiant lively lovely self. The essence of Michele was just that. The thing that infused everything she did. How she mothered and befriended and related and consoled and taught and inspired and made each of us who loved her feel so blessed to have her in our lives.
This is her legacy.
Love for her beautiful family she built and grew and nurtured and loved every single day of her life, Kirk and Sam and Jacob, love for her husband of 47 years, Jack, a survivor of Bergen-Belsen who she talked to every day until her life ended.
Love for the Jewish people that started under the teachings of her loving mother, father and older brothers. She carried that every day, working, as executive assistant to Rabbi Philip Schroit at B’nai David-Judea Congregation, never taking a penny of monetary compensation. A job into which she poured her love for Judaism. The purest work there is.
Love for her friends. She loved well, constantly and joyfully. She was loyal, impassioned, a teacher, a guide, a sage. Uplifting all those in her presence.
Her legacy, like the complex communicative deep roots of the oldest wisest trees, will remain with us strong and sturdy. Guided by her teachings, sheltered and nurtured by our memories of the life she lived, the example she set and the love she gave.
Michele Rodri , a woman of warmth and wisdom and deep love for all she held true. Eshet Chayil. A woman of valor like no other.
Samara Hutman
Remember Us, Lay Director
Second Nurture, LA Affiliate Director
To learn more about Michele’s extraordinary life, read these 2 Jewish Journal Articles :
Michele Rodri: Double Survivor
Survivor Michele Rodri: Shuttled from place to place until danger passed
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