Ruth Jungster Frankel

Content type
Collection

Ruth Jungster Frankel

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Pamela Brown Lavitt interviewed Ruth Jungster Frankel on August 7 and 15, 2001, in Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women’s Words project. Frankel reflects on her experiences growing up in Germany, witnessing Hitler's rise to power, immigrating to the United States, involvement at Temple Herzi, her husband's Alzheimer's, and her engagement in Jewish camps, trips to Israel, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Ruth Jungster Frankel

Hebrew school teacher Ruth Frankel dedicated her life to Jewish education and the welfare of the Jewish people. Born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1916, she grew up in a close modern Orthodox home, attending Hebrew school from kindergarten until high school. Together with her sister, Lisbeth, Ruth emigrated to the U.S. in June 1938. Despite all their endeavors, Ruth and Lisbeth were unsuccessful in rescuing their parents, who had remained behind and eventually perished in Auschwitz. Ruth's future husband, Joseph Frankel, apprehended during Kristallnacht, spent four months in Buchenwald before reaching England and then immigrating to the U.S. in 1940. After the war, the Frankels and their daughter moved to Seattle where Joseph was instrumental in starting a Religious School at Herzl Ner Tamid, a Conservative synagogue, serving as its principal and cantor. Ruth became active in the synagogue Sisterhood, voluntarily kept all school records, and taught second and third grade for 30 years in Seattle public schools.

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