The time has come for us to mourn the passing of the living legend Ben Rabinowitz.
Ben was “one of a kind”. As a young man he was granted a Rhodes scholarship which is awarded to outstanding post graduate students to study at Oxford university.
He was a lover of music and art, he was a keen sportsman particularly rugby and cricket. He had a circle of highly accomplished interesting friends, he was warm and charismatic, with a great sense of humour. Above all he passionately believed in social justice and his philanthropic generosity supported many causes including enabling young men and women through education to realize their dreams.
In 2014 at a meeting with us in South Africa, he discovered that his ancestral town of Birzai was not a destroyed village of the 2nd world war but a functioning town and learnt that in the nearby forest of Pakamponys there is a mass grave of 2,400 Jewish victims of the Holocaust from Birzai.
It was because of Ben, his dedication, generosity and ability to get others to donate funds that we were able in 2019 to fulfil the aims of our project which embraced the values that were so dear to Ben.
Honouring the victims of Birzai (known as Birzh to the Lithuanian Jews) by enabling the building of a memorial with names of the murdered Jews, by assisting the museum to create a display of the history of the Jews of Birzai, by contributing to creating a Tolerance learning centre at the high school to study not only the history of what happened to their Jewish citizens, but to appreciate the importance of respecting people of all races, religions and creeds.
We may mourn Ben Rabinowitz but also celebrate the life of an extraordinary man.
Glenda and Abel Levitt
Birzai Jewish History and Culture Society