Leon Mizrachi’s family
This is the last photograph of the family of Leon Mizrachi, the lawyer, taken before they emigrated to Palestine in 1941. In the front row, the two children are the twin brothers, Theodor and Angelo Mizrachi. In the back row, from right to left: Paulina Mizrachi [nee Hurtig], my father's brother, Leon Mizrachi, and my cousin, Emanuel Mizrachi.
Uncle Leon was born in 1899 in Bucharest. Until he left the country, in 1941, he was a lawyer and the president of the Zionist associations in Romania. I was very close to him. I was still in my early childhood, but I remember he often came to our place; he loved me and brought me presents. He was the one who gave me my first fountain pen with a golden nib and my first alarm clock. It so happened that I immigrated to Palestine at the same time with him and his family. Between 1941 and 1945 I visited him on a regular basis, first in Haifa, where he had built a house, then in Tel Aviv, where he tried to get in business with a diamond polishing workshop. He couldn't practice law, because he didn't manage to learn to express himself in Ivrit in such a manner that he could plead in front of an Israeli court. This hurt him. He had a very well shaped personality, his intelligence was doubled by a solid culture, and he was a sentimental nature.
He and his wife Paulina had four children, who were born at relatively big distances one from another: Emanuel, the Theodor and Angelo twins, and then Daniela. Emanuel Mizrachi [known as Bar Kadmah in Israel] was born in 1932 in Bucharest. He worked as a theater reviewer for many years; he also painted, becoming a well-known modern painter in Israel. He never got married. The Theodor and Angelo Mizrachi twins [known as Zvi and Schmuel, respectively in Israel] were born in 1939 in Bucharest. They were one year and a half when they left the country. Sadly, Angelo caught poliomyelitis in 1947 and passed away at the age of eight. Theodor embraced the kibbutz idea. He has three children, two boys and a girl. Daniela Grunberg [nee Mizrachi] was born in Israel in 1946. She had an impressive career, reaching the top management of the company in charge with the irrigations in Israel. She has three wonderful children, two boys and a girl. My uncle, Leon Mizrachi, died in 1967 in Tel Aviv. His wife died in the early 1990s. Their children love one another deeply and they keep a very nice tradition: every Friday night they get together at Daniela's or Zvi's.