Ursula Merkin
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Ursula Merkin (1919–2006) was a German-born American philanthropist.
Contents
Life and career
She was born in Frankfurt, Germany to Isaac Breuer, a noted German Rabbi, as Ursula (Sara) Breuer. In 1933, at the age of fourteen, she left Germany with her family for Palestine. She remained there with her father, to whom she was very close, until his death in Jerusalem in 1946, at the age of 63. Shortly thereafter, she emigrated to the United States, where she found a teaching position at a Jewish girls' school in Paterson, New Jersey.
Family and charitable causes
In 1950 she met and married Hermann Merkin, a German-Jewish businessman, who was twelve years her senior. They had six children and were married for almost fifty years until his death in 1999 at the age of 91. Ursula and Hermann Merkin sponsored the New York venue Merkin Concert Hall and were involved in a variety of Yeshiva University functions as well as with other Jewish philanthropies. They were also deeply devoted to Fifth Avenue Synagogue, of which Hermann Merkin was the founding President.
Ursula Breuer Merkin was a granddaughter of Solomon Breuer, a great-granddaughter of Samson Raphael Hirsch, and mother of writer Daphne Merkin and philanthropist J. Ezra Merkin. Her brothers were Jacob Breuer, and Mordechai Breuer. She was best known for her involvement with Reuth, an Israeli charity for the elderly. She maintained a strong tie to, and a great love for, the Holy Land until her death in 2006. She was known by most as "Ullah."
Writing career
She also wrote a novel, Borrowed Lands, which was published by Rubin Mass Ltd. in 2000 in a second revised edition.
Death
She died in New York at the age of 86 after a bout with lung cancer.
See also
References
- Paid Notice: Deaths MERKIN, HERMANN - New York Times, March 10, 1999
- YU Today, Yeshiva University, Orientation 2006, Volume 11 No. 1, p. 6
- YBA On the Front, American Friends of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva, September 2006, p. 4
- Daphne Merkin, She Contained Multitudes, The Jewish Daily Forward, July 28, 2006
- Tim Boxer, RE'UTH - No need for compliments to honor Rabbi Sol Roth, 15 Minutes, Issue 33, February 2002
- Masha Leon, The Power of the Pen, The Jewish Daily Forward, January 13, 2006
- Paid Notice: Deaths MERKIN, URSULA - New York Times, July 24, 2006
External links
- 1919 births
- 2006 deaths
- 20th-century American novelists
- American philanthropists
- American schoolteachers
- American women novelists
- Cancer deaths in New York
- German emigrants to the United States
- German Jews
- German philanthropists
- German schoolteachers
- German women writers
- Jewish American writers
- Jewish philanthropists
- Jewish women writers
- People from Frankfurt
- Writers from New York City
- 20th-century women writers
