Usually at a memorial service, the prevailing sentiment is one of sadness.
But Alvin Sugarman, Rabbi emeritus of the Temple, asked how can someone feel sad when celebrating the life of Janice Rothschild Blumberg — who lived 100 years and eight days.
A memorial service for Blumberg was held March 11 at the sanctuary of the Temple — “a space that Janice loved so much,” Rabbi Peter Berg said at the service.
“The first time I met Janice Rothschild Blumberg, she was 84 years old, and she was wearing a bikini bathing suit,” said Berg with a laugh before adding he had never used the word “bikini” in a eulogy before. He remembered meeting Blumberg by the pool of Park Place in Buckhead, where she lived. “I thought then as I do now that Janice was a woman who really knew how to live.”
For Berg, Blumberg was someone who chose life, someone who believed in living life to the fullest.
“We gather to remember our beloved community matriarch,” Berg said. “For each of us, she has made such a lasting indelible impression.”
Blumberg, who died Feb. 21, had a front row seat to major events in Atlanta history and was a participant in key Jewish events.
She was married to the late Rabbi Jacob “Jack” Rothschild, who died 50 years ago. In 1958, they experienced the anti-Semitic bombing of the Temple, and according to Berg, she coined the phrase: “The bomb that healed.”
The Rothschilds developed a close friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King during the 1960s. Both she and her husband were both involved in the planning of the history-making dinner at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel in Atlanta in 1965 to honor King for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
“She supported her husband’s strong stand against segregation,” Berg said.
Sugarman recalled Blumberg’s magnetism. When she walked into a room, all eyes turned to her – because of her beauty that was both inside and out. After moving to Atlanta, Sugarman remembered Blumberg taking his wife, Barbara, out to lunch to give her some advice: “As a Rabbi’s wife, you should always be yourself.”
Her son, Bill Rothschild, said his mother died with no regrets.
“My mother was a student of history with a wry sense of humor,” Rothschild said. As a teenager, she was “a bit gawky.” But she was precocious and filled with curiosity. “Her intellectual honesty was her foundation.”
Rothschild said his mother loved being at the center of attention. At the beginning of the service, George Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” played – paying homage to Blumberg. “She was the queen,” her son said.
At the close of his recollections, Rothschild said she had spoken to him about what she wanted at her memorial service.
“My mother asked me to end this by saying ‘the Rabbi’s eulogy was based on true events.’”
Her first husband died in December 1973. Later, she married David M. Blumberg, who was the international president of B’nai B’rith from 1971 to 1978, giving her another opportunity to be at the center of global events. Eventually, they relocated to Washington D.C, where Janice Blumberg lived until moving back to Atlanta in 2009. Her second husband had died in 1989.
Of course, her life adventures never stopped. I had the good fortune to spend precious time with her during the last couple of years of her life.
At 98, she had just published an autobiography titled “What’s Next?” She relished telling me about stories in the book, telling me to read the “racy” parts about her love life after David Blumberg had died.
One of my favorite memories of her was when she was 99 asking me — with a twinkle in her eye — if I could set her up with a boyfriend.
As Rabbi Berg concluded at the service — Janice Rothschild Blumberg chose life.
