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| Kayla Polter |
When I was 8 years old, my parents sent me to a day school in Detroit – 60 miles away from my home in Toledo. They had noticed that none of my friends were religious and some were not even Jewish. The fact that I was going in public school and lacked any formal Jewish education had endangered my spiritual health. (For example, I hated wearing a Kipa since I was the only one doing it.) So off I went- at age 8 to attend 4th grade in Yeshivath Beth Yehudah in Detroit.
There were no dorms in those days – and in any case, I was too young to be in one. So my father sought a family with which I could live during the week until my weekly trip home for Shabbos.
That family was the Tenenbaums, Kayla’s parents. Her father was a Holocaust survivor and a Shochet like mine. He was a Gerrer Chasid - which in those days looked like everyone else: Clean shaven, modern dress, and they had a TV in their home.
The Tenenbaums had three children, 2 of which were out of the house. Kayla was the youngest who still lived there. She was 4 years older than me and we developed a kind of brother sister rivalry. We fought over the TV like cats and dogs. She want to watch things that appealed to teenagers like Dance Party– a local TV program that featured popular music and teenagers dancing to it (A precursor to American Bandstand). And I wanted to watch the Mickey Mouse Club. But we grew to love each other like a brother and sister over the years I spent living there.
Although I left the Tenenbaum house for Telshe Yeshiva at age 14 that relationship continued until her untimely death last week. (I am still in a state of shock!)
Although not a Lubavitcher herself, Kayla had married a Rabbi Moshe Polter, a young Lubvitcher Chasid who at the time was teaching Limudei Kodesh in Beth Yehuda. Kayla worked in Beth Yehuda’s office at that time. A wedding that took place shortly after in Detroit which my parents and I had attended when I was in Telshe.
At age 22, I returned to Detroit to reconnect with a few old friends I made there as young student. This is when I met my wife, Annie. Who had been the steady babysitter for the Polters. The Polters were instrumental in getting my wife and I together. Long story short we got married about 6 months later.
Since than my connections with Kayla were far and few between - although my wife and I made sure to visit her from time to time when visiting close friends in Detroit. We had gone our own separate ways in life. She became very active in Lubavitch and I began married life in Chicago while studying for Semicha at HTC. But even though we had not seen each other all that frequently whenever I reconnected with Kayla. we just picked right up where we left off. She and her husband attended the wedding of some of our children and we attended the wedding of some of hers.
I recall one time when a young Lubavitcher Chasid who was a lawyer approached me at a wedding in Chicago. He told me that he was Kayla’s son and that his mother instructed him to get in touch with me when he was in Chicago and send her regards. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that - and to see him as an adult. The last time I had recalled seeing him was when he was a child at the time I was courting my future wife.
Kayla’s husband passed away many years ago from cancer. But she carried on with her life in heroic fashion continuing to teach until a few days before her sudden, unexpected passing after a short bout with pneumonia.
I loved that woman. And I will miss her dearly.
Baruch Dayan HaEmes