Jerusalem loses a colorful character with the passing of Ezra Gorodesky

• Date: 17 January 2021
• Author: GREER FAY CASHMAN
• Published date: 17 January 2021

Gorodesky could best be described as an intellectual leprechaun. His face almost always bore a mischievous elfin grin. Curious about everything, he collected almost anything – rare books and manuscripts, works of art, buttons, glassware, Chinese pottery, teapots, miniatures and more.

Gorodesky was always immaculately and dramatically attired. Whether in a three-piece suit or casual dress he always wore a vest. Brandishing a cane and with a cape flowing from his shoulders, he looked like the leading man in a period play.

In his native Philadelphia, a great aunt showed him pictures of the Holy Land during boyhood visits, and he knew he would make his home in Palestine one day.

By the time he did, Palestine was already Israel. In 1960 Gorodesky came for a month to see if he could feel at home in the country he loved from a distance. The month turned into more than sixty years.

Gorodesky never renewed his US passport. He was particularly unhappy with the country's immigration policy during World War Two, when tens of thousands of endangered Jews were denied entry to America by the Roosevelt administration.

Prior to leaving Philadelphia, Gorodesky visited Rabbi Max D. Klein, the spiritual leader of the Adath Jeshurun Congregation who suggested he meet in Jerusalem with a friend who had studied years earlier with him at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Her name was Rebecca Affachiner.

In Philadelphia, Gorodesky had worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Arts, and haunted flea markets, auctions and garage sales. He scoured synagogues for historical documents.

Everything had a story of some kind which Gorodesky researched passionately and painstakingly.

After settling in Israel and becoming...