In Memory of Penina Maier

by Suzanne Sadowsky

It is with deepest sorrow that the Jewish Congregation of the San Geronimo Valley mourns the death of our dear friend, Penina Maier. Penina was an active member of our congregation from the time that she and her husband Richard Leland first moved to the Valley in the Fall of 1992, while still maintaining their residence in the City. She also served on the Board of Directors. She chaired the Adult Education Committee, and facilitated many of our strategic planning meetings. She organized and hosted many of our women's gatherings for Rosh Chodesh celebrations and she contributed her time to help plan and organize many other Congregation events.

Penina's heart was filled with loving kindness. She was blessed with a generosity of spirit and she was graced with an insightful intelligence, an engaging sense of humor and a loving smile, all of which she bestowed easily on the many people whose lives she touched.

She was also an excellent teacher and spent many a Saturday morning giving Hebrew language lessons to those of use who wished to study. Along with the lessons were tea and cakes and laughter and the sweetness of her presence and her wisdom.

She had a love of Jewish learning and until the time of her death, she was actively engaged in Jewish study and practice. She had been enrolled as a student at Chochmat HaLev in Berkeley and had been giving thought to becoming a Rabbi. What a wonderful Rabbi she would have been!

Because of Penina's encouragement and support, the congregation was the beneficiary of a two-year grant from the Maier Foundation which enabled us to embark on a program of Jewish education for children and adults. She had a deep concern for the continuity of the Jewish people and a great love of children. She would often remark that the children of our community were our future.

She was deeply concerned with social justice, and on a personal level, she consistently found ways to show her love and care for those around her. Despite her busy life and her many activities, interest and commitments, she always found time to help others. On many occasions she worked on behalf of the Jewish Community Federation and took time to visit the Jewish elderly at nursing homes in Marin.

During the coming months, the Congregation will be exploring ways to honor Penina's spirit and memory. In recognition of the Congregation's fifth anniversary, we have arranged for five trees to be planted in her honor in Israel. A donation from the Congregation in her honor has been made to Ruach Ami, the Jewish Healing Center in San Francisco.

We will also be looking for ways to continue her work and keep her spirit with us in years to come, including the establishment of a scholarship fund along with an annual fund-raising event to support Jewish education in our Congregation. Some members of the Congregation have already made contributions to the congregation in her honor or have dedicated prayerbooks in her memory.

On behalf of the Board and the members and friends of the Congregation, we send our most heartfelt and deepest condolences to Penina's beloved daughter, Sagit, her husband and our dear friend, Richard Leland, and all the other members of her family and her many friends whose sorrow we share.

Her life was a blessing and the way she lived will be an example for us all. We will miss her so very much.

—from our March 1997 Newsletter

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