Ruth Ezekiel, 79, teacher who survived Holocaust

Ruth Rosenfeld Ezekiel, 79, of East Oak Lane, a Holocaust survivor and retired first-grade teacher, died of cancer yesterday, the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht.

On Nov. 9 into Nov. 10, 1938, state-sanctioned rioters in Germany destroyed synagogues, smashed windows, and looted thousands of Jewish-owned businesses.

Four months later, Mrs. Ezekiel and two older sisters were evacuated to England from Germany by a humanitarian organization. The girls left behind their parents and a younger brother and sister. The brother and sister survived the war, but their parents died in Auschwitz in 1942.

The five siblings were reunited in 1948 in Washington, where they had relatives.

Mrs. Ezekiel and her husband, David, moved to East Oak Lane in 1962. She was a founder of the East Oak Lane Neighbors for Quality Education and School Integration, helped establish a library at Ellwood Elementary School, and was active with the League of Women Voters for more than 50 years.

"She felt responsible for dedicating her life to making the world a better place because she had been spared during the Holocaust," said a daughter, Rachel Ezekiel-Fishbein. "She was a community activist and advocate for public education, children, racial integration, labor unions, and peace for many decades."

Mrs. Ezekiel was present at the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech in Washington in 1963 and was a member of the Oak Lane Neighbors for Peace during the Vietnam War. Until recently, she was still taking the subway downtown to march in Labor Day parades and to staff voter-registration tables, and she helped disabled friends with grocery shopping and bill paying, her daughter said.

Mrs. Ezekiel was a scholarship student at the University of Maryland, where she earned a bachelor's degree and met her future husband, a microbiologist.

In 1971, after her children were in school, she began teaching first graders at Whittier Elementary School in North Philadelphia. She was at Whittier for a decade, and then taught at Lowell Elementary School in Olney.

She told a reporter in 1985 that "first grade is a gateway to school and the outside world. It's very important that this be a positive and happy and loving experience."

After retiring in 1998, Mrs. Ezekiel volunteered at Lowell and at her grandchildren's school, Wyncote Elementary. She had served on the board of the Beachcomber Swim Club in Blue Bell and was vice president of the Friends of Oak Lane Public Library.

She had been a union representative at Lowell School and associate secretary and scholarship fund trustee for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers Retirement Chapter. In 2004, she was the recipient of a Good Samaritan Award from the Philadelphia School Reform Commission.

In addition to her husband of 57 years and daughter, Mrs. Ezekiel is survived by another daughter, Tamar Granor; a son, Aaron; two sisters; and nine grandchildren.

A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks Memorial Chapel, 6410 N. Broad St., Philadelphia. Burial will be in Shalom Memorial Park, Huntingdon Valley.