Nadine Ehrenberg Monetta
With great sadness we announce that Nadine Ehrenberg Monetta passed away peacefully on Sunday, March 8, 2015. She was surrounded by her cherished family.
Nadine was born in San Francisco and attended Winfield Scott Elementary, Marina Junior High and Lowell High School. She was the first in her family to attend college and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was a member of the Delta Phi Epsilon sorority. Nadine met the love of her life, Bernard (Bernie) Monetta from Vallejo, at a gathering of families in Marin. They were married for almost 62 years.
Nadine and Bernie shared a storybook marriage. They were inseparable. They were longtime members of Lake Merced Country Club and Monterey Country Club. They traveled to Europe, Israel, Asia and South America and throughout the United States. They spent a great deal of time at their home in Palm Desert. However, they cherished their life in San Francisco, where they lived and enjoyed its virtues and amenities to the fullest.
Nadine’s passion and focus of her life was her family. Nadine and Bernie had two children, David and Robert, who were the joy of her life. Her daughters-in-law, Lisa and Natalie, were the daughters she always wanted. Her grandchildren, Alexander, Kayla, Zachary, Jacqueline and Dominic, gave her energy and strength.
Nadine was the daughter of Charles and Esther Ehrenberg of San Francisco and daughter-in-law of William and Kate Monetta of Vallejo. Her closeness and devotion to her late brothers Louis and George, sister Yvonne and sister-in-law Peggy, and surviving brother-in-law Leonard, were unparalleled. She was a loving aunt to Charles Everett, Suzy and Steven Stemerman, Laura and Richard Everett, Sharon and Alan Levins, Nancy and Matt Browar and Joan and Mitch Berger. Her brothers and sister and their families lived within 4 blocks of each other, and sharing weekly Thursday night dinners together created bonds and a closeness that was one of her greatest treasures.
Services and memorial were held on March 12. In lieu of flowers, donations in Nadine’s memory can be made to the American Heart Association to further stroke research, San Francisco Humane Society or the SPCA.
Sinai Memorial Chapel
(415) 921-3636
Walter H. Obermeyer
(1923–2015)
Walter Obermeyer passed away at age 92 surrounded by family members on March 7, 2015 after a long illness.
Walter was born on March 2, 1923 in Bad Salzuflen, Germany. He fled Nazi Germany at age 14 on a Kindertransport in 1937. Walter was placed in a Jewish orphanage, Homewood Terrace, in San Francisco. Betty and Morris Herschel, foster parents, welcomed Walter into their home.
Walter served in the Air Force in WWII in the control tower in the Pacific. Walter was honorably discharged. On the GI Bill, he attended U.C. Berkeley and graduated in business in 2 1/2 years. Walter worked at Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco for over 25 years. He had the downtown Financial District territory in San Francisco for Levi Strauss. Walter attained a pilot’s license and flew solo on Aug. 22, 1972.
Walter retired at the age of 55 and enjoyed almost 40 years of retirement in the city he loved, San Francisco. Walter served as president of his synagogue, Beth Israel Judea in San Francisco. Walter gave a lot to many charities (including Ben-Gurion University in Israel, Center for Southeast Asian Refugee Resettlement, United Jewish Appeal and Big Brothers), as well as volunteered at various organizations (including Redding Elementary School in San Francisco). Walter appreciated the arts and became a painter himself during his retirement. He started the display of art made by residents at the Towers, where Walter lived.
Walter is survived by his wife of 65 years, Vera, and his children Bob (and Susan), Eve, Sarai (and Kory). He is survived by his grandchildren Jeff (and Mirian), Amy (and Tom), Tori (and Clint), Annie and Dave. Walter is survived by his great-grandchildren Sofia, Asher and two on the way. Walter is also survived by members of the Herschel family. We will miss Walter’s adventurous spirit and his good sense of humor.
A private service was held in his honor.
Albert Shemano
Albert Shemano died peacefully of natural causes at the age of 93 on March 14, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. He was healthy and energetic to the end.
Albert was born on May 6, 1921 in San Francisco, California, to Boris and Grace Shemano. After graduating from Washington High School in 1938 and serving in the Navy from 1942 to 1946, he followed his father into the barber trade. He owned a prominent barbershop in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco for 30 years before retiring and moving to Sacramento, California. He married Bernice Block in 1963 and was divorced in 1982.
In addition to his children and the extended Shemano family, Albert’s passion was active leadership in B’nai B’rith. Starting with organizing AZA conventions while a teenager, he was the president of several B’nai B’rith lodges in the Bay Area, served as a district and athletic chairman, organized the Northern California B’nai B’rith Bowling Association, and was awarded the Akiva Award several times.
In his later years, after moving to Sacramento, he was a leader of the daily minyan at Mosaic Law Congregation. In his final years, he moved to Los Angeles to be near his son David, where he was extremely proud to participate in the b’nai mitzvah of three grandchildren, including reading Torah. Albert will be remembered as full of life. He would talk to anyone for any reason and share stories relating to everything from going to cheder as a child, AZA antics, seeing the world while in the Navy, the women he dated, and his knowledge of basketball.
Albert is survived by his son David Shemano of Los Angeles, daughter Hannah Montilla of Macomb, Michigan, and brother Irving Shemano of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is preceded in death by his sister, Matilda Mizel.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to B’nai B’rith at www.bnaibrith.org/support-us.html.
in memoriam
Albert Sadek
Albert (“Adam,” “Avram”) Sadek was born on July 24, 1923 in Dlugosiodlo, Poland, and passed away on March 15, 2014. He lived up to his surname and was an incredibly generous, kind, loving, wise man. In 1939, when the Nazis invaded Dlugosiodlo, he and his sister, Ruth, and his mother, Sima, fled to the former Soviet Union; during an air raid, Albert was separated from his family and spent the remaining years of the Holocaust in various labor camps.
After the war he met Mary Demczuk, whom he married in 1955. He immigrated with Mary and their daughter, Arlene, to Israel and then to the U.S., where they settled in New York; Albert was reunited with his other two siblings, Ida and Harry, in 1959 when he arrived in the U.S. He started a successful clothing store in Manhattan’s Lower East Side which he owned and managed with his partner, Israel Rublevich, until 1988.
Despite having experienced the worst of people and the worst of conditions, Albert remained a peaceful, selfless, strong, optimistic man who always found the good in others. He will be deeply missed by his many friends and his family. He is survived by his daughter, Arlene Sadek-Patt, his two grandchildren, Samantha Patt Goodenough and Daniel Patt, his brother, Harry Sadick, and his sister, Ruth Nager.
A service in Albert’s memory was held at Gan Shalom Cemetery. Friends and family who wish to make a donation in Albert’s memory are asked to consider the Survivor Mitzvah Project.