Ernest
Michel flanked by Ingeborg Rennert
and Dr. Ruth Westheimer. |
OPEN UNIVERSITY OF ISRAEL
Irving Rosenbaum Honored
For Supporting Education
Text by TIM BOXER
Photos by RICHARD LOBELL
 FTER
his discharge from the Israeli army in 1974, Emanuel Rosen
wanted to continue his education. He applied to a university, but
after a year he dropped out. It didn’t work for him.
He found a job in advertising, and pretty soon
worked his way up to senior copywriter at Arieli Advertising in Tel
Aviv. His creative abilities earned several prestigious awards in
Israel and abroad.
But he missed learning. He heard about the Open
University of Israel, which had been established the year he got out
of service as a distance learning institution. So he decided to give
it a chance.
“This was a turning point for me, my second
chance to grow and learn,” he said at a gala dinner of the
American Friends of the Open University at the St. Regis Hotel in
Manhattan.
Eli
Rosenbaum and Henry Muller. |
He got his B.A. and came to the U.S. where he
was marketing chief for Niles Software. Today he’s the author of The
Anatomy of Buzz, a book about word-of-mouth marketing.
This was one of countless Open University
success stories related at the dinner, chaired by Ingeborg
Rennert and Irwin Hochberg. They led a birthday tribute
to national chairman Irving Rosenbaum who just turned 80.
Rosenbaum’s son, Eli, told how his
father, who came from Dresden, Germany, was among the first American
troops to enter Dachau.
The elder Rosenbaum, who served in the
psychological warfare branch of the Allied forces, had orders to
report what he found in the concentration camp.
Eliahu Nissim, Open U. president (from left),
Arthur
Sherman, Ruth Hockley, Irving Rosenbaum,
Robert de Rothschild and
David Schachne.
|
“My father’s orders hang in my office in
Washington,” said Eli, the director of the Office of Special
Investigations for the Justice Department, charged with pursuing
Nazi war criminals.
One snowy day Eli was driving his father on the
New York Thruway. He asked him what did he find in Dachau.
His father reflected for a while. He opened his
mouth. Only silence came out.
“To this day he did not answer,” Eli said.
|
