Esther Adler

Esther Ascher Adler, dedicated educator, poet, grandmother, friend and moral model to the Jewish community, died at her home in the Hebrew Senior Life Community of Orchard Cove, in Canton, Massachusetts, on September 25, at the age of 100.

In 1938, at the age of 14, Esther witnessed the violence of Kristallnacht, which marked the beginning of the end of Jewish life in Germany. Her testimony of that day rivetted audiences for decades, including at Faneuil Hall in 2019. This year, at the age of 100, she captivated a full house as the speaker at the City of Cambridge’s annual Commemoration of the Holocaust. Her ability to connect about the Shoah on a human level distinguished her long career as a holocaust educator.

Born in 1924 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland), to Polish Jewish parents, Esther came of age in a thriving Jewish community that showed its resilience as Hitler rose to power. She attended Jewish Day School, and, from the age of 12, studied modern Hebrew after school in hope of immigrating to Palestine. As soon as she turned 15, Estee’s family dispersed, and she left for Palestine with Youth Aliyah. She attended a religious boarding school for girls in Jerusalem where she studied Torah with Nehama Leibowitz. Leibowitz instilled in her a love of the poetic language of the prophets that Estee transmitted to generations of Hebrew students. When she graduated from high school, Esther became a permanent resident of Kibbutz Maabarot where she was trained in early childhood education.

Esther rejoined her family, who had settled in New York, to care for her ailing mother in 1947. On shipboard, she met the love of her life, Simon Adler, to whom she would be married for 60 years until his death in 2009. Shimon and Estee were partners in all things, helping to found two synagogues: Plainview Jewish Center on Long Island, New York, and Temple Torah, now Temple Torat Emet, in Boynton Beach, Florida. On Long Island Estee taught Hebrew School, and received a Bachelor in Jewish Education from The Jewish Theological Seminary. Her writing came to the attention of the Board of Jewish Education of Greater New York, which published five of her plays with guides for teachers for performance in religious schools—some of the first materials to incorporate the Holocaust into Jewish education. She was soon hired by the Educational Department of the Jewish National Fund to write stories about Israel for children. Every Tu B'shevat from 1982-1997, JNF distributed Esther’s stories to every child in every Hebrew school in the United States and several other countries, making her—at least among children—one of the most widely-read Jewish authors of her day. In 2017, she published an autobiographical young adult novel, Best Friends: A Bond that Survived Hitler. The German government supported a German translation which appeared in 2019. A collection of her poetry, Poems of Sorrow, Solace and Spirituality, including poetry reflecting on the major events of Jewish history to which she was an eye-witness, appeared in 2021.

In 2010 Estee and her brother, the historian Abraham Ascher, were asked to speak at the rededication of the synagogue where they worshipped in their youth in Breslau, the White Stork Synagogue. This led to an ongoing engagement between Estee and students and teachers in dedicated to Holocaust education in Germany and Poland. She appeared as one 5 protagonists in the feature film Wir Sind Juden aus Breslau (2016), and traveled to Europe to work with German and Polish high school students.

Estee is survived by her brother Abraham Ascher (Anna), her sister-in-law Elsie Cohen, her children Jerrey Adler, Faye Greenleaf (Stewart) and Andy Adler (Ann Braude), grandchildren Moriel Greenleaf, Tobin Greenleaf, Emma Adler and Benjamin Adler, and many nieces, nephews and their children in both Israel and the United States. She will be interred beside her beloved husband Shimon at Eternal Light Memorial Park in Boynton Beach, Florida, on Monday, September 30, 2024, at 10:45. Weather permitting, the graveside service will be streamed at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81482225525?pwd=aQiHQPDASzpTFKQWeEsISN5i9JL4hN.1

In lieu of flowers, Estee’s memory may be honored with contributions to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) for the support of refugees, the Orchard Cove Scholarship Fund, or Congregation Eitz Chayim in Cambridge, MA.