Edith Ritzenberg dies at 94

Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, she started out life as Edith Heneck, then Edith H. “Edna” Ritzenberg got married in Italy and lived in Virginia, Cleveland, Far Rockaway, Woodmere, Hewlett Neck and Massachusetts.

The journey ended just weeks shy of her 95th birthday as Ritzenberg died on Oct. 12. She was 94.

Born in Cape Town on Dec. 11, 1928 to Eva and Joseph Heneck, Ritzenberg grew up to be a teacher and while working in 1955, she brought her nieces and nephews to Cape Town’s port to see the aircraft carrier USS Midway. Before the visit, she had called the ship to offer hospitality to the Jewish sailors as part of a Union of Jewish Women program.

Phil Ritzenberg was the liaison officer that Edna spoke with and turned out to be the duty officer during the visit. After which, Phil went with Edna to her sister’s farm for dinner and to Table Mountain, a South African landmark. The couple spent two days together, then exchanged what son Jeremy called “love letters” for a year.

Offered a job teaching English in Tel Aviv, she told Phil of her plans and he suggested that they meet in Naples, which was her ship’s last stop before heading to Israel.

“Phil then hitch-hiked a series a series of Navy planes to meet Edna in Naples, where they hired witnesses off the street and were married, in Italian, by the then vice-mayor of Naples,” Jeremy wrote.

From there the newlyweds moved to the navy base in Norfolk then to Cleveland, where their sons, Jonathan and Jeremy, were born. In Ohio, Edna picked up her teaching career and when the family came to Long Island and first settled in Woodmere, she taught fourth, fifth and sixth grades at Ogden Elementary School in the Hewlett-Woodmere school district. She also ran the gifted student program.

Edna was the first teacher at Ogden to wear pants, “breaking the ice for the other women teachers at Ogden and throughout the school district,” Jeremy wrote.

She was the only Hewlett-Woodmere teacher to host a sitting president in her classroom as the Democrat invited President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, to the school, while he was campaigning nearby for re-election in 1984. Reagan posed for photos with Edna and each one of her students.

Edna was a longtime member of Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere and Temple Beth El in Cedarhurst, served as president of the National Council of Jewish Women-Peninsula Chapter, was a life-long member of Hadassah and served as deputy mayor for Hewlett Neck village. After she retired from teaching, Edna became a sought-after docent at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in Manhattan.

After Phil died in 2022, Edna moved to the Orchard Cove retirement community in Canton, Massachusetts. She was an active and vital part of that community up to her death.

She was preceded in death by her brother Harold Heneck and sisters Esther “Babsie” Dorman, Connie Anderson and Joy Herman, Edna is survived by her children and grandchildren and countless beloved nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews in Australia, England, South Africa and the United States.

There will be a memorial service at the Stanetsky Memorial Chapel in Canton at 11 a.m. on Oct. 22. Then a shiva luncheon at Orchard Cove. The chapel service will be livestreamed at TinyUrl.com/Edith-H-Ritzenberg.

Donations can be made to the United Jewish Appeal, UjaFedNy.org, the Nature Conservancy, NatureConservancy.org or to the Jewish National Fund, JNF.org.