“May Ilan’s memory be for a blessing and a revolution.”
Ilan Vitemberg was a beloved, animated, creative and energetic teacher in our Fabrangen children’s program during the 1990s, which were formative years for many now young adult Fabrangeners. Ilan passed away from long Covid on Sept. 30, 2022. Sadly, Ilan’s husband, Peter Olson, passed away October 31, 2022, only a month after Ilan died.
The Jewish News of Northern California had this article about Ilan https://jweekly.com/2022/10/04/beloved-israel-educator-ilan-vitemberg-dies-of-long-covid-57/.
- Memorial Service for Ilan – Oct. 2, 2022 – ICC@JCC
- Video of Ilan promoting a Hebrew course he was teaching on YouTube.
- ‘They had the biggest hearts’: Oakland couple left a legacy of generosity
Here are some remembrances of Ilan from Fabrangeners:
Ilan was an especially talented teacher and a loving, energetic person.He co-wrote, with Bracha and Fabrangen kids, a book about the activities of the Fabrangen Children’s Program under his direction called Crazy Recipes for Creative Activities for Jewish Children Who May be Able to Read but Who Don’t Write (on Saturdays). – Rachel Braun
I remember his “energy” – Roz Timberg
Ilan was AMAZING. As one of those little people he shepherded through countless Shabbats at Fabrangen, I knew we were so incredibly lucky to have a teacher like him. Even then, when I must have been maybe 6 or 7. He just shone. He had the energy to keep up with us, the patience to put up with us, and the leadership to help us do wonderful things. He made room for the serious and the silly, and found ways to include everyone, even as our suggested ideas for the play we were putting on took us further and further from any semblance of plot. He took us outdoors on long walks to the “rose garden” down the street whenever the weather allowed, carried us piggy-back far longer than was reasonable, and poured love and song and joy into every kid in the room, week after week. And then, when our numbers more than doubled over the high holidays, he somehow managed to co-create a play with us where we each had a chance to shine. He was a man who cried, and laughed, and could talk about feelings with us, which even as a very little kid I recognized was rare. Through much of the time he spent with us at Fabrangen, I soared along on the pure joy and zaniness we shared. But in trying to sum it up, I am remembering the deep tenderness he brought to his work and to each of us. Ilan made me feel precious and loved. I hope we will all try to do that for each other. – Sophia (Smith-Savedoff) Donforth
I remember him although my children were not part of that program. The obit described the numerous wonderful things he created and participated in that enriched Jewish life for so many people. Zichrono l’beracha. – Ruth Lis
Ilan was a wonderful teacher and friend. His voice in the YouTube video is so close to what I remember from the 90s… – Josh Soref
I certainly remember him with his vivacity & wonderful energy as he worked/played with Fabrangen kids. I recall him bounding through the sort-of sunken living room of the old G.W. Hillel building in D.C., surrounded by running yeladim on Shabbat. In my memory, he’s leading the kids or maybe he’s just ahead of them, as they’re all coming in from outside? Or all leaving the Hillel library. – Victoria Kahn
I was little when Ilan played games with me. WITH, not at, not to, WITH. I felt engaged and seen, both to be my tiny toddler self, but also to stretch, to grow, and behave like a (slightly) older child tackling themes from the torah. One of my earliest memories is of witnessing and seeing Ilan. I’m riding on my father’s shoulders as we dance in a crowd down a dirt path through the woods, singing, dancing, and blessing, the marriage ceremony we’d just watched between Ilan and Peter. When the congregation, with Ilan and Peter at the front, made it down to the river, they jumped in! I’ll never forget the abundance of joy, support, and pure elation in that moment. – Ness (Nathan) Smith-Savedoff
Ilan’s range of skill, emotion, knowledge of texts and of people, and especially his teaching ability were a blur of inspiration.
Now that Ness mentioned the wedding of Ilan & Peter, I have to say that, for me, it also was a vivid memory. A wedding in the woods of Virginia, two men publicly loving each other despite what legalities got in the way, a celebration of fun, freedom, and caring! – Bracha Laster
Ilan related to people on a 1-1 basis with his complete attention. Kind, knowledgeable, caring, and sometimes goofy. So glad to have known him, to see him happy with Peter, and sorry that he’s gone. – Steve Yaffe
Some day – when you feel ready to laugh with joy when thinking about Ilan’s life – learn some Torah through this Shavuot puppet show that Ilan and Peter, their memories for blessing, made together. Wherever you go and share with others in life, their seeds of creativity can go and spread through you. – Amy Brookman
Shavuot Puppet Show & Craft with Up a Tree Puppetry / HaMaqom – Video: 24 min.
Ilan was a bright light, emanating joy and chesed in even the briefest encounters. – Fran Teplitz
Ilan was a fabulous teacher /friend /inspirer /co-conspirator for the Fabrangen children in those years. I also felt so honored and moved by the powerful marriage ceremony that he and Peter created in the woods.
But one of the memories that has always reverberated for me was on a Shabbat when Ilan was called to the Torah. After the blessings, he told the whole community how much he valued being entrusted to teach our children. I remember him saying that, as a teenager beginning to understand his sexual orientation, he wondered if he could ever have a whole, socially-accepted, life. The time at Fabrangen was part of his healing journey and, my oh my, he certainly shared the fruits of that journey by inspiring and loving others. Zecher l’vracha Ilan and Peter. – Bill Savedoff
Ilan was fabulous at brainstorming ideas for our annual High Holiday plays. It seemed obvious at the time (and much less obvious now), that we would write these plays from scratch. There’d be no bad ideas; he’d find ways to incorporate every zany suggestion (and from a cohort of 7-12-year-olds, there were many) into a comedy-drama with an apex and a resolution. He was a master storyteller, and just so much fun. I couldn’t help but want to be in his presence. – Eli Braun
Many years ago, before I crossed that fuzzy line into adulthood, moved to Boston and became a rabbi, back when I was a kid and Shabbat mornings meant heading into DC to join our small but mighty havurah, we had a teacher.
Ilan showed up each Shabbat and traipsed the sidewalks and alleyways near GW Hillel with our rag-tag, multi-age group of kids, turning trees and legos into sentient beings, weaving our questions into stories and clues, pulling mystery tu bishvat fruits from paper bags and sharing stories of his home kibbutz,
Ilan shaped a roomful of 6-12 year old wild ideas into a somehow coherent, completely engaging, and totally eclectic high holiday play. Year after year to play with Ilan was to learn from a master educator, an artist of energy, a stealth guide to holidays, customs, histories, joy.
He was probably 20-something, such an elder at the time.
Ilan’s was the first gay wedding I attended. I remember llan and Peter dancing in vests and playing recorder like woodland nymphs in a clearing in the woods – such joy! It was wonderful, like every wedding should be, and wakened me to the injustice that this very real union would not (yet) be real in the eyes of the state.
Ilan and I stayed in touch.
We met up in Haifa when I was 16 and he led my entire rapt teen group on a tour of a demolished Bedouin village, destroyed by the Israeli government. And that evening, near his and Peter’s apartment, he showed me scenes of hope: Israelis and Arabs line-dancing together on the beach.
In college, we met up at his office in the Bay Area and he asked after each one of the Fabrangen kids, listing each family and kid by name. I was in SF researching school garden education; he gifted me a book from his shelf – my first guide to Jewish environmental education – my field (more or less) for the 15 years since.
Last May, we hadn’t spoken in years when I joined a required Israel studies webinar for work and discovered the featured teacher was Ilan!
At the end of his presentation about Israeli poetry and feminism he paused, and with an assembled Zoom screen of international educators as witness, spoke about how much he had learned from his early days as an educator at Fabrangen, working with our ragtag group of kids.
He detailed ways we had shaped him – an artist of Jewish education if ever I have known one – and ran to get the book he had co-written with my mom, Bracha, which he shared with pride, with the entire screen. He was older, as was I, but the joy and the sweetness felt young as ever.
May Ilan’s memory be for a blessing and a revolution. – “Adapted from a kavanah I shared this past Yom Kippur, in memory of Ilan.” – Laura Bellows
I am so grateful for Ilan’s care, energy, and creativity. But perhaps most of all for his wisdom in modeling the integration of life-loving silliness and social justice realness. This combination is rare. In addition to all our zany moments at Fabrangen, Ilan took my family on a powerful tour of the West Bank in 1999– opening our eyes to the injustice and hope of that conflicted land.
May his memory bless us to continue that legacy of light and love. – Abby Bellows
In the preceding remembrances, many have spoken of Ilan’s warmth, openness, and creativity. Indeed, during afternoons with him at Fabrangen, I felt at ease, a part of, encouraged to explore and express my own imagination. I have fond memories of walking with him and the other Fabrangen kids to the garden near the GW building, and of the way he’d spring into a handstand to the delight of all around him. When I was nine or ten, I had a small part in my school’s play, and Ilan and Peter showed up to attend the performance. Back then, I was of course pleased to see him. Reflecting back as an adult, I’m bowled over by how generous it was for him to use his own time to come support some kid he knew from work. His passing is a great loss. – Jacob Mazer