Bobbie Goldfarb
Bobbie Goldfarb
Jewish Family and Children Services
Don’t be hard on yourself if you make a mistake. Work towards the positive. Love each other and get to know each other.
Bobbie Goldfarb
Jewish Family and Children Services
My name is Bobbie Goldfarb. I believe in living everyday to the fullest and being supportive to all people. I am holding a piece of thread. I got to thinking about my life. The main thread that goes through all my stories which connects is the thread of Tikkun Olam, which means ‘to repair the world.’
My soul is about repairing the world. This is who I am. I am a person who lives for Tikkun Olam. It started way back when I wasn’t even born. Many survivors from the holocaust of World War II came to America. Some came to Minneapolis and some were my relatives.
We had an open door. I lived with people in our home who we helped nurture back. Some came to our home without fingers, with broken hearts and unable to speak our language. I would wash their feet and help them with English.
In Judaism, Abraham had a tent with four open doors and that is embodied in us. We live that kind of life. I grew up in a home where everybody helped everybody.
I love being with the children. I love holding the children. I thought I’d like to be a teacher. I became a kindergarten teacher in north Minneapolis. It was such a joy to nurture the children and the children of our neighbors.
Then I transitioned into a time when we had a Jewish School called Talmud Torah. This is another school in this community where for one hundred years children learned the Hebrew language and learned the Jewish culture.
Can you believe kids that when I was growing up Jewish doctors couldn’t practice medicine in this city in the hospital because they were Jewish? Does that not sound crazy? Does that make sense? Today it is different. Everybody works together. That’s the way it should be.
Tikkun Olam
Honoring Bobbie Goldfarb
Tikkun Olam
This is the yarn
This is the thread
That runs through my life
Through all that I’ve said
An open door
Like Abraham
To give thanks each day
To do all that can
Tikkun Olam
To repair this world
For every boy
For every girl
From overseas
Families came
Basha Elka
My Yiddish name
To wash the feet
Of those who survived
World War II
So many died
Tikkun Olam
To repair this world
For every boy
For every girl
When growing up
Could not believe
Jewish doctors
Were told to leave
Had to find work
If you were a Jew
Some people would not
Sell homes to you
Tikkun Olam
To repair this world
For every boy
For every girl
From teacher school
I was then called
To Mechinah
Talmud Torah
To helping those
Who needed to meet
Someone to love
Someone to keep
Tikkun Olam
To repair this world
For every boy
For every girl
Whatever is
In front of you
Be positive
To make it through
Take your ideas
Put them in flight
Beautiful children
Beautiful life
Tikkun Olam
To repair this world
For every boy
For every girl
Words & music by Larry Long with Mr. Plantz and Ms. Robinson’s 6th grade class of Cedar Manor Elementary School. St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
© Larry Long 2007 / BMI