April 21, 2015

Eli Davidsohn

Eli Davidsohn was born in 1943 in La Paz, Bolivia, during the darkest years of the Second World War. His parents had fled Germany in 1939 after witnessing Kristallnacht, escaping through Paris after a dramatic bluff at a visa office where his father claimed to have a gun. Bolivia was one of the few countries that would admit them, made possible by an affidavit from a wealthy man his grandmother had married. Other relatives were not so fortunate, including an aunt who was sent back to Germany and killed. In Bolivia his father learned mining by sitting at the mine shaft and eventually became a mining engineer and general manager. Eli grew up with three synagogues, a Jewish school, and a great deal of Yiddishkeit, though he also faced harsh antisemitism.

After a revolution nationalized the mines, the family moved to Lima, Peru, where Eli attended a Jewish school and stayed until graduating high school in 1962. He had begun playing the accordion around age ten and was deeply involved in Jewish and Zionist youth life. His father died of a heart attack when Eli was sixteen, leaving the family without plans for the future. At eighteen Eli traveled alone to America, arriving in Los Angeles with about five hundred dollars from selling his piano. He found the Jewish community there unwelcoming but worked at Max Factor making theatrical makeup. Encouraged by his mother to persevere, he later moved to Houston, where his family joined him and his life truly began.

Drafted into the U.S. Army, Eli trained at Fort Polk and Fort Benning and was headed to Vietnam when a chaplain recognized his ability to lead services and made him a chaplain's assistant in charge of the Jewish chapel. Later stationed at Fort Wolters near Mineral Wells, he took Jewish soldiers to services in Fort Worth, where he met his future wife, Linda. After leaving the Army he worked for General Dynamics, later for a Texas Jewish newspaper where he watched printing technology evolve from lead type to computers. Settling in Dallas, he and Linda raised four children and have nine grandchildren. Eli taught Judaism for many years, including twelve years at Temple Shalom, and considers keeping Yiddishkeit alive his life's mission. He calls the present his happiest time.

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