F TAY-SACHS
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Sister Continued from Page 1
and her uncle, Harold.

But the next line down
surprised her. To Marci
Goldfinger’s knowledge, her
father had only had two siblings,
his older brother Harold and his
younger sister, Ruth (Irving and
Ruth were not included in the
1930 census as it predated their
births). Why was there a line for
an older sister named “Norma
Goldfinger?” Marci Goldfinger called up
her father, and asked him that
question. He was silent for a
while. “That must be the name of
my sister,” he finally answered.

Irving Goldfinger, 88, was
a child when he first learned
about the existence of an older
sister, one who died before he
was born. It was something
he heard by accident, secretive
grown-up talk that a child hears
in passing. When his parents
died in 1990, Irving Goldfinger
had never asked them about
what he was sure he’d heard
once, decades before.

And even after Marci
Goldfinger turned up the name
“Norma” in 2012 — the first
time Irving Goldfinger put a
name to an idea — he didn’t
know what to do with the
information. It was only after
watching a “Sunday Morning”
segment in the fall of 2020
about the desecration of a Black
cemetery that it clicked for him:
He needed to find Norma.

He wasn’t sure how he was
going to do it. The pandemic
was entering its most deadly
stage, keeping him isolated at
home in Richboro, and he did
not use the internet. But he felt
more than a compulsion to try.

He felt a responsibility.

“Life is important,” Irving
Goldfinger said. “To some
people in the world today,
life is not important. Life is
important. She existed. And I
want to honor her.”
Irving Goldfinger was born
in 1932. Sadie Goldfinger, a
born Philadelphian, was at
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM home with her children, and
Abraham Goldfinger, born
in Poland, was a cutter for J.

Maimon & Sons, a clothing
company, eventually rising to
the level of foreman.

Irving Goldfinger graduated
from Central High School before
earning an accounting degree
from Temple University. In
1956, just a few years out from
Temple, Goldfinger married
Estelle Miller, and the two were
married until her death on Dec.

1, 2018, their 62nd anniver-
sary. They had two daughters
together, Marci Goldfinger,
of Chalfont, who works for
Johnson & Johnson, and Susan
Goldfinger Bilker, of Jamison, a
licensed clinical social worker.

For 50 years, Irving Goldfinger
earned a living as a CPA, special-
izing in fraud analysis.

“I learned early: Where there’s
smoke, there’s fire,” he said. “You
could smell it.” He was a partner
at Laventhol & Horwath for 23
years, which came to a crashing
end in 1990 when the company
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
according to the Chicago
Tribune archives.

That same year, both of his
parents died and they took
any information about Irving
Goldfinger’s sister with them
to the family plot in Roosevelt
Memorial Park.

“It was boom, boom, boom,”
Susan Goldfinger Bilker said. “It
was rough for him.” In the fall of
2020, when Goldfinger informed
his daughters of his intentions to
find his older sister, they could
see how freighted with meaning
the search would become.

“This has been a quest for
him,” Marci Goldfinger said,
“and it would be a relief that we
found her.”
In October, with help from
his daughters, Irving Goldfinger
decided that it was finally time
to find some facts, and more
specifically, to find Norma.

“She was alive, she was
a person,” he said, his voice
cracking. “And she is not being
recognized.” The trio began to file
records requests, searching
for traces of Norma in the
archives of Philadelphia and
Pennsylvania. Having found
Norma’s date of death — Aug.

13, 1931 — they were able to
file with the Commonwealth
of Pennsylvania for her death
certificate. In October, they
received a copy.

Norma Goldfinger was born
on Sept. 21, 1929, and died at
the age of 23 months, with the
cause listed as “diabetes acidosis
with coma.” Her father’s name
is misstated as “Albert” — that
was his nickname — and his
place of birth is incorrectly
listed as Russia, rather than
to place a stone on Norma’s grave
can seem dim. But her father
always had a mind for details,
and he remains a sharp thinker.

“It would be a wonderful thing, to
be able to honor her and to be able
to say yizkor and do all the things
that you should do for family.”
Irving Goldfinger is distraught
that his search is taking so long,
but he is persisting with the help
of his daughters. As he said,
where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

And he believes there’s an awful
lot of smoke. l
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“Life is important. To some people in the world today, life is not
important. Life is important. She existed. And I want to honor her.”
IRVING GOLDFINGER
Poland. The burial date: Aug.

14. The cemetery: Har Jehuda.

They called Har Jehuda, who
told the trio that there was no
record of a Norma Goldfinger.

Irving Goldfinger was told that in
1931, there was such an influx of
bodies due to a wave of influenza
that the cemetery was “overrun.”
They decided to widen their pool,
calling the undertaker company
listed on the death certificate,
Mount Jacob Cemetery, Mount
Sharon Cemetery and King David
Memorial Park, but they had no
luck getting any closer to Norma.

G old f i nger
a sked
Rabbi Charles Briskin of
Congregation Shir Ami to
make some calls on his behalf;
Briskin obliged, but could turn
up no new information.

Hoping for something more,
the family paid for the full file
on Norma from the Medical
Examiner’s Office in Philadelphia.

The money was returned with a
letter, letting them know that
records from that time period had
been lost in a flood.

“Time is ticking,” Susan
Goldfinger Bikler acknowledged,
and the likelihood of being able
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MAY 27, 2021
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