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Survivor, Brith Shalom
Executive Sid Bari Dies at 98
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Est.1988 6
OCTOBER 21, 2021
O B I T UARY
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
SID BARI, HOLOCAUST
survivor, former Brith Sholom
Foundation executive director
and 50-year-plus member of
Har Zion Temple in Penn Valley
died on Oct. 2. He was 98.

Following a fall and lacer-
ation to his face, Bari suffered
complications from necrotizing
fasciitis, a bacterial infection.

Through an extended hospital
stay and four surgeries from
Aug. 18 until his death, Bari
was a fighter, according to his
son Jon Bari.

“As painful as the last
two months have been, we’ve
chosen to focus on celebrating
his amazing and remarkably
long and healthy life,” Jon Bari
said. “That speaks to the grit
and resilience that he imparted
to us by example over the years.”
Sid Bari was no stranger
to grit or resilience. He fled
Nazi-occupied Hamburg,
Germany in 1939 and was
one of the first recipients of
open-heart surgery, completed
by Dr. Robert Gross, consid-
ered the father of open-heart
surgery, in the early 1940s.

Born Siegfried Bari in
Hamburg, Germany, on Nov.

20, 1922 to Leon Bari and
Frances Belzinger, Sid Bari
and his brothers Fred and
William loved to play with their
next-door neighbors until their
neighbors joined the Hitler
Youth and were no longer
permitted to play with them.

Leon Bari, a traveling
haberdashery salesman, was
“a canary in the coal mine,”
according to Jon Bari, and
through his travels, was able
to sense the changing tide in
Europe and plan his family’s
escape to the United States.

With only enough money to
send half of his family overseas,
Leon Bari fled with eldest son
JEWISH EXPONENT
Sid Bari was described by Har
Zion Temple Cantor Eliot Vogel as
having an evident joie de vivre.

Courtesy of Jon Bari
Fred Bari in 1938, leaving Sid
and William Bari behind with
their mother.

“The family was split up,
never knowing that they would
see each other again,” Jon Bari
said. Over the next year, Leon
Bari saved enough money for
a $10,000 bond to reunite his
family in New York. Sid Bari
and his brother and mother
came to America on the S.S.

Washington in June 1939,
narrowly escaping the begin-
ning of World War II.

Upon his arrival in New
York, Sid Bari was diagnosed
with a heart murmur, which
prompted his eventual surgery.

Later in life, Sid Bari
returned to Europe multiple
times, including to Hamburg
with his family in 2005. He
took them to his childhood
Bornplatz Synagogue, where he
became a bar mitzvah and read
the entire parsha of Toldot.

He traveled to Spain and
Germany through the American
Cantors Assembly, where he
heard performances of Western
European melodies of psalms
that reminded him of his youth.

Har Zion Temple Cantor
Eliot Vogel described Sid
Bari as having an evident
joie de vivre, even despite his
challenging childhood.

“I don’t exactly know how
he made peace with it, if you
ever did entirely,” Vogel said.

“His answer to the Shoah was
devoting his life to building the
Jewish community.”
Sid Bari was not only the
executive director of the Brith
Sholom Foundation retirement
community from 1965 to 1995,
but also worked for B’nai B’rith
International in New York
from 1962 to 1965 and helped
develop a Beit Halochem center
for wounded and disabled
Israeli war veterans in Haifa.

A lover of culture and arts,
Sid Bari and his wife of 62 years
Joan Bari frequented the Temple
University Association for
Retired Persons, now the Osher
Lifelong Learning Institute.

“He was the big man on
campus there,” Jon Bari said.

The couple loved to attend
museums and theater, including
trips to see the Metropolitan
Opera in New York.

Sid Bari also was a deeply
committed grandfather. While
in the hospital, he insisted upon
traveling with his family to
Harrisburg, where his grandson
Jax, 8, was being featured on
a segment about celiac disease
awareness on “World News
Tonight with David Muir.”
Though Sid Bari was unable
to make it to the event, Jon
Bari was touched by his father’s
effort. As a child, Jon Bari loved
to watch the news with his
father, asking him questions
about politics and economics
during airings of “CBS News
with Walter Cronkite,” a tradi-
tion that continues with Jon
Bari and Jax.

In a letter to Muir, Jax wrote,
“I watch you every night on
‘World News’ with my dad, just
like my dad grew up watching
Walter Cronkite with his father.”
See Bari, Page 22
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM