obituaries
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
B y all accounts, Yvonne Sytner
Lutzner was a “beautiful,
charming and magnetic”
woman. As her daughter Jodie Garay
explained, “There was something about
her. People loved her.”
Garay doesn’t doubt that this qual-
ity helped her mother survive the
Holocaust. Born in 1934 in Antwerp, Belgium,
she hid in plain sight under an
assumed name through the Shoah and
World War II. Sytner Lutzner, who
was Jewish, stayed with two differ-
ent non-Jewish families, even going to
church every morning during her time
with one of them.

After the war, while staying in an
orphanage for Jewish children, Sytner
30 Lutzner was spotted by a cousin in
the Army, who put her on a refugee
ship to America. Once there, “she was
welcomed by her uncle, Louis Sitner, in
Philadelphia” and raised by his daugh-
ter and son-in-law, Miriam Sitner
Clibanoff and Louis Clibanoff, accord-
ing to her family. And in 1954 she
married “the boy next door,” Herman
Lutzner, and raised a family with him
in Havertown for the next 64 years.

“She was a positive and upbeat per-
son,” Garay said. “She was so grateful
to have family and to have created
family.” Sytner Lutzner died on Oct. 12. She
was 87.

The Holocaust survivor is survived
by her children Jodie Garay (Andrea
Stanley) and Jeffrey Lutzner (Jessica
DeGroot) and three grandchildren.

She is also survived by her little sis-
OCTOBER 27, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
ter/biological cousin Lynne Selkow, the
daughter of the Clibanoffs who grew
up with Sytner Lutzner. The “sisters”
talked every day for the rest of their
lives. “It’s just what we did,” Selkow said.

In August 1942, Sytner Lutzner’s
brother had already been transported
to Auschwitz, according to Garay. So
her parents, Abram and Rosa Sytner,
tried to save their daughter by paying
a non-Jewish family to take care of her.

The Sytners knew the parents, who
lived north of Antwerp, because their
son had gone to school with Sytner-
Lutzner’s brother.

For more than a year, the young girl
pretended to be Catholic and went to
church every morning. The nuns and
priest knew she was Jewish, kept it a
secret and did not even make her take
confession. Over time, Sytner Lutzner
“kind of fell in love with the church,”
her daughter said.

“I think she felt safe there,” Garay
added. Soon after, though, Sytner Lutzner
no longer felt safe. One of the family
members, Garay believes, was having
an affair with a German soldier. But
the underground network in Belgium
helped transport Sytner Lutzner to a
different family in Brussels, the Le
Chats, with whom she stayed until the
end of the war.

The young girl’s new guardians were
“a bit older,” Garay said, with a daugh-
ter in her early 20s. And they treated
Sytner Lutzner like a second daughter,
giving her all the food, protection and
comfort she needed.

“They loved her,” Garay said. “She
loved them.”
Sytner Lutzner would have stayed
with the Le Chats, but Zionist organi-
zations were gathering Jewish children
into orphanages for survivor parents to
identify. Sytner Lutzner never saw her
parents again, but she did run into that
distant cousin in the Army, who filled
out the paperwork that allowed her to
emigrate. Garay, whose mother told her every-
thing about her Holocaust experience,
is still not sure how, exactly, the cousin
knew Sytner Lutzner was a member of
his extended family.

“He found her,” the daughter said.

If he hadn’t, the young girl never
would have met Herman Lutzner, who
literally lived next door. Once they
started dating when he was 26 and she
20, they became “inseparable,” accord-
ing to Garay.

After they started a family, Herman
Lutzner worked and she stayed home.

As their daughter explained, her focus
was her family.

She cooked great meals like spaghetti
and chicken. She attended every sport-
ing event that her children played in.

Her unconditional love enabled them
to “walk with confidence,” said Jeffrey
Lutzner, who later went on to own a
manufacturing company.

And once her children had chil-
dren, Sytner Lutzner loved her grand-
kids even more unconditionally. Jeff
Lutzner, his wife Jessica DeGroot and
their kids Jocelyn and Julian lived
in the Philadelphia area, so the kids
would go over to their grandparents’
house in Havertown every Friday night
growing up.

Yvonne Sytner Lutzner would cook
dinner, and the four of them would
play Scrabble, watch TV shows like
“Reno 911!” and go for walks in a
nearby park. The grandma even took
care of the family dog, Meeko.

“She was a big proponent of spending
quality time together,” Julian DeGroot-
Lutzner said. JE
jsaffren@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of the Lutzner family
Holocaust Survivor Yvonne Sytner
Lutzner Dies at 87



synagogue spotlight
What’s happening at ... Lechu Neranena
Lechu Neranena Seeks to Expand
Women’s Role in Prayer
SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
A t Lechu Neranena partnership
minyan in Lower Merion, the
mechitza, the partition used
to divide the men and women in a
prayer space, remains a fi xture in the
Orthodox community.

However, instead of the davening
stand skewing toward the men’s side,
it sits directly in the middle of the
divider, equally visible to both sides of
the community.

Th e set-up of Lechu Neranena’s prayer
space — which has various changing
locations in minyan member’s homes
— is representative of the partnership
minyan’s “liberal Orthodox” philoso-
phy of “creating a spiritual and inclu-
sive atmosphere within the framework
of halacha,” according to the spiritual
community’s website.

Founded in May 2012, Lechu
Neranena is now home to 20-50 min-
yan members for weekly Shabbat ser-
vices and holiday gatherings, though
its email listserv has swelled to 227
interested parties.

Men and women participate in their
respective Torah services, with women
also reading from the scrolls. Women
also read the megillah over Purim
and lead Kabbalat Shabbat services on
Friday night.

“One of our values is to convey a
sense of respect and acknowledging the
importance of everyone in our com-
munity,” said Lechu Neranena board
member Noah Gradofsky, a member
of the partnership minyan for nine
years. “It is important for everyone in
the community to be able to be a part
of our religious ritual in partnership.”
Partnership is the key word,
Gradofsky said. Lechu Neranena is
part of the partnership minyan move-
ment created by the Jewish Orthodox
Feminist Alliance, a national organiza-
tion that uses halachic interpretations
to advocate for women’s rights.

“Driven by multigenerational com-
munal interest and leadership, partner-
ship minyanim create an environment
Louie Asher reads from the megillah on Purim in March.

that is not just about giving women the
opportunity to lead, but a space where
men and women can lead together,”
said JOFA Executive Director Daphne
Lazar Price.

The concept was first devel-
oped in 2001 by Modern Orthodox
Rabbi Mendel Shapiro and Bar-Ilan
University Talmud Professor Rabbi
Daniel Sperber, who argued that Jewish
law permitted women to read from the
Torah and participate in prayer rituals,
under certain parameters.

In some other Jewish communities,
women are not permitted to pray in
front of men because it violates kol
isha, the idea that men should not hear
women’s singing voices, Lazar Price
said. Others argue that the participa-
tion of women in the Torah services is
against kavod hatzibur, the dignity of a
congregation. According to Lazar Price, Shapiro
and Sperber posited that the principle of
kavod habriyot, human dignity, super-
seded these other Jewish principles.

Partnership minyanim, including
Lechu Neranena, still set some bound-
aries on participation. In addition to
the mechitza, women do not usually
lead the Saturday morning Shabbat
service or maariv, evening services.

Women are not permitted to lead the
amidah, kaddish or kedushah.

Th ere is some wiggle room, however.

With more than 40 partnership minya-
nim across the world, there’s bound to
be some diff erences in how services are
led, Lazar Price said.

“Some minyanim may have a spir-
itual leader who advises them, and
who guides or leads their partnership
minyan on a regular basis. Others may
follow the generally accepted practices
... and consult a halakhic authority as
needed for particular cases,” she said.

Lechu Neranena works with halachic
adviser Rabbi Martin Lockshin, who
off ers his services remotely. Otherwise,
the community is lay-led, though some
members, such as Gradofsky, are rabbis.

Th e members of the minyanim come
from a variety of backgrounds, but share
the desire for women to participate more
fully in the spiritual community.

“I have a background of strong involve-
ment with Jewish rituals and prayer
groups,” said member Louie Asher,
who’s been involved at Lechu Neranena
since shortly aft er its founding. “I’ve been
part of many diff erent types, includ-
ing Conservative synagogues, Orthodox
synagogues, chavurot, summer camps;
and I grew up in a congregation where
the rabbi was a great advocate for girls
and boys learning how to lead services
and do various rituals.”
The Orthodox population in
Philadelphia and beyond is diverse,
Asher said. She maintains the impor-
tance of mutual respect: Just as she
hopes other Orthodox communities
respect Lechu Neranena’s decision to
include women in Torah readings and
services, she, too, understands why
some Orthodox communities keep
other rituals.

“I know that some people feel like,
‘We want to do it this way. We want our
way to prevail. We want our way to be
accepted here and there,’” she said. “I
just accept that some people do it one
way, some people do it another way;
some people accept it, some people
won’t accept it. I just understand that’s
the way Jews are.” JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
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