PEORIA MAGAZINE January 2023

Bradley University professor and "Reflect and Remember" moderator Seth Katz, left, talks with the children of Holocaust survivors

S P O T L I G H T

NEVER FORGET Sam Rothberg helped us remember the Holocaust in Peoria, where the relationship with Israel remains strong

BY MIKE BAILEY PHOTO BY RON JOHNSON

I t all started with “Sam of Peoria.” Indeed, the connective tissue that to this day helps bind Peoria with the Jewish state of Israel was largely born of the efforts of Samuel Rothberg, a son of Ukraine who came to Peoria for work and never left, making it his home. But while his feet were firmly planted in the fertile fields of central Illinois, a big piece of his heart was beating in a desert nation more than 6,000 miles away. In 1947, Rothberg was a successful business executive in the U.S., at Ameri canDistilling Co. here in the Peoria area. A trip overseas put him in the company of the orphans of the Holocaust, the children with no families left, stranded in camps, awaiting their fates.

That silent vow turned into solid action as Rothberg co-founded the State of Israel Bonds program, which would raise billions for the development of the Jewish state. He would chair the international board of Hebrew University in Jerusalem – the International School there bears his name -- as he would serve on the board of Bradley University in Peoria. His generosity also made multiple institutions devoted to the pursuit of peace andmedical research possible in Israel. He helped plant the seeds that sprouted into Israel’s status today as a high-tech powerhouse, the Mideast’s Silicon Valley. FromDavid Ben-Gurion through Golda Meir and beyond, he was on a first-name basis with Israel’s prime ministers.

Sam Rothberg

“I just could not stop the tears,” he would later recall. “I decided then and there, I was going to do everything that I could to see that this never happens to my children.”

66 JANUARY 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE