Holocaust survivor Faye Porter-Arenzon died of natural causes on Dec. 1 at age 100.
Born in Horodok, Ukraine, she was the only member of her immediate family — including parents, seven siblings and two daughters — to survive the Holocaust.
During the war, she and her husband, Irving Porter, were Soviet partisans and lived in the forest of Volynhia, Belarus/Ukraine for two years.
After arriving in Milwaukee, she became a homemaker and her husband, a scrap metal dealer.
A life member of Pioneer Women (now called Na’amat), she headed the Hachnasat Orchim Society, which hosts guests who visit Milwaukee.
An active member of Congregation Beth Jehudah and its Sisterhood, she received the synagogue’s Avir Yakov Award. After moving to the Minneapolis-area to be near her daughter, she received the Eshet Chayil Award from Bais Yakov High School in St. Louis Park.
She loved to cook, crochet and read the “Tzena Rena,” a Yiddish version of the Bible, her family said.
“She never lost her deep faith and saw the Creator’s kind hand in every aspect of her life and people.”
She was preceded in death by her husbands, Irving Porter, in 1979 and Yehudah Arenzon in 1986. She is survived by sons Dr. Jack Nusan Porter of Newton, Mass., and Rabbi Shlomo (Shoshana) Porter of Baltimore; daughter Bella (Rabbi Mitchell) Smith of St. Louis Park; 12 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.
Burial was in Beth Hamedrosh Hagodel Cemetery. Rabbi Michel Twerski officiated. Jewish Community Funeral Home handled the arrangements.
The family would appreciate memorial contributions to Congregation Beth Jehudah, Bais Yisroel Congregation in Minneapolis or Eitz Chaim Center in Baltimore.
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