Gregorio (Gershon) Faigon

• General Notes
  • [by Yehoshua, in a letter to Lee Feigon, 21Jul02] Dear Lee,
    Two years ago, during the night between July 22 and July 23, passed away my brother Gershon, ben Itzhak. Like your father, Gershon Gedaliah's and Gershon Ishike's, he was one of the three Gershon that received his name "in memoriam" their grandparent, Gershon ben Itzhak Faigon, buried at Belogorodka.
    My elder brother Gershon was 5 year old when we lost our mother Feige Ehrlich. Since then, Gershon became my protector, and helped me along all his life.
    Gershon was more than that. He helped almost everyone of our brother and sisters, and did the same with many people that only he knew, I remember that when he was a very young boy, he was asked by one of the Jews in the town where we lived then (my father was there a Jewish teacher) to draw in Hebrew letters the name of his dead wife in order to allow the only engraver, a gentile, to put her name on her tomb. Gershon did it very nice (he was a pupil in the elementary school, and his language was Spanish)
    and refused to take the money ( something like a dollar or two) that the widow, that was very happy with Gershon's work,  gave him. It took the man enough efforts to convince Gershon to accept the payment. At those times, our family, composed by two parents and six children, lived from the very short salary of our father. We, the children, use to recieve from our parents five cents each, for candies, only once or twice a year.
    When the man left our house, Gershon gave the  money he get to our father.
    When Gershon left our house in our town for the great city, Buenos Aires, in order to learn Engineering, he paid himself his maintenance working together with is learning. It was in the thirties, during the great world crisis. When the Jewish School where our father was teacher, closed its doors because of lacking of funds, my father begin to handle with candies -in packs of one kilo each-  that he acquired at Buenos Aires and sold to the groceries in our town. Once, being a student, working hard, Gershon surprised all of us sending home fifty kilos of candies that he bought and paid for them alone from his earning.
    Being already an engineer with a family of his own, Gershon devoted his free time to the Jewish Community and because of his honesty, his devotion, his intelligence,  he was elected for the highest positions in the Jewish Community. He was elected Chairman of the DAIA (Delegacion de Asociaciones israelitas Argentinas) the highest representative organization of all the Jewish Institutions. After them, he was also elected Chairman of the Latin-American Jewish Congress. He was also the man that organized and managed the Jewish Organization of Self Defence . It was a secret organization, because the Argentinean government was most of the time nazi oriented. Then he was personally suited at de Justice  by a Nationalist (nazi) Organization and was defended, free, by the most famous Jewish lawyer. He won the cause.
    His deeds were oriented mostly to help his Jewish people, but he helped also in general affairs. He  was elected President of the Argentinean Chamber of Engineers, he was designed by a democratic government of Buenos Aires City as one of the Directors of the Municipal Bank of Mortgages, and as such he elaborated and activated a Financial Plan that allowed many humble people to buy their own home.
    
    [more by Yehoshua] He was my protector and very generous to everyone of our family. As a child of 13 he gave our father the first two dollars he earned drawing the Hebrew characters for a grave of a Jew that a gentile had to carve. Gershon was devoted, as our father, to his broad family and to the Jewish people. He was elected, because of his virtues, president of DAIA, the official representation of all the Jewish organizations and later, president of the LatinoAmerican Jewish Congress. He was also responsible for the Jewish Self-Defence against the nazis in Argentina and was suited in Court by them. As an engineer, he developed for Buenos Aires Municipality a plan for savings and acquisition of popular housing and was Director of the
    Argentinean National Mortgage Bank and President of the Centro Argentino de Ingenieros.
    
    [by Roberto Tomchinsky] Queridos Celia, Iehoshúa: A tu pedido te reseñaré brevemente lo que recordé de Gregorio en el acto del Centro Argentino de Ingenieros: La familia Faigón llegó a Tres Arroyos en los primeros años de la década del 30, procedente de la Prov. de Entre Ríos,
    habiendo sido elegido el Sr. Isaac Faigón, padre de Gregorio, maestro de la escuela israelita de esa mi ciudad natal. Ahí fue donde aprendimos gracias a las enseñanzas de quien fue nuestro querido maestro a estudiar la historia
    del pueblo judío y a leer la Biblia en su idioma hebreo original. Gregorio fue compañero mío de escuela primaria, de Colegio Nacional y de la Facultad de Ingeniería de Buenos Aires, aunque él cursaba un año más adelantado que yo. Siempre se destacó Gregorio por su hombría de bien y con una capacidad enorme de saber discernir las cosas, no equivocando el camino y tratando de componer las buenas relaciones entre amigos, cuando alguna diferencia circunstancial hubiera podido separarlos.
    Eso es en síntesis lo que pronuncié en el CAI en forma improvisada pues cuando me informó Delia que se programaba el acto para tal día y hora no le entendí que, también estaría a cargo mío, entre otras personalidades, hablar en su memoria, lo cual interpreto como un honor que me confirieron, pero hubiera preferido ir mejor preparado. Después me aclaró Delia que al invitarme y decirme "semblanza de un amigo", que efectivamente recuerdo que
    me dijo esa frase, daba por sentado que me invitaba para hablar sobre ello cuando yo solo interpreté que se refería al acto como tal. En fin, se ve que alguna palabra se perdió en la línea telefónica. Pero lo principal es que el acto tuvo gran lucimiento y quedó claro ante todos los presentes, entre los
    que estaban sus hijos, el buen recuerdo que dejó Gregorio en todos los ámbitos en que le tocó actuar.
    
    [by Delia]
    - Vicepresidente y luego presidente de DAIA entre 1960/70
    - Del 70 al 75, vicepresidente del Congreso Judío Latinoamericano
    - Del 75 al 86, presidente del CJL y miembro del Ejecutivo del CJ  Mundial.
    - En enero del 86 elegido presidente emérito de la rama latino-americana y vice presidente honorario del CJM.
    - Integró el Board del Technion, no tengo fechas.
    

Details of Gregorio (Gershon)'s family with Delia Schprejer