אריה לייב זקס

Arie Sacks z"l My beloved father ע"ה, who passed away on 18 Cheshvan 5772 (the evening of Nov. 14, 2011)

Arie Leib Sacks was born in Jerusalem in 1925, in Misgav Ladach hospital which was then in the Old City on Misgav Ladach St.

Moving from house to house, the family relocated to several different neighborhoods of Jerusalem during my father's childhood: Ge'ula, Musrara, Bukharim, and Shimon ha-Tzadik.

Dad studied at the Alliance Francaise school and played soccer for Beitar Yerushalayim's youth team.

In 1945 he was drafted into the US Army -- why he had US citizenship is a story within itself -- and he served in Egypt, Sudan, Turkey and Germany before he was discharged in 1947.

After WWII ended, most of the family relocated to the United States, settling in the Bronx. Dad studied electronic engineering at a vocational school and applied to be a radio engineer at NBC, but he was frustrated by the perennial paradox -- how to get a job with no experience, how to gain experience without a job.

Looking for temporary work while still hoping to find work in radio, in 1949 he applied for a job as a clerk at a new airline called EL AL Israel airlines. What started as temporary work developed into a career, and he continued to work at EL AL from 1949 until 1990 when he retired. For many years he was chief supervisor of the EL AL terminal at JFK airport. His last position was as manager of the EL AL ticketing office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza -- the NBC Building.

In 1967, he met my mother Rina Frenkel who was vacationing in America and visiting friends in the Bronx. They fell in love and married at the end of the year. Almost a year later to the day, I was born. I was named after both my late grandfathers, Elyakim on my mother's side and Yitzchak on my father's side.

We lived for many years in Baldwin, Long Island. When I decided to make aliyah and move to Israel in 1994, I delayed my decision until I could convince my parents that retiring to Israel made more sense than retiring to Florida.

In 1996, my parents moved to Israel and bought an apartment in Kfar Saba. In September 2011, they moved to Modi'in to be closer to me and my family, while Dad was finally succumbing to a long series of illnesses. He died peacefully in his new apartment on Nov. 14, 2011.

He is survived by:

• his loving wife, Rina Sacks
• his only child, Elli Sacks
• doting daughter-in-law, Adina Abramowitz Sacks and three grandchildren who brought him much joy: Keshet, Yuval, and Ya'er. Four years after his parting, another grandchild was born into his family, Noam Arie.