When Mildred Pechman was working at Palo Alto’s South Peninsula Jewish Community Center, a female youth director there caught her eye.
“You have to meet my son,” Pechman told her. Pechman finally invited her to the family’s second seder, where she could meet her son Michael. The rest is history; Deborah Bresler became Pechman’s daughter-in-law.
Pechman, who made her mark in the Jewish communities of Pittsburg, Palo Alto and Aptos, died March 11 in Rancho Mirage. She was 83.
Mildred Elaine Haims was born Dec. 23, 1920, in Columbus, Ohio, where her mother’s family owned a grocery chain. Pechman was 6 when her father, a salesman for Goodyear, died from complications following foot surgery. He was 26.
Pechman attended Kent State University, but did not graduate. In 1939, she married Benjamin Bloom, an artist and performer. He was stationed at Camp Stoneman during World War II, where she joined him.
While at the historic post in Pittsburg, Pechman obtained permission to use the church for synagogue services. Realizing there was no religious school in the community, she and her friend built one.
“When she saw a community need, she would try to address it,” said her son Michael Bloom of Danville.
Pechman was involved in numerous religious causes, and served as the assistant to the director of the Jewish Welfare Board in Pittsburg. She was also a co-founder of Beth Israel Community Center, which later grew into Congregation B’nai Shalom in Walnut Creek. She served numerous positions in local B’nai B’rith, Hadassah and Pioneer Women chapters.
If a Jewish drifter showed up in Pittsburg, the police knew to take him to the Bloom home, said Michael Bloom, where they would offer a hot meal, a place to sleep and a bus ticket to the Jewish Welfare Board in the city the following morning.
After her husband’s death in 1974, Pechman became administrative manager of the South Peninsula JCC.
She married Alexander Pechman in 1979, and they moved to Aptos, where Pechman became an active member of Temple Beth El/Jewish Community Center.
Rabbi Richard Litvak, Beth El’s spiritual leader, said the growth of the synagogue from some 250 families to 500 in the last decade was largely because of Pechman’s programming expertise.
In 2003, the Pechmans moved to Palm Desert, where she became active with Temple Sinai.
In addition to her husband, Pechman is survived by her sons Richard of Pacifica and Michael, and four grandchildren.
Contributions can be made to Temple Beth El/JCC 3055 Porter Gulch Road, Aptos, CA 95003.