Holocaust survivor Ivan Gluck dreamed of being of hockey star, but the 87-year-old Floridian took the ice at UBS Arena in Elmont, Long Island March 23 as an honorary captain for an historic game. As the Jerusalem Capitals took on HC Tel Aviv, it marked the first time Israeli hockey teams played in North America. He said he was thankful that Tom Avneri, co-founder of Israeli Elite Hockey League allowed him to be on the ice for the “Hatikva” and “Star Spangled Banner” and also practice with the team in Great Neck on Friday.
“Two guys on the Tel Aviv team asked me to give them a bracha,” he told The Jewish Press. “To be in the building with the crowd listening to music in Hebrew and see two Israeli hockey teams in one of the newest arenas in the NHL was a fantastic high.”
His wife Phyllis told The Jewish Press, “it’s hard to watch him skate around fast” but she was confident in his experience.
Shabbos Chicken or Detroit Red Wings?
The New York Rangers and Islanders fan said in his youth he had an opportunity to try out for the Detroit Red Wings, with a possible spot in their minor league system. He said his father told him it was up to him.
“It was a very hard decision, but I made the decision to be Shomer Shabbos,” Gluck said. “I realized it was impossible to be a professional hockey player and keep Shabbos.”
Decades later, around 1987, he would go to the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and have the opportunity to scrimmage with Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. To make him feel like one of them, players put sour cream on his knee, he said.
Asked what his favorite food was at the famed hotel, he said he couldn’t pick one.
“There was so much variety,” he said. “Those were the days, keneina hara. It was like going to a wedding, every meal.”
Fighting Antisemitism With a Quick Word Instead of Fists
When he was 14 and lived on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, he attended RJJ, Rabbi Jacob Joseph School on the Lower East Side. Gluck said he carried lunch his mother made in a paper bag and back then, the subway was safe. But the streets were not. On the way to pick up something from the pharmacy, one 17-year-old gentile told him he was a dirty Jew and three more were ready to attack him.
“I knew I had to think fast,” he said.
He explained he asked them if they got the polio vaccine, and they said they did but didn’t understand what that had to do with anything. He said the shot was developed by Jewish scientist Jonas Salk, and it saved them, so they shouldn’t attack a Jew. They decided not to fight him.
He said based largely on this incident, when people ask him how to fight antisemitism, besides Holocaust education, people should illuminate others on the many Jewish contributions to the world. He also said antisemitism is difficult to fight because part of it is due to jealousy over Israel achieving so much in a little more than 75 years as a country. He said with social media it is increasingly difficult. “Young people are going along for the ride and the tide,” he said.
Lined Up To Be Shot
Gluck was born on November 21, 1937, in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary, which was invaded in 1944. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg arranged for Jews to have Schutz Passes which provided protection.
“Remarkably, the Germans and Hungarians respected the passes because Sweden was a neutral country,” he said. “But during the last days of the war, the Germans and Hungarians didn’t care anymore. They wanted to kill as many Jews as possible. They captured the safe house we were in. We were lined up to be shot. The Hungarians called us stinking Jews. After killing nine people, they ran out of bullets so a Hungarian general sent three young boys to get ammunition. The first one got killed, the second got wounded and the third got captured by the Russians.”
He said the fighting in Budapest was “rooftop to rooftop and basement to basement” and they were liberated by Russian soldiers. His father Milton escaped from a work camp but as it was clear Russia had lost a huge number of soldiers; they wanted to take his father and many other able-bodied men to Russia. His mother, Edith, he said appealed to an officer named Szrepanyenko that if he took away the husbands, that would not be liberation but something similar to the Nazis. He changed his mind and didn’t take them, Gluck said.
Giving Strength To a Nova Survivor
Gluck speaks at synagogues and schools with the goal of spreading positivity. Last year, in Hollywood, Florida, when people helped to gather and send supplies to Israeli soldiers and victims of the October 7 attacks, he met Maya Parizer Elenitsky, who was at the Nova Festival and survived the horrific Hamas attack of October 7. In online interviews, the dual Israeli American citizen said terrorists shot at her car but missed and she was able to hide in a safe room of a family in a kibbutz until the next morning. She also said her cousin was burned to death in a kibbutz.
Gluck said she asked him about recovering of the Holocaust: “How did you still smile?” He said he told her there are no easy answers, but it is important to be positive and be proud to be a Jew. “There are cloudy days, but the sunshine has to come up some time,” he said he told her.
A Promise to Feed Others if He Survived
Gluck said there were sometimes several days when he didn’t have any food.
“I prayed to Hashem that if you save me and my family, I will distribute food for the hungry Jews and others as long as I have strength,” he said. ‘I was saved, and I kept my promise. When I speak to kids, I tell them to appreciate the food they have, the roof over their head and the clothes on their back.”
Gluck said he’s been a part of Tomchei Shabbos of Woodmere delivering food to people on Fridays as well as doing food distribution for Chabad in Coral Springs, Florida. He also volunteers at a Chabad food pantry in Clearwater, Florida.
A First Date And Too Much Hate
Gluck said for their first date, he took his wife to the Broadway show “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” starring Jewish actor Kirk Douglas and shook his hand after. He said one of the secrets of feeling young was having a great wife. He said that he had a successful business selling electronics.
In his youth, after the Holocaust, he hoped the world would see the danger of antisemitism and learn a lesson. But he said October 7 was horrifying, and dangerous and he felt such barbarism would never happen again.
He also said he was disappointed to watch TV and see swastikas and hateful signs against Jews at college anti-Israel protests. He said many of them are “useful idiots.”
A Need For Unity
Gluck said it is painful to see Jews divided, especially in Israel where there have been massive political protests.
“When the Germans came in, they didn’t care if you were Conservative, Orthodox, Reform, or what your politics were,” he said. “It was simple. If they get you, you die. We have to be united. We have to love each other. When you demonstrate in the street, you are providing aid to the enemy. It’s in our nature to be a stiff-necked people as the Torah says. And you know they say when you have two Jews, you have three shuls. Okay. But when you have a war on your hands, every Jew has to be on the same team, and then we cannot be beaten.”
Kosher Comedy Coach and Optimistic Outlook
Gluck’s son Kenny also came to the game and is the founder of Kosher Comedy. He credits his parents to taking him to comedic film at a young age and will have a comedy show for Jewish singles on April 27. Five years ago, when he got married, Kenny Gluck tied the knot in Budapest in honor of his father. He said he is proud of his father not only for being able to skate at 87, but being able to speak to many audiences about his life story. The elder Gluck was the first floor hockey coach at HAFTR and Kenny later became a coach.
He lived in Woodmere and 10 years ago moved to Hollywood, Florida. He said he has faith in G-d and humanity and being a pessimist only brings people down.
“I always look for the good in people and try to bring out the best in people,” he said.
He also said he feels he has a specific purpose.
“I think Hashem saved me for a reason, maybe to tell people to be optimistic,” he said. “You have to hope for the best. Life is like hockey. Sometimes you get body-checked. And you have to take it.”
