Grandfather passed away tonight prayers please.

[TheBigI]

My grandfather passed away tonight. He was truly a great American hero and a true patriot. My grandfather beat the odds came here with nothing, didn't even know english, and made a good life for him and his family. He taught me a lot of things about life that I will never forget. There are not many people in this world left that are as tough as he was, as proud as he was, and as happy as he was. He had a couple of quotes that he always liked to say, "Never give up, you can be what ever you desire to be." " What your eyes can see your hands can do." The following are a couple articles about him. RIP Leon Juffe.

Empty spaces / Parking lot operator tends nearly empty lot on once-bustling Kentucky Avenue
By DONALD WITTKOWSKI Staff Writer, 609-272-7258
Published: December 13, 2007
Page in newspaper: C1
Business disappears along with the old Sands Casino Hotel. Leon Juffe sits in a tiny booth waiting for cars that seldom come.

Even at 86 years old, the white-haired grandfather spurns retirement to dutifully tend to his parking business on what has become a ghostly street of abandoned buildings.

"Look at this," he says, nodding toward an empty expanse of blacktop. "I'm lucky if I get three cars for the whole day."

Few people, it seems, know what a great deal Juffe is offering -- up to 12 hours of parking for just $3 in a prime location steps from the Boardwalk.

But this part of Kentucky Avenue is eerily quiet. From the glass-enclosed perch of his parking booth, Juffe simply has to look across the street to see why.

The hulking parking garage of the old Sands Casino Hotel is empty. Next to it are the stark remains of the former Jefferson Hotel, which served as a corporate office for the Sands in its last incarnation.

Now gutted, the nine-story Jefferson will be razed this week by demolition crews. The parking garage will come tumbling down in March in an implosion similar to the one that reduced the Sands to rubble in October.

When the Sands closed last year, the casino workers who had parked in Juffe's lot stopped coming to Kentucky Avenue. Although most of his customers have disappeared, Juffe still works a full day -- at least he does when the weather isn't unbearably cold. He has only a small portable heater in his booth to keep him warm.

"I need something to do. If I don't come down here, I'll die," he sighed.

Years ago, Juffe, and his wife, Nella, were busy running another Kentucky Avenue business. Their 139-room Kentucky Hotel was among a string of family-owned hotels lining the street.

Nella Juffe, 75, said her hotel often was crammed with guests who bedded down for the night after partying at the storied Club Harlem, another Kentucky Avenue landmark that has since faded into history.

"People would dance on the street outside the Club Harlem," she recalled of the bustling scene. "Then they would take rooms at my hotel before going home the next day on the bus."

That was Kentucky Avenue prior to the advent of Atlantic City casinos in 1978. A block over, on Illinois Avenue, now renamed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the Brighton Hotel & Casino opened in 1980. It was renamed the Sands the following year under new ownership.

Needing room for expansion, the Sands bought the Kentucky Hotel from the Juffes on Feb. 14, 1986, for $2 million and redeveloped the site for a parking garage. As part of the Kentucky Hotel deal, the Sands gave the Juffes two parking lots.

The Kentucky Hotel is long gone. Soon, the Sands parking garage that replaced the hotel will disappear, too. Even sooner, the old Jefferson Hotel will be demolished.

Once again, a casino will transform the face of Kentucky Avenue. Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., the Las Vegas-based gaming company that imploded the Sands, is clearing out the neighboring blocks to make room for its proposed $1.5 billion megaresort, scheduled to open in late 2011 or early 2012.

Nella Juffe wonders whether she and her husband will be in the parking business much longer. The city is discussing plans to designate the blocks surrounding the Pinnacle site as a redevelopment zone, a move that could lead to the condemnation of small businesses if buyout talks fail.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Nella said. "If they're going to condemn us, they will give us a price that they want to instead of what it's worth. That's why I'm worried."

Buildings already under Pinnacle's control are destined for the wrecking ball, including the Jefferson Hotel. The Juffes could have owned the Jefferson. Nella said the owner offered to sell the Juffes the hotel for only $200,000 in the 1970s.

"The Jefferson was a beautiful hotel," she said. "It wasn't five stars or four, but it certainly was a three. But I couldn't handle it. I had my own hotel."

Besides being the owner, Nella also served as the Kentucky Hotel's desk clerk and chambermaid. For her, hard work wasn't a bother. Before the Juffes bought the hotel in the 1970s, she toiled in a Vineland clothing factory and also helped out on her husband's chicken farm.

The Juffes' lives have been both long and remarkable. Polish Jews, they survived the Holocaust. Nella and her family fled to Russia during the war and lived under the control of German occupation troops. Leon hid in a Polish ghetto to avoid capture by the Nazis, his wife said.

They met after the war and married in 1948, coming to the United States two years later in search of a new life. At that time, they were poor and had a 6-week-old son, Sam.

"We came to the United States with only $200 in our pocket and without knowing the language," Nella said. "We worked 16 hours a day. But when you're willing to work hard and save your money, you can make it."

Now the Juffes are well off and live in tony Margate. Despite the couple's wealth, Leon still goes to work at his parking lots, even in his old age. He's survived two stickups, including one that involved a violent struggle with a gunman, his wife noted.

"All of our lives, we are used to working very hard," Nella said. "If he stayed in the house, he would become a couch potato. When the weather is nice, he's there at the parking lot every day, 11 to 4, until it gets dark."

He sits in his tiny booth, waiting for cars that seldom come.
HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS FINALLY BECOME GRADS
By ANDREW JOHNSON Staff Writer, (609) 272-7238
Published: June 17, 2005
Page in newspaper: A1
The night seemed normal enough, especially for June.

Nella and Leon Juffe had completed a curriculum in agriculture and hospitality studies, according to their certificates.

But the road these graduates took was anything but normal. Like 28 others at the Atlantic County Institute of Technology on Thursday, the Juffes received a degree for surviving the Holocaust.

Nella Juffe, who first came to New Jersey in 1951 to work as a Vineland chicken farmer, wiped away tears as she clutched her certificate.

"Nothing is impossible here," said the Margate resident, a native of Poland.

"Imagine to live and have a day like this?" said Leon Juffe, who once lived in a foxhole to hide from Nazis. "It's unbelievable."

Juffe came to Ellis Island in 1948. He briefly made clocks in New York, farmed chickens for a while and then ran the Kentucky Hotel on Kentucky Avenue in Atlantic City for 14 years.

A warm round of applause from the parents of other Atlantic County Institute of Technology graduates greeted each recipient, in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, as they accepted their awards.

"Wasn't it fantastic?" Gail Rosenthal said afterward.

The graduates have Rosenthal, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Holocaust Resource Center director, to thank for their awards.

Inspired by a friend on the state Board of Education who survived the Holocaust but was robbed of her education during the war, Rosenthal said she began to inquire about obtaining degrees for area Holocaust survivors last year.

There are more than a 100, she said, in Atlantic and Cape May counties.

Rosenthal said that the certificate, while not a high school diploma or even a GED, was meant to recognize survivors' achievements in their fields over the past 50 years.

Many of the degrees were for agriculture. Rosenthal said that it was common for Holocaust survivors, like the Juffes, to work at Atlantic County chicken farms when they immigrated to the United States. One survivor, since deceased, once explained the reason to her: "Chickens speak Polish."

Many Holocaust survivors couldn't speak enough English to do factory jobs when they arrived, Rosenthal said.

She said that it made sense that a technical school conferred the degrees because many survivors worked technical trades.

New Jersey schools require study of the Holocaust, said Paul Winkler, executive director of the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education. Winkler, who spoke at Monday's ceremony, brought up the current genocide in Sudan to illustrate why that was important.

The Atlantic County Institute of Technology may be the first school in the nation to bestow degrees for Holocaust survivors, Winkler said. "I've not heard from anyone else that this has been done."

For the past year, survivors have been involved with the Atlantic County Institute of Technology. Some have shared their stories of the Holocaust with full-time academy students.

"You have inspired the entire school community with your stories of triumph," School Superintendent Philip Guenther told the crowd Monday.

Tim Sanders, 16, of Mullica Township, said survivor Rose Zelkowitz visited his English class this spring.

Sanders, an Academy of Information Technology student, said he was fascinated by one question before she came to his classroom: "Could this really happen?"

Zelkowitz said it could and did happen.

When men came for her and her family at her home, neighbors did nothing, Sanders said Zelkowitz told the class.

Ruth Zinman, who wouldn't reveal her age, said she was the youngest of the group Monday. Beautifully turned out in a red print dress, she looked happy.

Zinman was a child when she dropped out of school in her native Romania. She began hiding from Nazis with peasants hired by her parents. "I was a hidden child."

"That's what we realized," she said, while talking with other Holocaust survivors Monday. "We lost our childhood."

"My goal is to let people know (the Holocaust) happened," said Zinman. Only five of 60 in Zinman's family survived the war.

Some people were too ill to attend the ceremony.

Rita Weiss stayed home in Margate.

Weiss operated Rita's Wigs on Tennessee Avenue in Atlantic City for 30 years, and once sold Joe Namath a wig.

The 80-year-old Czechoslovakia (current Czech Republic) native said recognition like Monday's was nice.

"I am a survivor," she said.

Weiss is one of four sisters to have survived Auschwitz. She said she is proud of that.

"If the ocean was full of ink, we couldn't describe it," said Weiss, about the Holocaust.

To e-mail Andrew Johnson at The Press: AJohnson@pressofac.com

[Deep C]

Awful to lose some one... He led a long life and left a lot of people better off for knowing him though... You and your family are in my prayers...

[gottaflylee]

So sorry for the loss of your Grandfather. The story you passed along about him was a great read, thanks for shareing this with us...

[bigfish4me]

Sorry for your loss, prayers sent for you and your family.

[Surfergirl]

Sorry for your loss, sending prayers for you and your family.

[34SILVERTON]

Sorry for your loss, prayers sent for you and your family.

prayers sent to you and your family. remember the good times.

[Robja]

Sorry for your loss Bigfish. Prayers sent.

[clt_capt]

Sorry for your loss. Prayers sent.

[Wireman]

Sorry for your loss. When my grandfather passed it was like a chunk was ripped out of me. Time will help the pain, just remember all the laughs and great times together.

[Agitated88]

Sorry to hear of your loss. My grandfather holds a special spot in my heart...I owe a lot of who I am because of him. Prayers sent for you and your family.