She was the beloved wife of Marvin Warshay (z”); loving mother of Danny Warshay (Debra Herman), Susan Warshay (Jay Ross) and Alisa Warshay (Binamra Dutta); adored grandmother of Ari, Elana, Jonah, Gabrielle, Matthew, Marin and Arjun; sister of Leonard (Sue z”l) Bernstein (the Leonard Bernstein, as she used to say), Paul (Lisel) Bernstein (z”l), beloved aunt, great-aunt, cousin and friend to so many.
Daughter of Sadie and Jacob Bernstein, Ieda grew up in Steubenville where she was always a stellar student, played the violin in the school orchestra and participated in Young Judea. She was a great sister, even selflessly traipsing around Steubenville with her brother, Leny, selling chocolate bars, so that they could earn enough money to buy him a bicycle. She always had fond memories of Steubenville’s Big Red High School and attended many high school reunions over the years. Her academic achievements continued at The Ohio State University in Columbus, where she was inducted into the Mortar Board Society and was an active member of Alpha Epsilon Phi sorority.
Upon graduation, Ieda moved to Detroit to work with teens at the Detroit Jewish Community Center. A few years later, as luck and coincidence would have it, she met the love of her life, Marvin Warshay. They had actually met as small children when Marvin and his brother, Lee (z”l), accompanied their mother to visit her sister, who also lived in Steubenville. As Steubenville’s Jewish community was small and close knit, Marvin and Lee used to play with Paul and Leny, Ieda’s brothers, on these visits.
Fast forward about 20 years when Ieda was looking forward to a solo trip to New York City. Marvin’s Steubenville aunt insisted that Ieda meet Marvin who, at that time, lived in New Jersey. Reluctantly, Ieda agreed to carve out a little time from her trip to meet Marvin. The rest, you could say, was history. They hit it off immediately, talked into the wee hours of the night, played tennis for their first date and went to a fancy German restaurant in the city for their second date. Six months later they were married.
The happy couple moved to Cleveland in 1962. Since Marvin was working at NASA, they lived on the west side of Cleveland, where their two oldest children, Danny and Susan, were born. Ieda busied herself as a stay-at-home mom and volunteered for community organizations like Match, an organization that helped connect women with volunteer opportunities. Though they were active in The West Temple, they decided they wanted to be closer to where the Jewish community was, so in 1969 they moved to Shaker Heights where they lived in the same home for over 50 years, raising all three of their children.
Ieda was involved in the Shaker Heights Housing Office’s efforts to make sure Shaker Heights neighborhoods supported racially integrated living. They joined Park Synagogue, where they celebrated many a simcha. They also became members of Beth El-The Heights Synagogue. The family home was a place of joy with dinner parties, birthday parties complete with cut-out cakes and organized games, Shabbat dinners, Passover seders, Bar and Bat Mitzvah celebrations, graduation parties and Sukkah open houses.
Ieda had earned a master’s in social work from the School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and when Alisa, her youngest daughter, was starting kindergarten, she decided it was time to go back to work. She continued her very successful career working at the Mayfield Jewish Community Center with senior adults and programming, developing life-long friendships with her co-workers. After about 20 years, she took a part-time position at the Akron Jewish Family Service where she worked one-on-one with clients of varying ages and penned an advice column called “Dear Ieda.
Upon retirement, Ieda led a bereavement support group at Park Synagogue, where she and Marvin were longtime members. She expertly led this group for over a decade, guiding countless individuals through their journeys with grief. She was an active member of the Park Synagogue Sisterhood, serving as its president and being honored with the prestigious Miriam’s Cup and Centerite of the Year awards.
Some of her hobbies included baking her famous mandel bread cookies and blueberry muffins. She enjoyed reading, watching crime shows like “Blue Bloods” and was an avid tennis player for many years. She enjoyed all sorts of cultural events, including The Cleveland Orchestra and Cleveland Pops, opera, Broadway shows and community theater, outdoor concerts at Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls and Goodtime III boat rides in Cleveland. Ieda and Marvin loved to travel and, while many trips centered around attending family simchas, they also enjoyed vacations to domestic and international locations. Some of her favorites were to Israel, England, Spain, Ecuador, the Canadian Rockies and Korea.
Ieda will always be remembered for her winning smile, kind heart, good humor, the way she listened nonjudgmentally, the sincere curiosity she had and showed for others, her intellect, keen words of advice and for being one of the most wonderful people to ever have graced this planet.
Funeral services were held on April 22 at Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz Memorial Chapel.
You may watch the beautiful tributes to Ieda at: youtu.be/q2M-6uktFmE or by entering Ieda Warshay Funeral Service in the search bar on YouTube.
In honor of her memory, the family suggests donations to the Park Synagogue Sisterhood, (parksynagogue.org/sisterhood), c/o Park Synagogue, 27500 Shaker Blvd. Pepper Pike, OH 44124, Beth El-The Heights Synagogue (bethelheights.org/donations-and-payments/) 3246 Desota Ave., Cleveland Heights, OH 44118, and the National Kidney Foundation (kidney.org).
Friends who are unable to attend the service may view it Monday, April 22 at 12 Noon by going to BKBMC.COM scroll down to obituaries, select the obituary of Ieda Warshay, click on her obituary, scroll down to join live stream, click on join live stream.
Beginning Tuesday, April 23rd, friends can view by going to YouTube, under the search enter: Ieda Warshay Funeral Service.
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