Chabad.com
Mrs. Dasha Spira Lewin accepts a plaque from Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin praising her kindness and generosity as Mrs. Miriam Cunin looks on. (Photo: Michael G. Levin)

LOS ANGELES, CA — Mrs. Dasha Spira Lewin, a proud Holocaust survivor who became a top executive with the Neutrogena Corporation and a generous friend of Chabad, will be honored at a memorial service held at the Bais Sonya Gutte campus on Schneerson Square at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 17. Mrs. Lewin passed away on September 11, and was laid to rest beside her husband, Maury, in Prague's Jewish Cemetery.

Chabad Mourns the Passing of Mrs. Dasha Lewin

Chabad.com
Mrs. Dasha Spira Lewin accepts a plaque from Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin praising her kindness and generosity as Mrs. Miriam Cunin looks on. (Photo: Michael G. Levin)

LOS ANGELES, CA — Mrs. Dasha Spira Lewin, a proud Holocaust survivor who became a top executive with the Neutrogena Corporation and a generous friend of Chabad, will be honored at a memorial service held at the Bais Sonya Gutte campus on Schneerson Square at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 17. Mrs. Lewin passed away on September 11, and was laid to rest beside her husband, Maury, in Prague’s Jewish Cemetery.

On January 4, 2007, Mrs. Lewin dedicated the Spira-Lewin-Fried Activity Center at the Chabad girls’ schools on Los Angeles’ Pico Boulevard. As the plaque at the facility states, her charitable gift was dedicated both in memory of her beloved husband and “in memory of all our people who perished in the Holocaust who live on in these children.”

“There can be no doubt that their kindness and caring made the world a better place — and will continue to do so as their legacy.”
During the emotional ceremony that day, Mrs. Lewin told the assembled crowd that dedicating the facility was her response to the tragedy of Nazism — and that the young women studying at that campus could help ensure the future of the Jewish people. She was joined at the event by her dear friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Cotsen, and by Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin, the head of West Coast Chabad.

Rabbi Cunin recently recalled how Dasha and Maury Lewin discovered Chabad after being refused entry at a leading Reform temple in Los Angeles for Yizkor services because they didn’t have tickets. They were then attracted by Chabad’s policy that “you don’t have to pay to pray.”

“I first met Dasha nearly forty years ago at the offices of Neutrogena,” said Rabbi Cunin. “The Chairman and CEO, Lloyd Cotsen, had registered his child in a Chabad Talmud Torah organized by Rabbi Avraham Levitansky, may he rest in peace. And Lloyd introduced me to his top financial advisor, Dasha, who was the company’s Treasurer. He said she could help Chabad with anything we needed regarding banking and numbers.”

“From that time on, Dasha and Maury became surrogates for my aunt and uncle, who were murdered by the Nazis; and in Chabad, they in turn found a family to comfort them for their own lost loved ones. Dasha began to light the Shabbat candles, which she continued through the end of her life, and Maury always kept his treasured tefillin nearby.”

Mrs. Lewin subsequently made a dedication at Chabad of Cheviot Hills, and grew close with Rabbi Aharon Begun, and his wife, Esther. Her extended family also included Rabbi Zushe Cunin and his wife, Zisi, of Chabad of Pacific Palisades.

Dasha Lewin was born into a respected Jewish family in Czechoslovakia on July 1, 1929. After the Holocaust, when she had lost everything, she was adopted by another family in Prague. That family’s son, Maury, was initially thought killed during the tragedy, but it was then discovered that he had miraculously survived and was adopted by an American family in S. Francisco. Dasha and Maury met after the war, and later were married.

When Maury Lewin passed away in 2006, Rabbis Zushe Cunin and Aharon Begun flew to Prague to comfort Dasha and provide Maury with a proper Jewish burial. After learning of Dasha’s own passing this September, both rabbis flew to the Czech Republic once again.

“All of us at Chabad are deeply grateful for having known Dasha and Maury, and for having the chance to welcome them into the community,” said Rabbi Boruch S. Cunin. “There can be no doubt that their kindness and caring made the world a better place — and will continue to do so as their legacy. Their special gift to the girls at the Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School and Bais Rebbe Junior High was just one of the many ways they brightened the lives of others.”

Rabbi Cunin will lead a memorial service for Dasha Lewin at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 17 at the Spira-Lewin-Fried Activity Center, which is located on the Fourth Floor of the Bais Sonya Gutte Campus on Schneerson Square at 9051 West Pico Boulevard. For more information about the service, please call (310) 208-7511.