David “Dugo” Leitner (B-14671) passed away today, on Tisha B’Av, at the age of 93. Dugo credits his surviving the Holocaust to felafel. During the three-day Nazi death march that began on January 18, 1945, Leitner, originally from Hungary, imagined the felafels his mother had told him about. He said it gave him the hope to survive.
After the war, when he arrived in Israel, Dugo saw a felafel stand and felafels for the first time in his life, and for every year after that he decided that on January 18th, he would eat felafel and buy felafels for those around him, in thanks for his freedom and survival. In 2021, the state of Israel officially adopted his tradition of eating felafel on January 18th.
He leaves behind his wife, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
