The Ring of Inspiration

In an 1,162-word story from the Dec. 7, 2014, edition of the Los Angeles Times, James Ring ’70 (Psychology), ’72 (Urban Studies) isn’t mentioned until the 966th word. His part in the story takes up very little real estate — just 89 words.

If you skimmed the story, you might have missed him.

The article was about how a young German woman named Olga Burkhardt who was so taken by the story of an 81-year-old Holocaust survivor named Paula Lebovics that she reached out to her and made a friendship through Skype, emailing and phone calls. Lebovics, an Encino resident, finally met the German resident, Burkhardt, at Auschwitz at the annual March of the Living. Ring and his wife Raina, who knew neither of them, were there at the same time. Ring witnessed this meeting, learned of the story and offered to pay for Burkhardt to come to Los Angeles for a longer visit, which she did. He also offered to pay for Burkhardt to return to visit Lebovics whenever she so desired.

“Jim made it possible for (Burkhardt) to come to the U.S. and connect with (Lebovics), all out of the goodness of his heart, because of the beauty of the friendship that had been created by these different generations, these different histories,” said his friend Jeffrey Zabner. “It meant so much to him. (I’m) pretty proud of him.”

Read the full story at CSUN Today.