Twenty days after Herb Brin died in Los Angeles at age 87, about 40 relatives, friends and admirers gathered on Wednesday, Feb. 26, in the chapel of Tifereth Israel Synagogue in San Diego to remember him as a publisher, poet and family man.

David Kroll, accompanied on violin by Eileen Wingard, sang "The Return" —a poignant poem set to music by Aaron Tishkowsky in which Brin celebrated the rebirth of Israel in the wake of the deaths, degradation and agonies suffered by the Jews in their Diaspora.

Kroll, a former president of the Jewish Community Center, also chanted the traditional El Maleh Rachamim in Brin's memory.  Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal led the service, which concluded with the mourner's Kaddish.

Four members of the New Life Club of Holocaust Survivors— Hannah Marx, Rose Schindler, Benjamin Midler and Agathe Ehrenfried — read selections from Brin's poetry illustrating the former Heritage publisher's passion both for remembering the Holocaust and guarding against its recurrence. His son, David Brin, and I also read selections from his poetry.

David, a science fiction writer, noted that his father's body had been flown for burial in Jerusalem in the same El Al jet as that of Columbia space shuttle astronaut Ilan Ramon, and speculated that perhaps his father, ever the journalist, had obtained another "exclusive." Another son, Stan, an
investigative reporter, had accompanied Herb Brin¹s body to Israel and attended the burial in a valley close to the Old City.

"I hope my children will have learned as much from me as I learned from Herb and as much from my mistakes as I learned from Herb's," David said. Noting that the Heritage newspaper chain forever was teetering at the brink of bankruptcy, David said his father "was a man with no business sense" who financially was "bailed out by people who had the genius to recognize
genius."
 
Another son, Daniel J. Brin, recalled working for "an amazing 25 years" and experiencing "so many adventures" while helping his father publish Heritage newspapers for Los Angeles, Orange County, Central California and San Diego. He continues his family's newspaper legacy as senior associate editor of this newspaper, the only one in the chain to survive.

Dan Brin said shortly before his father died at the Jewish Home for the Aging in Reseda, he asked him how he was feeling, and the publisher waved to the curtains. It was unclear whether he was referring to the curtains or to the Great Beyond. Did he mean the curtains, Dan asked Herb. "Yeah, the curtains!" the publisher replied, in possibly his last moment of gentle sarcasm.

"Why the curtains?" his son persisted. "I don¹t know," the father replied. "And I don¹t think you do, either."

In reflection, the younger Brin concluded that the dying writer was indeed speaking metaphorically, using the tools of a poet. "I hope that someday my father will be able to tell me what he has seen beyond the curtains," Dan said.

The newspaper publisher had been memorialized Feb. 9 at a service in Los Angeles. The Feb. 26 gathering was scheduled to provide San Diegans their own occasion.

Morris Casuto, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, quipped that although Brin¹s offices were in Los Angeles, the publisher seemingly "knew more about what was going on in San Diego than I — and that was annoying." A friend and supporter of the Anti-Defamation League since the 1930s, Brin was a passionate advocate for justice and for the security of the Jewish people, Casuto said.

Steve Abramson, executive vice president of the United Jewish Federation, said Brin was deeply committed to the "twin passions of Judaism and journalism." He recalled Brin's energetic participation in a UJF mission to Israel in 1998. Brin "loved everything about it... asked questions of everyone," Abramson recalled.

Bob Lupo, a former Los Angeles-based editor of Heritage who now lives in New York, remembered how Brin as a young man worked as an undercover agent for the ADL to penetrate the American nazi party. Later in life, he announced himself as a Jewish journalist at the compound of a white supremacistorganization in Idaho, and sought — and received— a tour.

Heritage columnist Gert Thaler remembered other Brin battles, including one in behalf of Holocaust Survivor Mel Mermelstein, who successfully sued the revisionist Institute for Historical Review, which, in its campaign to deny the Holocaust, offered a reward to anyone who could prove it occurred.

Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz, proved his experiences, then sued when the Institute failed to honor his claim for the reward.

Brin "dreamed about peace, and fought with his fingers for it...with an old Hermes portable typewriter," Thaler said.

Norman Greene, co-publisher with me of this newspaper, read letters of tribute to Brin from U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, Israel's Consul-General Yuval Rotem and San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy.

Besides by his sons, Brin is survived by six grandchildren: Miriam, 18, the daughter of Stan and Gloria; Sarah, 16, and Nathan, 11, children of Dan and Janette, and Benjamin, 11, Ariana, 8, and Terren, 6, children of David and Cheryl.