By
Donald H. Harrison
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 Brinąs 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 donąt know," the
father replied. "And I donąt 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 Brinąs 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. |