OUR COMMUNITY

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28 | JUNE 15 • 2023 

never embarrassed, never making 
excuses. If he limped, he limped. 
If couldn’t run the bases, he stood 
still and played catch with us. 
When his legs wouldn’t allow him 
to carry us as kids, he made games 
out of lifting us over his head with 
his astonishingly strong arms. 
He did everything in his power 
to use the strength he had but 
was accepting of whatever help it 
took for him to live his life to the 
fullest, like getting him up Masada 
in a cable car when my parents 
joined us in Israel for our daugh-
ter’s bat mitzvah and being hoisted 
onto a chair during the hora at my 
children’s weddings.
He couldn’t physically do it all, 
but he did his part. On Jewish hol-
idays — most hosted by my par-
ents with family meals and large 
sleepovers — my mom, a supreme 
cook, would prepare recipes like 
seasoned ground beef that my dad 
would roll into literally hundreds 
of meatballs.

SO MUCH FUN
A riveting storyteller, he also 
invented jingles and narratives, 
recreating the ones from our 
childhoods for our kids. Birthday 
parties were celebrated with his 
hand-written clever sentiments 
fashioned in rhyme; he was once 
offered a job writing card-text for 
American Greetings. 
Early on in his career, he was 
a TV weatherman and appeared 
in live TV commercials, includ-
ing one where an appliance door 
came off in his hand when he 
opened it. He did “record hops,
” 
hosting musicians and bands in 
roped off areas of suburban streets 
and flew over the Detroit area in 
a helicopter reporting live on the 
1967 riots. When my mom went 
into labor with my sister during 
the station’s Golden Oldies Week, 
he accompanied her to the hos-
pital in head-to-toe, shimmering 
gold from his hair to his shoes.
In rock ’n’ roll’s heyday, I joined 

him backstage at Dave Clark Five 
and Sonny and Cher concerts. 
And, then there was the time he 
stood next to Harry and explained 
to a rowdy group of Beatles fans 
that the local sheriff was set to 
cancel the show if they didn’t, 
as my dad always put it: “Settle 
down.
” 

A FAITH THAT 
SUSTAINED HIM
My dad said daily prayer ser-
vices at home, held holiday 
minyans in their family room 
and, for decades, was involved at 
Congregation Shomrey Emunah 
in Southfield, where he was a 
founder and president. After 
members discovered his profes-
sion, he was regularly enlisted as 
the synagogue’s event and pro-
gram emcee. 
When a young relative once 
asked why it was so important to 
him for his family to be Jewish, 
he responded simply, “Because of 
how happy it makes me. I want 
you to have that, too.
”
Shivah for my dad brought 
comfort, healing — and Jewish 
geography. My brother’s former 
Hillel Day School friend turned 
out to be my husband’s poker 
buddy as well as our grandson’s 
baseball coach. A longtime close 
friend heard the name of my 
dad’s hometown and realized 
that my dad’s father’s furniture 
store was rival to his own family’s 
Pennsylvania-based business. And 
after many years of friendship, 
we also discovered that this same 
man’s wife is, through marriage, 
my cousin!
During shivah, one of my oldest 
friends told me she became obser-
vant because of Shabbat dinners at 
our home headed by my dad.

THE SUMMER OF DAD
Near the end of the COVID years, 
the gift of one-to-one visits with 
my parents was a treasure when 
my dad moved his school-office to 

the home where I grew up, where 
the basement shelves housed both 
vintage record albums and my late 
grandfather’s 100-year-old Judaic 
books. 
A wheeled bookcase in the 
kitchen became his new base, 
with his siddur and tallit on the 
top rung. My dad shared stories, 
family history and candy once 
stashed in his office drawer. He 
always welcomed us when we 
dropped by, and the kids could at 
any time, no matter who else was 
around, take the comb out of his 
shirt pocket and flatten his bangs 
straight down like Moe.
We talked at the table where we 
had thousands of family dinners 
together, where he helped me 
memorize the Hebrew words of 
Rashi and the Gettysburg Address. 

We remembered the time the 
whole extended family caravanned 
to the Grand Hotel on Mackinac 
Island to surround my dad as he 
received the Michigan Association 
of Broadcasters’ Lifetime Achieve-
ment Award. Among his other 
honors was being inducted into 
both the Michigan and Ohio 
Association of Broadcasters’ 
Halls of Fame and receiving the 
“Lifetime Achievement Award” 
from the Detroit Producers Assoc-
iation. And then there was “Specs 
Howard Day” in Kittanning.

A PEOPLE PERSON
My dad knew all my childhood 
friends and later my children’s and 
grandchildren’s friends. He had 
a special relationship with each 
family member — including 13 
grandchildren and 14 great-grand-
children — and loved and wel-
comed new ones.
 He called his current friends, 
old classmates and family on a 
regular basis. He loved company, 
his weekly poker game, a big cele-
bration, a small group of visitors. 
He had much to say and teach, 
but also was eager to hear and 
learn from everyone else. He was 

a mentor who others came to for 
advice. 
He taught by example and 
through demonstration. In hyster-
ics, I watched my left-handed dad 
teach my then pre-bar mitzvah 
age right-handed son how to wrap 
tefillin on his arm — somehow 
thinking it would make sense to 
do it in the mirror. My dad’s own 
tefillin was later gifted to my son 
and is now in Israel being refur-
bished for use by his son, a lefty 
who will become a bar mitzvah 
almost exactly to the day, 85 years 
after my dad.
I think of him when I look at 
my children and grandchildren 
and know the immense pride he 
had for them and the unending 
impact he made on their lives and 
who they are.
And I think of him when I 
bring in the mail. 
His lessons are within me. By 
example, his genuine smile and 
upbeat mood taught the value of 
staying positive and truly enjoying 
life. I learned the importance of 
structure. My dad was dressed and 
downstairs every day of his life. I 
see how never being too busy for 
family was not a choice; for him, it 
was a natural.
I learned from him that life is 
better with a partner who looks 
at you the way my dad looked at 
my mom, with a sincere twinkle, 
proud but hardly surprised at her 
strength and capabilities.
Others referred to my dad in 
terms like “broadcast industry leg-
end” or the “Kosher DJ.
”
To me, he was protective, com-
mitted, quietly generous, with 
conviction, selfless, welcoming 
and with an indomitable spirit and 
incredible determination. And I 
am forever grateful to have been 
able to tell him.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad, to 
you and to all the other dads 
who will be celebrated this week, 
both in person and in inspira-
tional memory. 

