My Father: Philosopher with a Paintbrush
                          By David Schonfeld, February 26, 2012

(Note: This reminiscence was prepared for and delivered at the Memorial 
Meeting for Frank Schonfeld held in the Vladeck Auditorium in the 
Amalgamated Housing Co-op on February 26, 2012.)

In August, 2009, my parents left the Amalgamated and moved to a senior 
residence called Hamilton Heights, in West Hartford, Connecticut. Frank 
lived there contentedly for over two years. He died in his sleep on 
November 2, almost 4 months ago. Sari and I arranged a musical tribute to 
Frank at Hamilton Heights for the other residents who had come to know 
Frank, as well as for local friends of ours. In his last two years, Frank 
didn't do much and didn't say much, so the other residents didn't get to 
know him as a crusader and activist. However Frank loved to laugh at jokes 
and was particularly responsive to music. At in-house concerts, Frank 
would always sit up front and would move to the music, even conducting 
vigorously. So we thought it appropriate to honor him in those 
surroundings with a program of music and good humor.

However, Frank's Amalgamated legacy was more substantial, so today we'll 
be highlighting that phase of his life. He was so committed to the 
Amalgamated, in fact, that Sari and I virtually had to kidnap him to get 
him to leave it. We had been suggesting for years that he and Jean might 
be better off in assisted living somewhere closer to where Sari and I 
live, in the Greater Hartford area. But Frank was adamant that he would 
remain in his community a Naturally Occurring Retirement Community (or 
NORC), as he never failed to remind us and that any discussion of leaving 
it was off the table. So Sari and I resorted to stealth. We arranged for 
them to spend a couple of weeks vacationing at what we called a resort 
hotel for seniors where we would get to visit them every day. Mom and Dad 
had not had a vacation in years, so they readily agreed. Of course Sari 
and I had no intention of bringing them back to the Amalgamated. Mom 
figured out our strategy and eventually got used to the idea. Dad 
surprised us by adapting right away.

Cooperative housing for working people was a lifelong interest for Frank. 
He left Europe with his family in 1926 and arrived in the Bronx as a boy 
of 9. As the first son, he was expected to follow in his father's 
footsteps and become a rabbi. Frank almost made it, but the pull of 
science, reason, and humanism was too strong. Instead, after graduating 
Yeshiva College, he took courses at the Rochdale Institute and the New 
School for Social Research, and became a socialist. He moved into the 
Amalgamated in 1941, informally renting a room in the Sixth Building. He 
and Jean were married in 1943. Frank joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and 
spent much of World War II escorting convoys at sea. After his discharge 
in 1945, he and Jean were able to get an apartment in Building 7 (it was 
H-21). I was born in 1946 and Sari in 1950. In 1961 our family moved 
across the courtyard to C-61, a two-bedroom apartment, where Frank and 
Jean remained until 2009an impressive 64-year Amalgamated tenancy.

Frank's primary focus during his working years was the labor movement. 
Despite his college degree, he chose to become a house painter, joined the 
union, and devoted himself to the struggle for internal union democracy. 
Other speakers today will tell us more about his union career. All this 
time he remained an active and informed Amalgamated citizen. After his 
term as a union leader, he was able to devote more time to Amalgamated and 
local causes, served on the Board, and took strong positions on issues of 
concern to him. I was away at graduate school and then living abroad 
during much of this period in Frank's life, so I will leave it to other 
speakers to tell us more about Frank's community activism.

If I had to summarize my father's qualities, I would put it this way: 
Frank was idealistic, optimistic, passionate, and stubborn. He was 
animated by a vision of economic and social justice. He was convinced that 
this vision was attainable. He put everything he had into the 
struggle including his wife, his children, and what little money he had! 
And no amount of adversity could discourage him from pursuing his mission.

Frank also felt the tension between the old ways and the new ways. His 
formative years were spent in a Transylvanian border town as a member of a 
Jewish minority within a Christian society and as a Hungarian speaker 
within a Romanian-speaking country. He was schooled in the ancient 
traditions of Judaic worship and observance. He loved these. Yet as early 
as his journey to the New World as a nine-year-old he was exposed to 
modern railroads, motor vehicles, large cosmopolitan cities (Paris as well 
as New York), and ocean-going travel. He was thrilled though some in his 
family would say seduced by the promise of modernity. And he was 
encouraged some would say deluded by the potential of science to make lives 
healthier and happier.

Frank was extremely proud of Jewish spiritual and cultural values. What he 
objected to was orthodoxy and closed-mindedness. I remember sitting 
through endless discourses after family meals, in which Dad would attack 
the hypocrisy of the priestly class throughout history as well as pointing 
out the harm wrought by organized religion. He himself abandoned his 
predestined career as a rabbi simply because he could not countenance 
exhorting a congregation to pray when he himself was no longer convinced 
of the existence of God. He respected people whose personal belief 
translated into selfless and compassionate behavior, but he had nothing 
but scorn for phonies and bigots.

Earlier I summarized my father's personal qualities and I mentioned his 
commitment to reason and science. If I had to summarize his other guiding 
principles, I would list them as agency, humanity, equality, and unity. 
Frank was impatient with recourse to scripture, with the argument that 
things are as they are for some preordained reason and that there is 
nothing we can do to change the world or our situation. He felt we all 
have the power to remake our lives and to right the wrongs in our society. 
Likewise, he felt that a focus on God, on divinity, could distract people 
from working for human and ecological well-being. He truly believed that 
all people are equal; he would not accept treating people differently 
according to rank, class, income, caste, race, or gender. Frank's belief 
in equality motivated him to work always for justice. And he believed 
strongly that no progress can be achieved unless people work together 
toward common ends. It's not just a linguistic coincidence that he chose 
to work in the union movement and to live in cooperative housing.

He liked to quote a phrase from the Talmud: Emes, emes, tirdof!, which he 
translated as Truth, truth, run after it!. He said he adopted this early 
on as his motto.

Some Amalgamated residents, probably some of you here, remember Frank as a 
crank: a tiresome fellow who wouldn't go with the flow, who kept beating a 
dead horse. I hope my words have helped you to appreciate why he acted as 
he did. Frank believed passionately that the Amalgamated existed not as a 
sinecure for affluent second and third generation professionals but as a 
sanctuary for new generations of working people trying to lift their 
families out of poverty and squalor. I would never say that Frank was 
beyond criticism; but he was definitely beyond self-interest. He always 
had higher principles in mind.

With Frank it was always about principles, never about personalities. Just 
one example: Although Frank opposed many of the policies during Ed Yaker's 
administration, Frank had no personal animus toward Ed. Frank liked Ed 
personally and respected his commitment to the Amalgamated and to service. 
Frank just disagreed with the policies. I won't say any more about this 
now; Ed is here to defend himself!

My father's life was so expansive and outgoing that it would be easy to 
overlook the role played by my mother. Jean is a quieter person and less 
political, but her steady support allowed Dad to do his work, and her 
domestic management kept the family fed and functional. She is with us 
today and we should honor her equally.

During the last decade of his long life, Frank suffered from a progressive 
dementia. He was oblivious to it, but his erratic behaviors caused others, 
particularly Jean a lot of distress. My freshest memories of Dad are of 
these last troubled years, so I am eager to hear the recollections of 
those present. They will help me to re-balance my impression of my own 
father.

I'd like to end my talk by quoting parts of two passages from the Passover 
service that my father remembered from his childhood and recited often some 
would say ad nauseam during his last few years, when he couldn't think of 
other things to say. I think these passages tell us a lot about his 
upbringing and core beliefs. First:

Talmidey khakhomim marbim sholom b'olom. Sheney emar, v'khol bonayikh 
limudey adonoy, v'rav sholom b'oholoyikh.

The students of wise men increase peace in the world. As it is said, if 
all your children are students of our Lord, there will be much peace in 
your tents.

And the second passage:

V'hi sheyomdo l'avoseynu v'lonu

she lo echad bilvad omadoleynu l'khaloseynu

she b'khol dor v'dor omdim oleynu l'khaloseynu

v'ha kodosh, borukh hu, matsileynu mi odom.

And it was so for our forefathers as it is for us

That not only once did they stand against us to destroy us,

But in every generation there are those who stand against us to destroy 
us,

And the Holy One, blessed be He, saves us from their clutches.

I don't think Dad was thinking here just of the Jewish people, and I know 
that he wasn't depending on the Holy One to save us. I think he was 
reminding me as best he could with his declining brain power that the path 
of righteousness is fraught with peril. Never become complacent and never 
give up!
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This tribute appears on the Frank Schonfeld webpage at:

http://frankschonfeld.drupalgardens.com/content/my-father-philosopher-paintbrush

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