Stanley Hirsh, the imposing philanthropist, real estateinvestor and garment manufacturer as renown for his blunt-spoken style as hiscontributions to Jewish and political causes, died at his Studio City homeMarch 22 after a two-year battle with brain cancer. He was 76.
The mourners who gathered at his funeral at WilshireBoulevard Temple and Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries on Wednesdayremembered Hirsh as a man of contrasts: tough but fair, prickly butcompassionate.
“This was a really opinionated, obstinate guy,” said FrankMaas, secretary of The Jewish Federation. “And yet, he was the most generousman when he saw a person in trouble.”
“He was a taskmaster, but he cared about social justice,”said Rabbi Harvey Fields, who officiated at the funeral. “He felt aresponsibility that I think grew out of his Depression-era childhood ofexperiencing need and others in need.”
During Journal interviews, others described Hirsh as a manwho could be relentless in pursuing business and charitable goals, but whoserved as confidante and counselor to his employees, some of whom he helpedstart their own businesses.
A tall, muscular chain-smoker with fiercely intelligent blueeyes, Hirsh, a Jewish Federation past president, was also a maverickphilanthropist. “He was a doer, and he didn’t always worry about the communalniceties,” Federation President John Fishel said.
Arthur Laub, honorary vice president of Jewish FamilyService (JFS), described how his close friend Hirsh used to telephone JFS’sexecutive director at the end of each fiscal year. “He’d say, ‘Are you short?’and they were always short, and then he’d give them the money, whether it was$40,000 or $100,000,” Laub, 84, said. “Stanley got things done, and he did themhis way.”
Bronx-bred Hirsh, the son of a gas station owner, demonstratedthat independent streak early on. “He wasn’t the easiest candidate for his barmitzvah,” said his wife, Anita, Hirsh’s partner in philanthropy. “His Orthodoxrabbi threw him out, and his parents had to find a rabbi who could wranglehim.”
When that clergyman gave him a pushke to collect money forsettlers in then-Palestine, a philanthropist was born. “I took one of thoselittle blue cans and walked around the Bronx,” he told the Los Angeles Times in1992. “It was my first taste of going out and raising money — nickels and dimesand pennies…. They just asked that you bring the box back full.”
As a teenager, Hirsh dropped out of school and went to workto help support his family, which relocated to California when he was 14. Hecarried bricks and mortar at a Long Beach shipyard “until they found out he wasunderage,” Anita Hirsh said. Eventually, he finished high school while servingin the Navy, where his fellow recruits’ anti-Semitism “clinched his being a Jewforever,” his wife said.
After his stint in the military, Hirsh signed on as anassistant store manager for the women’s clothing manufacturer House of Nine;eight years later, he began his own apparel manufacturing company with apartner.
After marrying Anita, a clothing designer, in 1961, hisbusiness expanded rapidly; eventually the couple purchased six commercialbuildings in the downtown garment district, including the landmark CooperBuilding.
Steve Hirsh, 48, recalled how his father, an avid amateurplumber and electrician, did much of the initial work on those buildings, earlyLos Angeles skyscrapers, himself. “He’d go down with a screwdriver in hand andfix things,” he said.
On weekends, Hirsh’s four children were expected to helpwith chores at their Studio City home and 6-acre ranch, where Hirsh lovedtinkering with his yellow Case tractor. “We all held the flashlight while dadwas fixing things, and that’s how we learned,” his daughter, Jennifer, 33,said.
While Steve Hirsh hated the chores as a teenager, “therecollections are now sweet,” he told The Journal. “In retrospect, they seemlike some of the most important times I spent with my father.”
Stanley Hirsh’s pro-Israel activities date from 1967 and theSix-Day War, which “really got me off my butt,” he told the Times.
Four years later, his political involvement began when,dissatisfied with governance while serving on a homeowner’s group, he ran forthe Los Angeles City Council. He lost.
“But he was the first to endorse me during the runoffs,”former City Councilman Joel Wachs said. “Thereafter, he served as my campaigntreasurer and he was my best supporter for 30 years…. But he never soughtpublic attention for what he was doing; he worked behind the scenes.”
Along the way, Hirsh entered the world of large-scale politicalgiving, including organizing a 1976 fundraiser for Howard M. Metzenbaum, then aDemocratic Senate candidate from Ohio, according to the Times. Hirsh went on tosponsor events for 1988 vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen, Sen. CarlLevin (D-Michigan) and others who often shared his liberal, pro-Israel ideals.
“He could pick up the phone and call 20 senators,” Rep.Howard Berman (D-28th District) said. “He was viewed as an important resourcenationally.”
Hirsh was also viewed as an important resource in Israel,where the mayor of Tel Aviv once took him to an impoverished community calledAjami in the mid-1980s. When the mayor said the area wasn’t receiving attentionbecause it was predominantly Arab, the Hirshes put up the money to build anearly childhood development center.
Back at home, Hirsh served as Federation president andUnited Jewish Fund general campaign chair (1984-1985), and “he set a precedentby becoming the first half-million dollar giver,” according to Laub.
When The Federation’s kosher meals program for seniors wasjeopardized by problematic outside caterers around 1992, Hirsh again steppedforward. “He said, ‘Look, I’m going to build you a kitchen,'” JFS ExecutiveDirector Paul Castro recalled. A $650,000 initial grant helped build thestate-of-the-art Hirsh Family Kosher Kitchen on Fairfax Avenue, which providesmeals to homebound seniors and to 12 senior meal sites around Los Angeles.
According to Anita Hirsh, one of her husband’s favoriteroles in recent years was serving as publisher of The Jewish Journal of GreaterLos Angeles. Hirsh took on the position after the 1997 death of previousJournal publisher Edwin Brennglass.
“He was a good steward, because the newspaper is bettertoday than it was when he became the publisher,” said Irwin S. Field, chairmanof the board of Los Angeles Jewish Publications, the corporation that owns TheJournal. “Our move toward Conejo, the West Valley and Orange County was theresult of the thinking process that he brought about, which was to reach morereaders in Southern California.”
“The Journal grew significantly under Stanley’s leadership,”said Robert Eshman, The Journal’s editor-in-chief. “He wanted a paper that wastough, fair and compassionate — the same mixture of qualities he displayed.”
As Maas said just before Hirsh’s funeral, “Stanley could betough, but if there was a human issue, he was on it.”
Stanley Hirsh is survived by his wife, Anita; his children,Steve (Pam), Adam, Jennifer and Liz (Yehuda) Naftali; four grandchildren, andthree nieces and nephews and their spouses: Cathy and Larry Ross, Karyn andJason Newman, and Jeff and Beth Cohen and their children.
The family requests that donations in Hirsh’s memory be madeto Jewish Family Service. Mail to Jewish Family Service, attention: PaulCastro, 6505 Wilshire Blvd., Suite. 500, Los Angeles, CA 90048. For questions,call (323) 761-8800.