New York, NY – Jewish Press writer Arnold Fine, author of the long running I Remember When column, chronicling Jewish life in New York City in the 1930’s and 1940’s, was buried today on Long Island. The 90 year old Fine, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease, died in his sleep at his Battery Park City home on September 5th.
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While Fine is most widely known in the Jewish community for his work as a columnist, he was a man of many hats. Having served in both the army and the navy, Fine who earned his Bachelor’s degree via the GI bill and eventually got a Master’s in education, worked as a special education teacher in the New York City school system educating brain-injured children. But it was Fine’s love of photography that ultimately brought him to The Jewish Press.
“He tried selling his pictures to different newspapers in the 1950’s and someone sent him over to my father,” Naomi Mauer, daughter of Rabbi Shalom Klass, founder of The Jewish Press told VIN News. “At the time my father had The Brooklyn Daily and then The Brooklyn Weekly and he was a columnist, eventually becoming the copy editor, city editor and finally the editor. He was right there with my father when my father started The Jewish Press.”
While Fine was senior news editor at The Jewish Press and his name often graced the paper’s headline story as well as other news articles, he is most often associated with the gently humorous I Remember When, which began running in the mid 1960’s.
“He would teach in the morning and come to us in the afternoon,” recalled Mrs. Mauer. “For years he wrote our front page article and other news articles. He was a household name and a favorite among our readers.”
Although Fine left The Jewish Press when he was in his mid 80’s, his column is still printed weekly. Several of his articles have been featured in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and in the Reader’s Digest.
The Jewish Press senior editor Jason Maoz, who succeeded Fine, has fond memories of his predecessor.
“Arnold Fine was both gracious and helpful to me from the moment I started working at The Jewish Press as a staff writer in 1997,” said Maoz.
“I’ll always remember going up to the roof of the old Jewish Press building, which was located right off Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, together with Arnie and several other colleagues the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 just moments after those two hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center. From that vantage point we had a clear view of the flames engulfing the towers and Arnie, who’d seen so much over the years, kept up a running commentary, placing this unthinkable event that was occurring right before our eyes in the context of New York City and U.S. history.
I’d succeeded him as senior editor a few months prior to 9/11 and Arnie, who at the time was in his late seventies, helped make the transition a smooth and easy one. He continued working at The Jewish Press for several years after that, always telling the warm, wonderful stories that enthralled those of us fortunate enough to be working with him.”
Fine, a music lover who played clarinet, saxophone and piano, is survived by his three sons, six grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
“Arnie Fine was, in many ways, a symbol of The Jewish Press during its formative years,” said Shlomo Greenwald, associate editor of The Jewish Press. “He helped usher the weekly, from its inception, to its place atop the frum Jewish newspaper landscape for decades.”
A wonderful man, whose columns entertained since childhood. Especially those about his dopey brother Berel. The Jewish Press is a wonderful paper, too, and would cover all spectra of yiddishkeit in those days when there was more achdus. From resepct for the gedolim, to the halachic opinions of Rabbi Steinberg ZL, to the Tales of the Midrashim, to Israeli and local news, it was a one-stop-shop that served so many of us for so many years. Arnold Fine was a big part of it. May his good work continue on.
Bd”e he was one of my favorite columnists. I started reading his “I remember when” articles practically as soon as I learned to read…..He will be greatly missed.
BDE. Yasher koach for those entertaining shabbosim, back when i read the Jewish Press.
BDE. I spent most of my childhood obsessed with I remember when, it gave me real Jewish pride and a love for reading. He will be missed!
Enjoyed many shabbosim reading his column on Fri nights.
BD”H
I liked his jokes the best. Very famous punch lines like “Why are you whispering? She’s deaf, too.”
was he Frum?
yep, I also spent much time, including Shabbos, reading the Jewish Press. He wrote many entertaining articles that gave us the feeling of the previous generation.
BDE
“go to college “? how dare you! bad grammar is not a crime. what they teach and pontificate in college is a risk like no other.
He was a favorite of my whole family as his tales were about my old neighborhood. My Grandparents lived on Honeywell Avenue between 179th Street and 180th Street and his stories centered on that area.
Firstly, BDE Arnold had a certain farzitisha yiddisha tam. I loved his artciles. Kosher and entertaining.
Re English Grammer; Guess what I am an ex kollel guy who cannot write a normal grammaticlly correct sentence. I also work in a very prestigous fortune 100 company with assets in the hundreds of billions (probably in the trillions!). In todays modern day of age grammer is less important than it use to be. Memo’s are a rarity. E-Mail correspondences are generally suppose to be kept down to one or two sentences. My supervisor claims that many of the higher up employees even write text message style/ slang e-mails. When people recieve 100 e-mails a day, its extremley important to say your point in one or two sentneces or you risk loosing the readers attention. (Unlike what I am writing here on vin). And for my misspelling there is spell check.
Grammer is not a high priorty any more in coporate America.
Arnold Fine was a great man from the great generation. B”DE he will be sorely missed.
To #7 . I understood what #4 wrote. Why are you so petty and nit picking? We are talking about a wonderful man who was niftar and all you can do is carp about grammar?
The Jewish Press is the only frum newspaper that shows respect for Jewish women by showing their pictures-not like other jewish papers that treat a women’s face as pritzus.
Fond memories of enjoying his column growing up when the JP was the only game in town. So much simpler life back then.