Benjamin Hornstein, a long-time fellow of Brandeis University and founder of the university’s Hornstein Program in Jewish Communal Service, has died at age 95.
Hornstein’s many civic and philanthropic activities have “left behind an extensive legacy of Jewish educational and welfare services and an extensive legacy of friends who loved and respected him,” said Bernard Reisman, professor of American Jewish communal studies at Brandeis, who delivered a eulogy at Hornstein’s funeral service in New York March 23.
Reisman, director of the university’s Hornstein program, which trains graduate level students for leadership positions in the Jewish community, said Hornstein’s involvement with Brandeis was intense.
He was a frequent visitor with students in the program that bears his name. He was an overseer of the university’s Lown School of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies, and, from a hospital bed this past winter, he called Brandeis president Evelyn Handler to make a contribution at the university’s Palm Beach fundraising luncheon. This was the first of the 24 annual fundraising luncheons that he had missed.
MANY TOUCHED BY HIS GENEROSITY
“His kindness and generosity touched many,” Handler said. “Ben Hornstein financed programs that provide opportunity and hope for countless people whose future would be immeasurably less, were it not for him.”
Hornstein, who retired in 1960 as president of Charles Stores Company, Inc., was born and raised in New York City and lived in recent years in Palm Beach, where he funded a Jewish day school that bears his name.
He was a founder and overseer of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a founder of the United Jewish Appeal of New York. His many other civic and philanthropic associations included the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York University, the American Jewish Committee and the Lexington School for the deaf in New York.
Hornstein’s last visit to Brandeis was this past fall, when he received the honorary degree of doctor of humane letters on Founders’ Day in recognition of his service to others.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
