Editor’s Note: Funeral services will be held on Monday, Jan. 7, for Jewish communal leader Murray Galinson at 1 p.m. at Congregation Beth Israel.
By Gary Rotto
SAN DIEGO –“You should go meet with Murray Galinson.” I can’t really exactly who said that to me in early June 1990. I had just finished working on a State Assembly campaign for Mike Gotch. The campaign arm of the Speaker of the Assembly didn’t know where they would send me next – especially since I wasn’t officially on anyone’s staff. And with my parents living in San Diego, it would be a good place to stay rather than being a part of the nomadic band of campaign staffers moving up and down the state from one campaign to the next.
I remember that even in that first meeting at the bank, he was easy to talk with, friendly, fatherly. He was someone who liked to meet young, smart people who sought to make a change in the world. It helped that my on my resume were stints with the Jewish Federations in Los Angeles and Long Beach. And he readily provided advice on who might be looking to hire someone like me or who else to network with. It helped that as I moved to different positions in the community, it happened to be with folks that Murray liked. Well, maybe it wasn’t by chance but more by design as I think about it. Rarely did I take a position without asking Murray for his insights.
He was someone who understood not only the Jewish community and how it could and would develop in San Diego, but also the needs of the general community. I recall learning that he chaired the first Citizen’s Advisory Board on Police-Community Relations. It was a group formed by the initiative process with great support from communities of color, in particular. Someone with great skill and acumen was needed to bring this board into existence as the police union seemed concerned about a potential forum for bashing the police but the community needed a place to have legitimate concerns heard and respected. Murray was the right person to lead the board … and even publicly prod the Mayor and Council to properly fund the board as noted in an LA Times article at that time.
Murray believed in empowering people. He believed in civil public discourse. He believed in diversity. I remember talking to Murray as I was about to take the position as the director of the American Jewish Committee in San Diego. And sure enough, Murray was a supporter. In fact, several years prior, he and Elaine were honorees of the AJC. And he still proudly had the program and invitation from that evening. The AJC was his type of organization because of how it approached and encouraged intergroup relations, dialogue and programming. When it was time for me to guide my first big AJC gala dinner, Murray and Elaine were there literally sitting next to me and my while my then wife, Kathleen, who was 35 weeks pregnant, was being checked up at the hospital.
“Gary, you really need to leave for the hospital,” Murray advised me. “But Kathleen assured me that she’s not giving birth tonight and made me promise to stay. She said that she would call me as soon as the doctor saw her.” “Oy, Gary. You should just go. Everything will be fine here. Trust me, from experience, don’t wait for that call.” He was right. And I called him to let him know of the birth of Kelila. “I was there when you were born,” he would tell Kelila over the years when he would see her.
I had the pleasure and I would say honor of meeting with Murray many times over the past years. If there was someone who I felt was a real up and comer – especially someone from a community of color – he wanted to meet them. I used that judiciously, but it’s how now Labor Leader Lorena Gonzalez and Southwestern Community College Trustee Humberto Peraza met Murray.
A few years ago, Murray asked me to swing by his office. It turned out that Ed Samiljan and Jerry Silverman (then the President of the Foundation for Jewish Camping) were there to talk about forming a San Diego-based Jewish residential camp which became Camp Mountain Chai.
We would have coffee or lunch quarterly to talk politics and about who might be potential leaders in the public policy field. A few months ago, Murray had to cancel our coffee but asked me to come to a meeting in its place. If Murray invited me to something, I was going to be there. As it turned out, the meeting was about a possible project to build water wells in a impoverished area of rural Ethiopia. The Joint Distribution Committee through the Jewish Community Foundation was making this very small group presentation in hopes that the Galinson Family Foundation would participate in the effort. Murray was impressed and we talked about the project afterwards. But as Murray related to me, he wanted the family to make decisions about philanthropy. He wanted to share the responsibility and the honor of making such decisions in a collaborative way with the whole family.
I swung by his office at the end of October for coffee and to talk about the upcoming election, including the Senate races. “Why are we only having coffee?” Murray asked me at the end of the conversation. “We need to have lunch soon!”
I was so blessed to have Murray as a mentor, as a friend, as someone who I looked to somewhere between an uncle and a father. But I know that I was not unique. He mentored so many others in town. He will be missed.
As his daughter-in-law Jane Fantel wrote on her Facebook page, “Shalom our chaver, shalom.”
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Rotto is a freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted via gary.rotto@swdjewishworld.com