My Tribute to My Rabbi, Arthur Gelb

5/21/2014

Arthur Gelb and Mike Levitas Could Find You. Anywhere.

In admirable journalistic precision, it did not take Sam Roberts long to get to the point about Arthur Gelb.

“Sheer force of personality.” Words 5 through 8.

Gelb was a whirlwind, make you crazy, make you work better. He was our boss, our captor, our rabbi, and now he is gone at 90. So soon?

If anybody wants to know about The New York Times – why one passionate sliver of society is paying so much attention to the current changes – it is all contained in Arthur Gelb’s obituary in today’s paper. He personified the power and the glory, the curiosity and the authority, of the Times.

Just read Sam’s obit. But let me say a few personal words.

I went to work for him on Jan. 2, 1973, after choosing to come back from a great job in Appalachia. Needed to get home. I was taken in by the Metro editor, long and twitchy, whom I did not know but would soon come to think of as a stork on speed. Arthur had a zillion ideas, half a dozen of which were brilliant, and he was capable of great enthusiasms and innate wisdom.

“Cover Long Island like a national assignment, the way you did Appalachia,” he told me. He got it. Whenever other editors tried to change my direction, I would quote him. He loved to hear about things outside his urban experience.

People fish for snappers and bluefish less than an hour from Times Square?

How long has this been going on?

Get photos! Write long! We’ll put it on the second front!

Every day he promised 10 or 12 reporters that their literary efforts would be on the second front. The next day, from the obscurity of B17, most of the reporters wanted to throttle him.

He was sometimes kind, liked to reward people, in a job that necessitated hard decisions, in a newsroom stocked with talent (and still is.)

Sensational new recruits got heavy play. One year it was the wonderful Anna Quindlen. The next year it was the marvelous Alan Richman.

“There goes Alan Richman,” Quindlen once quipped, but nicely. “He’s the new Anna Quindlen.” She did all right. So did Richman. So did a lot of Arthur’s people.

There was one way to get through to him. I tried acting disturbed, but how would anybody tell in that setting? Grace Lichtenstein, one of our hardiest reporters, who could go anywhere, do anything, found a way to get through to Arthur. She would complain to him in the center of the newsroom – until tears started welling in her eyes.

“Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” he would plea, hustling her into a conference room. She did fine. He was a big softy, under that manipulative armor.

(THIS JUST IN: Check Grace's letter in the NYT Thursday:)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/22/opinion/arthur-gelb-of-the-times-a-maestro-in-the-newsroom.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

(GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE; WE HAVEN'T COMPARED NOTES IN A FEW YEARS. GV.)

He took care of his people. I had somebody who knew me, as long as he was in the building. It was a comforting thought.

When he retired from the news operation, there was a gathering of his people, hundreds of reporters and editors who had suffered and thrived under him. Charlayne Hunter-Gault was the lead speaker, telling stories of the mythical second frontings, the weird assignments, the dead ends, the forgotten promises.

In the front row, the old rascal sat there, a huge smile on his face, surrounded by his people.

Yes, his smile said, I did all that.

Just read Sam Roberts’ piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/media/new-york-times-editor-arthur-gelb-dies.html?_r=0

And read Pranay Gupte's piece, too. Pranay was there.

http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/zgQ0MGi2WcIK9ddZDXXoIP/Arthur-Gelb-creative-tower-of-tension-of-The-New-York-Time.html

Thor A. Larsen

5/21/2014 01:40:46 pm

Wow! A very fascinating man with so many contributions in the news industy. I now understand a little better why the New York Times is so much more interesting and comprehensive ves competing newspapers.
Yes, George, you were fortunate to have joined The New York Times in the 1970's and have had such fine encouragement and support as you were developing your special skills.

George Vecsey

5/21/2014 03:03:09 pm

Roberts' great piece mentions Arthur's involvement in theater.
One time he told me to do a feature on Saturday doubleheaders -- matinee and night.
Got me in to interview Colleen Dewhurst between shows of Virginia Woolf.
Earth Mother in her den. Arthur could make things happen.

Mendel

5/22/2014 05:16:34 am

George,

I appreciate your illustrative use of the word “rabbi.” What meaning does the term hold for you?

George Vecsey

5/22/2014 11:48:23 am

Dear Mendel: funny, Grace Lichtenstein uses the same phrase in her letter in the NYT (I included it in my addenda above)
To me -- as a goy who was dubbed an honorary Jew by my late friend Rabbi Wolfe Kelman -- and a Landsman by Eastside Al -- the term means adviser, teacher, protector, friend. It's used a lot in NYC in a totally secular way. Wolfe was my rabbi for real. But Abe Rosenthal and Arthur Gelb were my bosses when I was young and foolish at the NYT. They didn't kill me or my career. All one could ask. Decades later, presto, my rabbis. At the time it was, well, let's say, more complicated. GV

Mendel

5/22/2014 11:48:26 pm

George,

Lovely. Among the more observant-orthodox the term “rabbi” often reflects a more official and less personal relationship. For the type of connection you describe one would use the more intimate “rebbi” which translates literally as “my teacher."

George Vecsey

5/23/2014 04:20:03 am

Mendel, thanks for the clarification.
When I covered religion (Mike Levitas, in the photo above, offered me that beat) I spent many stimulating hours at 770, the world HQ for the Lubavitcher movement, and I observed Rabbi Schneerson advising people about life and work and spiritual matters. Rosenthal and Gelb were tough guys, lots of hard feelings going around, but in the climate of that newsroom, one could go to either with hopes and dreams and get an audience. Both of them remembered something I said -- that I was sure they had forgot -- that led me back to Sports. Talk about a rebbi! GV

Pranay Gupte

5/22/2014 06:32:18 am

Lovely piece, George. And thanks for mentioning my own tribute to Arthur. Warmest

Alan Rubin link

5/23/2014 03:31:29 am

George

I habitually read the NY Times obituaries as a source of interesting information about people, whether I had been aware of them or not.

As a NYT reader of about 70 years, Arthur Gelb’s obituary was a special insight into his career and influience. George’s comments about his “rebbi” were a perfect complement.

I often think at funerals, “I hope that the deceased was aware of their relatives and friends feelings when alive.

Mendel

5/23/2014 04:31:12 am

George,
Of my (deceased) rebbe I have come to believe that he believed in me more than I believe in myself. Your grasp of the "rebbe" concept is more Jewish than you know.

Comments are closed.

QUOTES

Measuring Covid Deaths, by David Leonhardt. July 17, 2023. NYT online.
The United States has reached a milestone in the long struggle against Covid: The total number of Americans dying each day — from any cause — is no longer historically abnormal….

After three horrific years, in which Covid has killed more than one million Americans and transformed parts of daily life, the virus has turned into an ordinary illness.

The progress stems mostly from three factors:
First, about three-quarters of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
Second, more than three-quarters of Americans have been infected with Covid, providing natural immunity from future symptoms. (About 97 percent of adults fall into at least one of those first two categories.)
Third, post-infection treatments like Paxlovid, which can reduce the severity of symptoms, became widely available last year.
“Nearly every death is preventable,” Dr. Ashish Jha, who was until recently President Biden’s top Covid adviser, told me. “We are at a point where almost everybody who’s up to date on their vaccines and gets treated if they have Covid, they rarely end up in the hospital, they almost never die.”

That is also true for most high-risk people, Jha pointed out, including older adults — like his parents, who are in their 80s — and people whose immune systems are compromised. “Even for most — not all but most —immuno-compromised people, vaccines are actually still quite effective at preventing against serious illness,” he said. “There has been a lot of bad information out there that somehow if you’re immuno-compromised that vaccines don’t work.”

That excess deaths have fallen close to zero helps make this point: If Covid were still a dire threat to large numbers of people, that would show up in the data.

One point of confusion, I think, has been the way that many Americans — including we in the media — have talked about the immuno-compromised. They are a more diverse group than casual discussion often imagines.

Most immuno-compromised people are at little additional risk from Covid — even people with serious conditions, such as multiple sclerosis or a history of many cancers. A much smaller group, such as people who have received kidney transplants or are undergoing active chemotherapy, face higher risks.

Covid’s toll, to be clear, has not fallen to zero. The C.D.C.’s main Covid webpage estimates that about 80 people per day have been dying from the virus in recent weeks, which is equal to about 1 percent of overall daily deaths.

The official number is probably an exaggeration because it includes some people who had virus when they died even though it was not the underlying cause of death. Other C.D.C. data suggests that almost one-third of official recent Covid deaths have fallen into this category. A study published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases came to similar conclusions.

Dr. Shira Doron, the chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine in Massachusetts, told me that “age is clearly the most substantial risk factor.” Covid’s victims are both older and disproportionately unvaccinated. Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims are also disproportionately
Republican and white.

Each of these deaths is a tragedy. The deaths that were preventable — because somebody had not received available vaccines and treatments — seem particularly tragic. (Here’s a Times guide to help you think about when to get your next booster shot.)
***

From the great Maureen Dowd:

As I write this, I’m in a deserted newsroom in The Times’s D.C. office. After working at home for two years during Covid, I was elated to get back, so I could wander around and pick up the latest scoop.
But in the last year, there has been only a smattering of people whenever I’m here, with row upon row of empty desks. Sometimes a larger group gets lured in for a meeting with a platter of bagels."

--- Dowd writes about the lost world of journalists clustered in newsrooms at all hours, smoking, drinking, gossipping, making phone calls, typing, editing.
***
"Putting out the paper," we called it.
Much more than nostalgia.
---https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/29/opinion/journalism-newsroom.html

My Tribute to My Rabbi, Arthur Gelb

Categories

Buy the Book