Herbie DiFonzo—Mensch Extraordinaire

• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12317
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Andrew Schepard

HERBIE DIFONZO—MENSCH EXTRAORDINAIRE

Andrew Schepard

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When news of Herbie’s death spread, the calls and e-mails I received from former students,

colleagues, and friends repeatedly used the same word—mensch—to describe him. According to Leo

Rosten, author of the Joys of Yiddish,amensch is “someone to admire and emulate, someone of

noble character. The key to being ‘a real mensch’ is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a

sense of what is right, responsible, decorous.”

I was somewhat surprised by the widespread use of mensch to describe Herbie—born in Buenos

Aires, educated in New York City’s Catholic schools, and a convert later in life to Methodism. I

thought of mensch as an expression of Jews of European descent and a remnant of their Yiddish heri-

tage. To again quote Rosten, mensch “is a term that Jews grew up on in their childhood. The Jewish

mother frequently told her child ‘Be A Mensch.’ To ‘Be a Mensch’ is the greatest praise and to say to

someone that he is not a ‘Mensch’ is the biggest put down.”

But on reflection, mensch describes Herbie perfectly and illustrates how Yiddish words express

timeless qualities that have no exact counterpart in English. What made Herbie a mensch? I invite

everyone who loved and admired him to answer that question for themselves. To get the conversa-

tion started, here are a few of Herbie’s mensch qualities that come to mind for me:

Herbie brought out the best in everyone around him. Samuel Johnson once said that “the true

measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.” Herbie embodied

that philosophy. He treated everyone—faculty, support staff, administration, and, most significantly,

students as individuals. He listened to what they said and worked to understand them. His sense of

humor, corny and often aimed at his own foibles, showed his basic humanity and playfulness, which

attracted others. Herbie never took himself too seriously. We loved him for that.

For his students, Herbie wanted nothing more than for them to learn and realize their potential. I

had the office next to Herbie for many years and cannot count the number of times I saw him in his

office, teaching his students, counseling them, editing their work, encouraging them to believe they

could achieve anything. He was a model teacher. Herbie was voted Hofstra Law School’s Teacher of

the Year for good reason. Our students could not have made a better choice. Herbie believed in them

and they in him.

Herbie always tried to do the right thing. Herbie was a model scholar, whose elegant writing was

guided by his fundamental honesty, courage, and integrity. He was guided by facts, not predeter-

mined ideology. He investigated and based his conclusions on wherever the evidence led him.

Those qualities allowed him to navigate controversies that would have scuttled on the shoals of

controversy. Herbie’s work as co-reporter (with Professor Marsha Kline Pruett) for the Shared

Parenting Think Tank, sponsored by the Association of Families and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), is

a prime example. Writing the Think Tank report required Herbie and Marsha to analyze the strengths

and weaknesses of mounds of less than clear empirical research to shape public policy on what the

law should provide about shared parenting after separation and divorce. And the subject, of course,

is in the cross hairs of the gender wars and the wars between disciplines. The final report of the Think

Tank focuses comprehensively and thoughtfully on the most important perspective of the issue—that

of the child affected by his/her parents’ conflict—persuasively and with humility.

As Lincoln might have observed, Herbie’s scholarship, aimed at improving the lives of families in

court, was written with malice toward none and charity for all. Everyone knew that. And those quali-

ties are what made Herbie persuasive and easy to work with, even if you disagreed with him. His

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 56 No. 1, January 2018 13–14

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C2018 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts