H eadlines
Rabbi Fredric Kazan Dies at 87
OB ITUARY
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
FREDRIC KAZAN, a longtime
Conservative rabbi and educator
who spent his life among
Philadelphia’s Jewish congrega-
tions, died on Jan. 4. He was 87.

Over the course of his
career, Kazan served Jewish
Philadelphians at various
institutions, including
Reconstructionist Rabbinical
College, Congregation Melrose
B’nai Israel, Temple Emanu-
El, the West Oak Lane Jewish
Community Center, Adath
Israel on the Main Line, Beth
Sholom Congregation and
Congregation Kesher Israel.

According to his daughter,
Dr. Liebe Gelman, congregants
at many of those institutions
told her in the days following
her father’s death that they
considered Kazan to be
primarily “their” rabbi.

This, Gelman believes,
was a vivid expression of her
father’s impact, and a status
that was earned through
decades of close attention paid
to his congregants. For years,
Kazan kept index cards with
detailed family histories of his
congregants, so that sermons
he delivered at simchas and
funerals seemed to come from
family members themselves.

That care, along with his
personal magnetism, drew
hundreds into his orbit.

“My father was an extremely
charismatic person,” said Dede
Kazan, one of the rabbi’s five
children. “Whenever you
walked in the room, you felt
Fredric Kazan, center, leads a tour
of Jewish Philadelphia, in 2012.

Jewish Exponent file photo
Fredric Kazan with two of his
grandchildren, in 1995
Courtesy of Liebe Gelman
his presence.”
Kazan was born on Oct.

30, 1933, and his early life
among Jewish institutions and
those frequented by Jewish
Philadelphians presaged his
later, professional involve-
ment. Kazan was born in
South Philadelphia, the neigh-
borhood where he’d help his
uncle with his pushcart at
the market. While still a boy,
the family moved to Forrest
Avenue in the Oak Lane
section of Philadelphia, joining
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6 JANUARY 14, 2021
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