H eadlines
Hearing Aid Pioneer Cy Libby Dies at 98
O B I TUA RY
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
E. ROBERT “CY” LIBBY, a
doctor, inventor and writer
who rose from humble begin-
nings in Strawberry Mansion
to become a world-renowned
figure in the field of hearing aid
technology, died in his sleep on
Feb. 19. He was 98.

Libby was born Esiah
Libschitz to Clara and Alter
Libschitz in 1920. Alter
Libschitz was a socialist book-
binder in Ukraine who fled to
Argentina during the Russian
Revolution and became a
gaucho. After “he got tired of
riding horses,” as Libby told
Philadelphia Inquirer colum-
nist Stu Bykofsky in October,
his father made his way to
Philadelphia. The man who Bykofsky
featured under the headline
“The Jewish Gaucho’s Son
Who Improved the Lives of the
Deaf” was best known for the
invention of his “Libby Horn,”
an early hearing aid that con-
sisted of a small J-shaped
device. But he actually began
his career as an optometrist in
1943. He paid his way through
school working jobs at a cel-
ery factory and the St. Charles
Hotel in Atlantic City, along
with a side gig selling pea-
nuts. Libby himself was hard of
hearing, the result of a surgery
in his youth.

He opened a hearing aid
technology store
called Associated Hearing at 6796
Market St. in Upper Darby,
where he’d remain in busi-
ness for 65 years. For the first
six months, Libby sat around
twiddling his thumbs — no
A lawyer gave him a little bit of advice: American customers weren’t going
to come into a store that said “Esiah Libschitz” on the sign. Find a new
name, the lawyer told him. And so E. Robert Libby was born.

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Cy Libby
one was coming in. A lawyer
gave him a little bit of advice:
American customers weren’t
going to come into a store that
said “Esiah Libschitz” on the
sign. Find a new name, the
lawyer told him.

And so E. Robert Libby was
born. The “E” stood for Esiah,
eventually shortened to the
name he would go by for his
whole life: Cy.

In addition to the Libby
Horn, Libby invented a small
metronome that went behind
the ear that regulated the
speech patterns of stutterers
as well as various methods to
treat tinnitus. His Libby Horn,
patented in 1982, improved
hearing tremendously for
those who wore it. On his blog,
cylibby.com, there is a long
technical explanation for how
Libby was able to do so.

For many years, Libby
worked with his son, Danny
Libby, who became an audiolo-
gist. They ran the store together,
a time that the younger Libby
Photo courtesy of cylibby.com
looks back on fondly. They
sold the store 12 years ago, and
Danny Libby remains in the
hearing aid business, working
for Zounds Hearing.

“He lived an amazing life,”
Danny Libby said. “He touched
many, many lives.”
Libby traveled all over the
world lecturing on his craft,
describing his methods and
ideas to audiologists, otolaryn-
gologists and hearing aid spe-
cialists. He wrote for medical
journals, and edited Hearing
Instruments, a now-defunct
publication. In the ’90s, he
wrote 17 volumes of “Libby’s
Random Pieces” — notes
and musings collected over
the years.

Cy Libby is survived by two
children, Danny and Claire; a
daughter-in-law, Lori; and two
grandchildren, Jacob and Max.

Libby’s wife of 64 years, Mira
Braverman, died in 2011. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Philly Faces: Tribe12 Fellow
Starts Business to Make
Mosaics from Wedding Glass
L O CAL
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
DANIELLE BRIEF, 27, is a
member of the 2019 cohort
of Tribe12 Fellows, an educa-
tional leadership program that
allows the Drexel University
graduate to pursue a Jewishly
focused venture alongside her
full-time job working in the
corporate office of Five Below.

Brief spoke about her ven-
ture, HamsaMade, and what
success would look like to her.

How did HamsaMade
come to be?
It was the week of my twin
sister’s wedding, and I was hav-
ing trouble sleeping. I was also
conflicted with what to get her
and her husband as a wedding
gift. I felt that writing a check
to my own sister, after being so
involved in the wedding plan-
ning process, would be a little
bit impersonal. And everything
on her registry had already been
purchased, and I didn’t want to
just get her a set of dishes.

So I came up with this idea
of when she has all this shat-
tered glass following her chup-
pah ceremony, to then turn it
into a mosaic so she could then
cherish that moment forever.

Mosaic is a hobby that my
family has shared since I was
a really young girl. My dad’s
a mosaic artist, and it kind of
NAME: BERTA SAWYER; WIDTH: 3.625 IN;
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00083059 just trickled down to every-
one in my family. Like, literally
everything in our home is cov-
ered in tile and glass and other
three-dimensional objects.

So I thought it’d be a cool
way to incorporate a passion of
mine with solving the problem
of, I don’t wanna buy something
just off a registry, I don’t wanna
write a check and I want to get
her something that will be really
memorable and meaningful.

At about the same time, the
Tribe12 Fellowship application
went live, and I thought, ‘I always
wanted to have my own brand.’
How did that fit in with the
application process?
The Tribe12 application
Mosaic is a hobby that my family has shared since I was a really young
girl. The application process just solidified that I had an idea that I was
passionate about and wanted to pursue.”
DANIELLE BRIEF
Danielle Brief
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM Photo courtesy of Danielle Brief
asked a lot of really deep ques-
tions on describing yourself,
just giving a little blurb about
who you are, what is your
venture, why do you want to
launch it now, of all times. And
I actually wrote everything out
in a notebook. I didn’t even
type it out because I just felt
like my ideas were flowing, and
I was really inspired. And I was
on a plane, so I didn’t have my
laptop with me.

So the application process
actually just solidified that I had
an idea that I was passionate
about and wanted to pursue.

Right off the bat in my
application, it was clear that
I had a strong idea, and then
there was an interview process.

It was kind of like lightning
speed dating, where you’re in a
room with 10 different tables,
JEWISH EXPONENT
each with two interviewers,
and you have five minutes per
table, roughly, to really pitch
your idea, like you have an ele-
vator pitch.

And that was intense, and
the first two rounds were really
my practice, but by the third
interviewer I knew exactly
what my goal was — I knew
how to express it. And it’s hard
when you have an idea that’s
really just in the initial concept
stage to make people under-
stand how it could be a viable
business and how it’s unique.

So that interview process
kind of confirmed that I had an
idea that’s not just in my own
head — I said it out loud to 20
people who all seemed really
excited by it, and understood
what I was trying to do. That
just confirmed even further
that I wanted to go through
this fellowship process.

What are your hopes for
HamsaMade? My hope is that I can one
day just be, you know, scrolling
through Instagram and see a
stranger that I never met post a
picture of my work, and be like,
“Oh my gosh, I just found this
awesome mosaic that showcases
my friend’s glass from their
chuppah ceremony, how cool is
this?” If I could see one person
who’s not my mom or my sister
or my coworkers that have one
of my custom pieces in their
home that they’re enjoying —
that would be really meaningful
to me. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
MARCH 7, 2019
7