Renaissance man Sidney G. Adler dies at 96

Sidney Adler was a linguist, student of Jewish and American history, art collector, businessman, teacher, horticulturist well known for his “green thumb,” and philanthropist.  He moved with his family to the Five Towns in 1948 and since then lived in Cedarhurst, Lawrence, and Atlantic Beach.  

     Adler’s American roots date back to 1856 when his grandfather and great-uncle Marcus and Moses Garfunkel literally missed the boat from Goteborg, Sweden to Australia and instead sailed to America. During the Civil War his family had a farm in Columbia, South Carolina where state legislators first gathered to vote for secession but because of an outbreak of small pox moved to Charleston where the actual vote was taken. 

Columbia, a hotbed for the Confederacy, was untouched by the war until General Sherman’s march to the sea. In February 1865 the city was set on fire. Remarkably one house on the city’s main street was unharmed. It was the Garfunkel house and it was spared because Mrs. Garfunkel’s brother Louis Trager was a spy for the Union Army.  

    Adler was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1914 and graduated Baltimore City College one of the finest high schools in the northeast but with a name that caused an amusing incident several years later. 

He graduated at 15 and his parents felt he was too young to start college so they sent him to study for a year at a Jewish boarding school in Switzerland. When he returned he attended Johns Hopkins University and graduated in 1935.  Shortly after that he turned 21 and went to register to vote. He brought along his high school diploma, a requirement at the time but the officials could not be convinced that Baltimore City College was a high school and a college diploma was not acceptable for voting so they gave him a literacy test. He passed. He was later was awarded a master’s degree in education from the City University of New York.

     Adler worked for 35 years for United Merchants and Manufacturers. After he retired he worked for 24 more years as a New York City high school teacher of English, history, and economics. 

While he was teaching a mandatory retirement age for city employees was instituted.  He was 70 at the time and wrote a letter to The New York Times informing readers that while he was forced to retire he was still younger Ronald Reagan who was president. Within a short while the policy was rescinded.  

     He was a long-time board member of HILI, president of the Far Rockaway mikva while it was being built, and international treasurer of Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem.  For many years as a volunteer he taught economics and history at Yeshiva of Far Rockaway High School.

     In 1943 he married Betty Straus. They had six children, Joseph, David, Edward, Nathan, Caroline, and Susan. In 1979, Edward saw a woman in danger and intervened. He saved her life, but was critically injured and died a few weeks later. For his courage Edward was given many posthumous awards including the Carnegie Medal.  

     Adler is survived by many children,grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.