Eulogy: Alan Federman
Alan Federman—A Life
13 December 1928 — 15 January 2025
30 Kislev 5689 — 15 Tevet 5785
How do you measure the value, the sum total of a life? Is it by awards? By accolades? Is it by accumulated wealth? Material possessions? An opulent lifestyle? I think, if we were to make an attempt to measure the true merit of a life, we would have to collect and weigh all of the tears shed and add them to the volume, the amplitude of the outpouring of grief and loss expressed by all whose lives were touched by the heart and soul that is now on its way to heaven. By this measure, my dad—Al Federman, Zaidie Al, Uncle Al—was among the wealthiest men who ever lived.
You all knew him. So, if I were to describe my dad as fiercely independent, stubborn as all get out, highly opinionated, organized with systems and routines to the extreme—he had a system and a routine and an organization for everything right down to making coffee in the morning—those who had the pleasure (sometimes dubious pleasure) to be with him, and to interact with him would smile and nod their heads knowingly. If, for example, you were on the other side of a discussion with a point to be made or defended or debated, his comeback would inevitably be, “You’re wrong, and I’ll tell you why”—always with the finger and always with a wry smile!
They don’t make them like my dad anymore. In addition to his presence, because you always knew when he was around, and perhaps in contrast to that presence, he was always what I might call a quiet community builder. He didn’t seek to be the centre of attention or to take the top position among the communities in which he participated. Instead, more than simply being active, he was a catalyst—he helped to make things happen. From his university days and well beyond, he was active in Rho Pi Phi and Rokeah, the Jewish chapter of the pharmacist fraternity, along with pretty much every other Jewish pharmacist in the city. His fraternity connections within the pharmacy community continued throughout my childhood and helped to forge some of his most enduring friendships over the years.
And speaking of enduring friendships over the years, he maintained lifelong friendships with people like Willie Silverberg, Irving Kasdan, Marvin English, and many more whom he met at Lord Lansdowne Public School as a child and Harbord Collegiate, and ended up outliving them all. He simply refused to slow down.
He met my mother while he was in university, having been set up on a blind date by a mutual friend for a community dance at Beth Sholom synagogue. It was literally love at first sight with this beautiful young woman newly arrived from Kirkland Lake, and that love endured over more than six decades. Together, they were among the original members and community builders of Beth Am synagogue. Even after amalgamation 47 years ago, he still identified as a Beth Am-nik, as I’m sure many of you here today to honour his memory still do. He was active in what was then called the Men’s Club, active in the newsletter, and many years later, in producing a retrospective history of the shul.
As a member of the famous Beth Am players (and it didn’t hurt to be married to the equally famous director of the Beth Am Players), he embraced his inner showman, which quickly became his outer showman among many Beth Am Players productions, starting with “Suburbia,” followed by “The Pyjama Game,” “My Fair Sadie,” “Laugh-Out,” “Hello Molly,” “Poor Old World (We love you anyway),” and many others, culminating in the elaborately produced and staged “Mishikado.” Over the years, these experiences melded into his oft-repeated mantra for his life, “The Show Must Go On!”
As kids, some of my most vivid memories are connected with the many car trips we took, often down the eastern seaboard of the United States, and often with other families of his school friends. We would load up the Ford Country Sedan station wagon with Mom and Dad in the front, kids, luggage, a bubby—my brother, Stephen, would be wedged into the back storage area among the suitcases—and off we would go to Detroit, Florida, Washington, wherever. I can remember having my very first taste of pecan pie in Georgia, probably at a Howard Johnson’s off the highway just before crossing into Florida. I’ve loved pecan pie ever since.
Professionally, he was a pharmacist through and through and made a point of keeping up on the latest advances in medications and pharmaceuticals throughout his career. He worked at Newman’s Drugs, then for a short time at Dime’s Drugs on Jarvis Street, and then decided to open his own pharmacy, Emery Drugs, near Finch and Weston Road. That store was very successful, enabling my parents to buy the newly built home in a new subdivision on Grandravine Drive, and raise a family of four children. As yet another demonstration of his fierce independence, he bucked the trend among many of his friends to become amalgamated into what was becoming the Shoppers Drug Mart empire. Instead, he decided to open a store even larger than Emery Drugs, Service Drug Mart. He took great pride in the fact that he was the second-last pharmacist in the province to adopt computer technology, doing so only because the provincial drug benefit plan would not pay him unless he had a computer system in the store. Characteristically, stubborn to the last! He eventually sold that store and became an itinerant pharmacist, working among a series of pharmacies and dispensaries, decreasing his shifts as he aged, until at the ripe age of 89, he gave up dispensing medications for good. He always maintained that the moment you retire, when you stop using your mind and having a purpose each day, that’s when you start to decline. So, for my dad, the show had to go on.
Over the last decade, he was busy every day, with a social life better than mine. Each day had a purpose and an activity, whether it was exercise class at the shul, shopping day, Club Chaverut in which he was a regular participant, Shabbat dinners with my family that were the highlight of his week, or what I think was his pride and joy: Saturday Night at the Movies for which he would select one of his nearly 3,000 meticulously catalogued movies to share with a regular group of friends, after pizza, to be followed by tea and cake.
In the yizkor memorial service that we recite four times a year we acknowledge that our life on this earth is fragile and fleeting. We ask Hashem to “teach us to number our days so that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” My dad embodied that interesting turn of phrase, the “heart of wisdom.” It’s the wisdom of truly connecting with others. It’s the wisdom of building and enjoying and living in community. It is a wisdom that can inspire us all to live our lives fully, on our own terms. May his memory and his life inspire and bless all of us because as he would continue to remind us, the show must go on.