A Little History - Actor, Social Worker, Teacher, Adviser of the EDs - The Many Faces of Herman : Tom McDermott

 

Many of us came to know him only through the Senior Staff Seminars - a moment when staff, young and old, junior and senior, might be invited once in their careers to attend a seminar somewhere in the world - a unique opportunity to step outside our normal roles, study and discuss a field of interest but about which we knew little. We emerged from those seminars refreshed and challenged, and with a new network of colleagues similarly charged.

Yet Herman was much more for UNICEF than simply the organizer of seminars. Senior Advisor to three UNICEF Executive Directors, Herman Stein, had a 21 year career with UNICEF - who would take time from his teaching duties to work with UNICEF whenever needed. 

 At his retirement in 1981, Jim Grant described Herman as "guide, philosopher, and teacher to Executive Directors and to staff - a man who brought not just academic knowledge, but also a profound understanding of the value of people."

Among his many other intellectual contributions to UNICEF was his 2007 memoir of the 1964 Bellagio Conference. At the time he was age 89 and the last surviving member of the Bellagio Secretariat.  The memoir includes a touching tribute by Kul Gautam to the man he called 'A True Guru'. The document is a major piece of UNICEF's history all of us should read.   Click here.

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The Borscht Belt Comes to UNICEF House

The year was 1981 and UNICEF was saying farewell to several senior staff about to retire - Dick Heyward, Charles Egger, and Jack Charnow. Acting as MCs for the event were Jim Mayrides and Mary Racelis. The opening act as skit by two well-known local comedians - Herman Stein and Tarzie Vittachi.

 

Many thanks to Jim Mayrides who shared this and other videos from that event. We hope to publish others soon.
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Beyond UNICEF there was more - much more to know of Herman Stein and his career.

Raised in the Bronx in a Jewish family which had immigrated to the US from Poland, his mother wanted Herman to be a rabbi. But Herman wanted to be an actor. Of course, Mom won - and Herman dutifully spent four years studying at the Jewish Theological Seminary.  

But Mom's victory was only temporary.

After hours, and over summers outside the seminary, however, Herman found an outlet for his acting and his comic acts - performing at clubs in New York and summer camps in the Catskill Mountains. There, in camps in what was called 'the Borscht Belt', he became friends with an older but also aspiring actor and comedian - David Daniel Kaminsky - later known as Danny Kaye.

Kaminsky / Kaye was six years older (born in 1913, Herman in 1917). Yet, they shared the stage and became life-long friends.

 

A Young Danny Kaminski / Kaye (top row 2nd from right) at the White Roe Camp in the Catskills @1938 - not clear whether Herman is also in the photo. - if you can spot him, let us know.

After his four years undergraduate studies in theology, Herman followed the lead of his older brother, Joseph, and entered Columbia University's graduate programme in social work. Even then, however, Herman hadn't given up on an acting career.

At the end of his first year of grad studies at Columbia, Herman was invited to join Kaye in an off-Broadway variety show. He was tempted, but someone else he had met in the camps in the Catskills was now in the picture.  Charmion Kerr was also studying social work at Columbia and she and Herman were in love. Charmion 'put down her foot' and told Herman in no uncertain terms, "I will not marry an actor."

Charmion (then age 16)

Not surprisingly, Chamion won the argument and the stage lost an actor. That off-Broadway show turned out to be where Danny Kaye was 'discovered' and took him to a musical career first on Broadway and then to film. Herman said later, that if he had joined that show, he likely would have spent his career as a character actor.

Instead, he ended up switching careers with his brother. Both Joseph and Herman graduated from Columbia with an MSc in Social Work. Along the way, however, Joseph had met and become friends with the actor, Zero Mostel, drew Joseph into writing for radio and then film. Joseph became famous in the movie industry, He became best known for writing the musical Zorba and the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof, for which he won three major awards including two Tonys.

A hip injury kept Herman out of the army in WWII, but in 1947, he and Charmion went to Paris to work for the AJJDC (American Joint Jewish Distribution Committee), better known today as the JDC. The work of JDC was mainly the rehabilitation of Jews released from concentration camps and those displaced throughout Europe. Herman initially worked as head of budget and research while Charmion served as a social worker. Herman wrote, "It was a chaotic period. Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors were in DP camps, needing health care, food, clothing, education and help with immigration. Hundreds of children, orphaned or separated from their families, needed quality care."

There was a great need for social workers all over Europe, but particularly so in eastern Europe.. To fill the gap Herman became one of the founders of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work in Paris.

Most of the social workers trained by the school initially came from the countries of eastern Europe where they were most needed. By 1950 most of eastern Europe blocked travel of their citizens to the west and cut off work of American groups like JDC. Herman then spent more time recruiting social workers in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Eventually, however, the school found itself unable to attract students, and was shifted to become the Hebrew University School of Social Work in Israel.

In 1950 Herman and Charmion returned to the US. They said that "their eyes had been opened to ad different world of needs." They returned charged with enthusiasm for modern approaches to social work to move beyond the US and Europe.   In 1960 and 1961 Herman went to Tanzania to serve on its  Planning Commission and help in the transition from colonial rule to independence.

After Paris and again after Tanzania Herman returned to teach at Columbia as one of the first proponents of a new field he called "International Social Work." After 14 years at Columbia, he went on to teach at Smith, Harvard and the University of Hawaii, before becoming the Dean of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

While serving as Dean, he was twice called upon to serve as the University's Provost. The first of these periods overlapped with the turmoil of the confrontations of troops of the Ohio National Guard with anti-Vietnam protests. In 1970 four students were killed by troops firing into protesters at Kent State University just 40 miles south of Case Western. The campus and the nation erupted. Herman became the central figure in peace-making and was key in restoring calm throughout the state university system. He became a well-known figure in Cleveland and throughout the Midwest in issues of racial and social justice during the turbulent 1970's and 80's. In the late 1960s, he chaired Cleveland Mayor Carl Stokes’ Commission on the Crisis in Welfare, a major study of poverty in the city.

During his academic career, Herman Stein authored several books and well over a hundred journal articles on issues of social work, justice and welfare. He served as president of the International Association of Schools of Social Work and the Council on Social Work Education for the United States and Canada and received the International Council on Social Welfare’s highest honor, the Rene Sand Award.

In his final years Herman suffered from Parkinson's disease. He died in 2009. Charmion passed away in 2001. They left behind three daughters and five grandchildren.

Read more articles on UNICEF's history

Read more articles by Tom McDermott