I was privileged to be a student in the very first class that Joel Fleishman taught at Duke in the spring semester of 1972. If he approved of a point in an essay, he wrote a plus sign (+) by it. If the point was better, it got two plus signs (++). The best points received three plus signs (+++).
To this day, I use the same grading system in my work as a lawyer, when I am reading law to find a precedent case that helps my client and merits three plusses.
Terry Sanford brought his friend, Joel Fleishman, to Duke. Fleishman carried on the spirit of Terry Sanford at Duke over the decades since we lost Sanford.
David Erdman, Pratt '71
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Only rarely does one have the blessing of a friend whose life evokes awe, inspiration, purpose, connection and just plain fun. Joel Fleishman, who died at 90 was all of these. From Duke University to Atlantic Philanthropies, from politics to wine to classical music to being on the board of Ralph Lauren, Joel sparkled with ideas and experiences that most of us can only aspire to from afar.
To say that Joel was a mentor puts me in a pool of perhaps hundreds for whom he played the same role. We were introduced by Alan Khazei and within 20 minutes of our first conversation in his New York office, Joel said "you must come to Duke and guest teach one of my classes." And so I did every year for the next 20 years, followed always by a dinner party in his home with students, faculty and the most interesting people on North Carolina, including political or philanthropic leaders who might be passing through. There were a few stories about the work of Share Our Strength that he loved and made me repeat to every class whether they fit my lecture subject or not — and I just could not deprive him of the delight he seemed to take in hearing them yet again.
During the few semesters I was not able to teach, I would come to Duke anyway to have dinner with him or take walks, or just hang out. One summer I flew down to the beach house where he was staying at Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks, and we walked miles during the day, drank great wines and called friends of his late into the night.
Joel was truly an American original, with one of the most youthful minds I’d ever known. And he used it to write books, teach, speak and to relentlessly connect people he thought should know one another. He fought hard for his 90 years — particular, if not quirky, about what he ate, when he exercised, and how much he slept, determinedly adapting to cane or walker or wheelchair as time eventually took its toll, adapting but not surrendering as he was not by finished, not by a longshot. Joel especially fought hard for young people — for the ideas they had, and the new organizations and campaigns they wanted to launch.
There was a reliable rhythm of ritual that came with having Joel in one’s life, and that may be what I will miss the most: his singing Happy Birthday to my voicemail every February, the annual holiday prayer and card on which he labored, sometimes for months, which arrived every December, his class each spring. On top of everything else, his humility and humor simply made him the loveliest person to be around. I will miss him daily and dearly.
Billy Shore, founder and executive chair of Share Our Strength
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Joel Fleishman knew everyone. I’m convinced of it.
I learned this incontrovertible fact the first time I walked into Joel’s office at the Sanford Institute. It was early 1997, and I was beginning a month-long fellowship sponsored by my then-employer, The Washington Post. I knew beforehand that Joel was an expert on philanthropy — even that description woefully undersells what was his true acumen for the subject — and I wanted to get his permission to sit in on his Friday afternoon seminar about the nonprofit and charitable world.
As I introduced myself to Joel, I could not help but notice — and no one who ever entered his office could have avoided doing so unless they were blind — the several crammed Rolodexes that took up a prominent position in his workspace. My mouth agape, I told him who I was. Within seconds, we had established that he seemed to know everyone I knew, from close members of my family to a host of folks in journalism to others. He essentially confirmed right then and there the authenticity of the Rolodexes.
Over the following few weeks, Joel and I became solid acquaintances and then friends. One weekend, he invited me to what can only be described as one of his famous people-broker parties at his nicely nestled home in the woods of Chapel Hill. He introduced me to all manner of people, from an undergraduate student to a senior faculty member, nearly always able to relate a connection between the two of us. His mind was like those of the legendary London taxi drivers who, in pre-GPS days, carried in their well-wired brain circuitry the ability to identify the quickest route between any two points in the city (“The Knowledge”). Joel connected everyone and was entirely ecumenical about it — he really seemed to want everyone to know everyone else.
I will miss that connectivity, as well as all of his other wonderful expertise, from philanthropy to the law to enology.
I was privileged to know him, even though, in my mind, everybody already knew him anyway.
May his memory be a blessing.
Kent Allen, '97 Washington Post Fellow at Duke
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A quick story about Joel Fleishman and my family:
My mother and Professor Fleishman were classmates at Fayetteville High School in the 1940s. During my time as an undergraduate at Duke (1981-1985) she would ask me periodically if I had met “Joel Fleshman” (as she said everyone had pronounced his name), who she said had been the most brilliant boy at her high school. I benefited from his pioneering work at Duke by majoring in Public Policy Studies. I ended up winning the Fleishman Award, which the man himself graciously presented to me at Commencement with my parents present. He then met my mother again for the first time in more than forty years. It was a lovely and fitting end to my years at Duke. See below for a photo from that day.
John Owen, Trinity '85 and former writer for The Chronicle
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We welcome the Duke community to send additional remembrances to The Chronicle at opinion@dukechronicle.com.
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