Ruth (Wilensky) Davis, 93, of Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence, died on Wednesday, February 12,2014. Her husband of 38 years, Maurice Davis, died in 1985. She leaves a son, Dr. Jeffrey J. Davis and his wife Nancy of Westboro; two grandchildren, Ilyce Davis of Westfield, NJ and Jonathan Davis and his wife Rachel of New York City and three grandchildren, Brayden, Ellie and Chase.She was born in Queens, New York and was a daughter of Morris and Lena (Goldberg) Wilensky. Ruth lived in Laurelton, NY for many years, and for 20 years in Lake Worth, FL before moving to Worcester two years ago.She had been an executive secretary for 30 years.GRAVESIDE FUNERAL SERVICES WILL BE HELD at 11AM ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16,2014, AT BETH DAVID CEMETERY, ELMONT RD., ELMONT, NEW YORK, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF RICHARD PERLMAN OF BREZNIAK RODMAN CHAPELS OF NEWTON.Please omit flowers. Memorial contributions may be made to Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence, 631 Salisbury St., Worcester, MA 01609.
Obituaries
Burt Cooperstein
of Brookline, formerly of Mattapan, on February 10, 2014. Beloved son of the late Betty (Zeidman) Cooperstein-Schlang-Pearl and the late Aaron Cooperstein and David Schlang. Step-son of the late Murray Pearl. Devoted brother of Judith Cooperstein Rothenberg and her late husband David of Silver Spring, MD and Howard and Ruthann Schlang of Randolph. Beloved uncle of Karen and Steve Simon of Gaithersburg, MD, Amy and Larry Cohen of Olney, MD, Dana and Don Gilbert of Carver, and Michael Schlang of Randolph. Great-uncle of Courtney, Andrew, Kayla, Alexander, Brandon, Caleigh, and Jacob. He was a U.S. Navy veteran (Korea) and a member of the Consolidated Lodge AF & AM. Burt was a proud advertising executive for the Boston Globe for 40 years. Graveside services at the Vilno Cemetery, 776 Baker St., West Roxbury, on Sunday, February 16, 2014 at 11:00 am. Memorial observance will be omitted. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the American Heart Association, 20 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701
Suzanne de Monchaux
Suzanne de Monchaux -of Brookline , formerly of Marblehead, on February 10, 2014. Graveside Services will be private.
Arnold Mindick
Arnold Mindick- of Boca Raton, on February 12, 2014. Complete notice to follow.
Joel A. Kozol
Mr. Kozol was skilled at negotiating settlements without going to trial.
Barely out of law school in the early 1950s, Joel A. Kozol was already much in demand.
When he finished a year clerking for Associate Justice Stanley Reed of the US Supreme Court, he was asked by Chief Justice Earl Warren to stay on as Warren’s clerk.
Mr. Kozol could not get a deferment from the Army, though, so he honed his trial skills handling court-martial cases in Europe until he joined his father at Friedman & Atherton, a Boston firm whose reputation and caseload belied its modest size.
There he remained the rest of his life, becoming the first call for clients in an uncommonly wide range of high-profile cases. In the late 1980s, he represented the Sullivan family when it sold the New England Patriots and handled Mort Zuckerman’s fraud case against former owners of The Atlantic Monthly. Over the years, Mr. Kozol’s clients also included Patriots coach Bill Parcells, Cassius Clay before he changed his name to Muhammad Ali, and a mistress that a millionaire tried to evict from his Four Seasons condo.
“Our practice is active and exciting — and at times exhausting,” he once wrote in an anniversary report of his Harvard class.
Mr. Kozol, an ardent squash player who won tournaments and championships into his 70s, died of complications from cancer Wednesday in his Boston residence. He was 83 and in recent years lived primarily in his Melvin Village, N.H., home.
“Joel had a world-class mind and when he focused, there was no one better, so the profession has lost a truly great lawyer,” said R. Robert Popeo of the Boston firm Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo.
“When you tried cases with Joel, you earned your money,” Popeo added. “I was on the same side of cases with Joel, I was an adversary, I was involved in cases with him that were adversarial, and I’ve been involved in cases with him that were acrimonious, but always at the end there was mutual respect and admiration.”
That appreciation extended to clients who, having once sat on the opposite side of the courtroom, wanted Mr. Kozol at their table the next time around.
“Who did struggling financier Abe Gosman turn to when he got into a scrap over millions with the Fish family, his old friends who run Suffolk Construction Co.? Joel Kozol, the same lawyer who represented Gosman’s wife, Betty, in the couple’s contentious divorce,” former Globe business columnist Steve Bailey wrote in May 2000. “Call it the Good Lawyering Seal of Approval.”
During trials, Mr. Kozol “was courtly, he was literate, he was very controlled,” said William I. Cowin, a retired Massachusetts Appeals Court associate justice who practiced with Mr. Kozol at Friedman & Atherton for about a quarter century.
“He never got angry, he never got excited, notwithstanding whatever provocations there might have been from the other lawyers,” Cowin said. “He controlled the information, and to the extent you can in a trial, he controlled the process.”
Jeffrey D. Fisher, a Palm Beach, Fla., attorney who formerly practiced with Friedman & Atherton, said Mr. Kozol “never went into a courtroom where he didn’t command respect.”
Judges and opposing lawyers “always knew who he was because his reputation preceded him,” Fisher added. As for Mr. Kozol’s clients, “it was like they owned the horse that won the Kentucky Derby. You know: ‘My lawyer is Joel Kozol.’ He was a legal legend.”
The oldest of three brothers who all became lawyers, Joel Asher Kozol grew up in Brookline and went to Phillips Academy in Andover before attending Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1951.
The following year, he married Stephany L. Sandler, with whom he raised a family. “My children are growing up in fine fashion, due primarily to the dedication and competency of my wife, who is willing to give them all the time and attention they need, while still carrying a large load of charitable and community responsibilities,” Mr. Kozol wrote in 1966 for a Harvard class report.
At Harvard Law School, Mr. Kozol was awarded the Sears Prize, edited the Harvard Law Review, graduated second in his class, and realized the legal profession was “what he loved,” said his son David of Newton.
After two years in the Army’s Judge Advocate General Corps, Mr. Kozol posted the top score in his Massachusetts bar exam and joined Friedman & Atherton, where he practiced law with his two brothers and their father. His two sons also joined the firm, as did nieces and nephews. “We at one point had eight Kozols working together at the firm,” David said.
As he rose to prominence, attracting marquee clientele in Boston and beyond, Mr. Kozol also became managing partner of the firm, which was big enough to represent large clients, even though it often was smaller than firms it opposed.
“What I particularly admired was how he ran the firm,” Cowin said. “He ran the firm very conservatively, very sensitively.”
Mr. Kozol built a reputation for his skills at negotiating settlements without going to trial.
“If there was a way to resolve it smoothly, and with gentle gloves on, he knew how to do it,” said his older son, Matthew of Brookline. But inside courtrooms he “was known for his toughness, for his intellect, for his brilliance. I heard judges say they had never seen a cross-examination as masterful as his.”
Still, Matthew added, “not everybody knows his other side. Everything for [him] was his family. You can’t get any better values in life than that.”
In addition to his wife and two sons, Mr. Kozol leaves a daughter, Andrea of Sudbury; a brother, Lee of Boston; and eight grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday in Temple Israel of Boston. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon.
Even though Mr. Kozol spent his days in the office with family, including his two sons, he ended his night by speaking with them by phone.
“He’d check in with us at night and it was, ‘How are you? How was the rest of your day? I’ll see you tomorrow,’ ” David recalled, adding that he always ended those late-night calls with his father the same way.
“I’d say, ‘Thanks for everything Dad, I love you.’ I literally ended every phone call with my father with those same words,” David said. “But you didn’t have to thank him for anything. He was never looking for acknowledgment or thanks for anything he did. He helped so many people because he wanted to.”
He was the beloved husband of Stephany L. (Sandler) Kozol. Dear son of the late Frank L. and Mildred H. (Weschler) Kozol. Devoted father of Matthew S. Kozol and his wife Kim, David M. Kozol and his wife Anna, and Andrea Kozol and her husband Mark. Cherished grandfather of Emilie, Sophie, Alexie, Maia, Nathan, Eliana, Michaela, and Franklin. Loving brother of Lee H. Kozol and the late Robert D. Kozol. Services at Temple Israel, 477 Longwood Ave., Boston (parking on the Riverway), on Tuesday, February 18, 2014 at 11:00 am. Memorial observance will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday from 3-8 pm at The Boston Harbor Hotel, Wharf Room, 40 Rowes Wharf, Boston. In lieu of flowers, donations in his memory may be made to the Leslie S.T. Fang Research Foundation, 151 Merrimac St., Boston, MA 02114 or the Frank L. and Mildred H. Kozol Fund, c/o Harvard Law School Library, 1545 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Jeffrey Rosen
Services for Jeffrey Rosen were held privately at The Brezniak-Rodman Chapel on Sunday February 9, 2014.
Saul Cutler
Saul Cutler, of Newton and Hull, MA, born Aug. 26, 1922. Served in the Military ASTP, attended Oregon State College, owner of Newton Iron and Metal, and co-owner of Cutler House Antiques. Beloved husband of 70 years to Ann Lazrus, devoted father of Dr. Mark Cutler and wife Sandi of Worcester, MA, Dr. Scott Cutler and wife Robin of N.Y.C., and Corey Cutler, Esq., and wife Andrea of Needham, MA. Cherished grandfather of Adam Cutler and wife Jodi, Dr. Alex Cutler and wife Dr. May-Tal, Dr. Beth Cutler-Freedman and husband Ross, and Michelle Dinnenberg and husband Eric. Adoring greatgrandfather of Ilana Cutler and Oliver Freedman. Saul was a member of B’nai Brith, Temple Emeth, Newton JCC, and the Masonic Level Lodge in Worcester, where he served as Chaplain for twenty-five years. Funeral services Tuesday, Feb. 11, at 11:00 am, at Temple Emeth, 194 Grove St., Chestnut Hill, MA. Following the interment at Temple Emeth Cemetery , memorial observance will be at Nahanton Woods, 210 Nahanton St., Newton, MA, from 1-5 & 7-9pm. Expressions of sympathy in Saul’s memory maybe made to Lown Cardiovascular Center, 21 Longwood Ave., Brookline, MA 02446 or Temple Emeth, 194 Grove St., Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.
Pauline Kozol
Pauline Kozol-(Finkelstein), age 100 of Highland Beach, FL, formerly of Newton, died peacefully surrounded by loving family and caregivers on February 8. Beloved wife of the late Dr. Solomon Kozol. Devoted mother of Roger Kozol and his husband Gene Dunham of New York and Linda Hiller and her husband Edward of Hingham, formerly of Newton. Dear grandmother of David Hiller and his wife Marcy,and Alison White and her husband Timothy. Loving great grandmother of Riley and Addison Hiller and Oliver White. Services at The Brezniak-Rodman Chapel, 1251 Washington St.( Corner of Chestnut St.) ,West Newton on Monday, Feb. 17 at 11:00 AM. Following a private interment at Baker St., West Roxbury, memorial observance will be held at 207 Linden Ponds Way, Hingham, MA 02043, Monday only. In lieu of flowers remembrances may be made to Understanding Our Differences, 100 Walnut St. Newton, MA 02460 or the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, 101-A First Avenue, Suite 6, Waltham, MA 02451.
Leslie G. Alberts
Alberts-Leslie G., of Newton, on February 4, 2014. Cherished daughter of Barbara (White) and Warren Alberts of Chestnut Hill. Dear Aunt of Victoria Alberts of Montana. Loving sister of the late Neal D. Alberts. Services at Temple Sinai, 25 Canton Street, Sharon, on Thursday, February 6 at 2 pm. Memorial observance will be omitted. Remembrances may be made to a charity of your choice.
Bernard Kliman, MD
Bernard Kliman MD, 82, of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts passed away, surrounded by his loving family, on January 30, 2014. Beloved husband of Phyllis (Rice) Kliman and devoted father of Joyce Rossi and husband Charles and the late David S. Kliman. Dear grandfather of Marissa Joy D’Aleo and husband Michael, Amanda Routten and husband Shawn, Lisa Rossi Mooney and Lynne Rossi Nardone. Also survived by five great-grandchildren. Loving brother of Allan Kliman MD and Harvey Kliman Ph.D. Bernard was a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. He served his country as a Captain in the United States Coast Guard and at The National Institute of Public Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Bernard was an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Endocrinologist at Massachusetts General Hospital for thirty four years. Services will be held at the Brezniak-Rodman Chapel, 1251 Washington Street, West Newton, Massachusetts on Sunday, February 16, 2014 at one o’clock pm. Burial to follow at Sharon Memorial Park. Memorial observance will be held at his late residence from 4-7 pm on February 16, 2014. In lieu of flowers, donations in Dr. Kliman’s memory may be made to the charity of your choice.