Rabbi Mark Golub remembered for wit, heart at funeral service
STAMFORD — Ari Golub asked those gathered Thursday at Temple Beth El what was the first word that came to mind when they thought of his father, Mark Golub.
“The simple answer is Rabbi,” said Ari Golub, one of Mark Golub’s five children.
“He identified himself as a rabbi so much that he wrote it on his credit cards: ‘Rabbi Mark S. Golub,'” Ari Golub said. “I can’t tell you how many times I heard him on the phone to a hotel or an airline and they greeted him as Rabbi Mark.”
Ari Golub paused as his father’s family and friends laughed.
“But he was so much more than a rabbi,” Ari Golub said.
Mark Golub, 77, died last week at Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, according to an obituary distributed by the United Jewish Federation of Stamford, New Canaan and Darien.
He founded Chavurat Aytz Chayim in Stamford in the early 1970s and ran Chavurat Deevray Torah in Greenwich.
Golub was also the founder, president, CEO and executive producer of the Jewish Broadcasting Service, formerly Shalom TV. He previously founded the Russian Television Network of America, a Russian-language channel aimed at families who had immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union.
For decades – first on radio and later on JBS – Golub hosted a show called “L’Chayim”. The JBS website describes the show as a “Charlie-Rose” type program that provides “meetings with the leading figures on the Jewish world stage.”
“It’s very hard to explain what makes someone fall in love with something, but I’ve been in love with radio and television since I was a kid,” Golub told The Stamford Advocate in 2016, just as JBS was about to go national to the audience will. “What I wanted to do with JBS was to inform, enlighten and inspire American Jews through the power of electronic media…that’s why it’s so exciting to go national.”
Journalist and author Abigail Pogrebin read those words aloud Thursday during Golub’s funeral service at Temple Beth El.
“Well, Mark, you’ve had more than enough success,” Pogrebin said. “They inspired and educated American Jews, actually Americans, across the country, across the world. You have inspired and educated the world, and you have done so with your inimitable heart and unparalleled work ethic.
“Nobody’s curiosity has been more contagious than yours,” she continued. “No interviewer was more prepared or more pointed or more intrusive or more personal. No one’s zeal for Jewish history was more ardent, unshakable, more exuberant.”
During the service, which was streamed live on Temple Beth El’s website, loved ones shared stories that highlighted Golub’s humor, talent as an accordion player and passion for softball.
Ken Asher, a longtime friend of Golub who serves on the JBS board, said Golub was a teacher who made everyone feel loved.
“I’ll miss you, Mark,” Asher said. “We had a deal. The deal was you would do my funeral and I wouldn’t speak at yours. But I do, and I will carry on with JBS, I will carry on your legacy to the best of my ability for the rest of my days. “
Golub also produced plays on Broadway with his brother David. At Thursday’s service, David Golub said his brother had “an indomitable will” in the face of health problems.
“He didn’t want to let them change his life,” said David Golub. “He would not stop living. He would choose life.”
Mark Golub studied religion at Columbia University and earned a bachelor’s degree in 1967, according to his LinkedIn page. He was later ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
In 2009, Newsweek included him in a list of the 50 Most Influential Rabbis in the United States.
Golub is survived by his wife Ruth; five children and five grandchildren, according to his obituary.
