In Memoriam: Melvin Kalfus (1931-2002)

Mel Kalfus, psychobiographer, psychohistorian, professor of history, institution builder, business executive, and Jewish intellectual, died on February 24, 2002, a week short of his 71^st birthday, of congestive heart failure after a lifetime of struggling to maintain his health. He left behind a legacy of scholarship (published and unpublished) and courage.

Courage in the face of illness and death was a most outstanding characteristic of this talented scholar. Shortly after his birth in a Manhattan hospital he contracted whooping

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cough, precipitating lifelong, chronic respiratory problems. An unnecessary surgical procedure at age five complicated his condition. In search of a better climate for their frail son’s health, the family moved to Arizona for a number of years where Mel encountered anti-Semitism. Throughout his adulthood, Mel’s health was questionable, especially after he was diagnosed with lymphoma near the pancreas in 1984. He fought the cancer with an intensity that few bring to the struggle for health and life. While undergoing chemotherapy, Mel imagined himself in a Star Wars-type game, envisioning cancer cells being devoured. After nine months of chemotherapy, the doctors felt the cancer was gone and this author had the great pleasure of sitting with Mel’s cancer survivors group at the celebration of his being awarded a doctoral degree by New York University in 1988. But his breathing difficulties were intensified by the chemotherapy. In 1996 his respiratory problems required that he use supplemental oxygen, which by 1999 was needed 24 hours a day. Even with his wife Alma’s constant care, a home health aide became necessary toward the end of his life.

A love of knowledge and scholarship shone forth from Mel Kalfus who was most happy in his career as a professor. His 1990 book, Frederick Law Olmsted: Passion of a Public Artist, published by New York University Press, is a major contribution to scholarship in general and psychohistory in particular. It was based upon his doctoral dissertation that he worked lovingly on for so long. It had taken him 13 years to earn his PhD and, in Florida, he enjoyed being addressed as “Dr.”

Kalfus loved opera and was fascinated by why Theodor Herzl was almost incapable of work at times unless he listened to the music of the anti-Semite Wagner. In probing Wagner’s life, the psychobiographer found evidence of the great composer’s having a Jewish father. This helped to inspire “Richard Wagner as Cult Hero: The Tannhäuser Who Would Be Siegfried,” which was published in 1984 by the Journal of Psychohistory. The International Psychohistorical Association (IPA) granted him the Glenn Davis Award for this impressive endeavor. His passion for opera inspired him to write a major psychoanalytical study of Herbert Graf, the operatic stage director. Alma Kalfus, his widow, has sent me hundreds of pages of a manuscript on Graf who is best known as Freud’s “Little Hans.” Jewish issues, political leadership, and creativity were central to Mel’s interests.

Some other topics Mel wrote on were baseball, Clinton, FDR, Hemingway, Hitler, Nixon, Sherman, and the Jewish contribution to Hollywood. Most of his scholarship was published in the Journal of Psychohistory, Clio’s Psyche, the Psychohistory News, and The Psychohistory Review. He wrote numerous book reviews. In recent years, Mel made an important contribution to Clio’s Psyche by working with Bob Lentz and this author on special issues. He showed himself to be a first rate editor who had lots of ideas. When his health permitted, he also readily accepted the scholarly chore of anonymously refereeing articles of others. He also served on the Advisory Council of the Psychohistory Forum.

Mel Kalfus changed his direction on a number of occasions in his life. He took a BS degree at Purdue University in mechanical engineering as preparation to eventually join his father’s air conditioning business but hated the job he got with an engineering firm. He quit to write a novel but soon emerged as a journalist in Hartford where he went on to become community relations director of the Hartford Jewish Federation. Positions at Polaroid and for a subcontractor in the Apollo Space Program soon followed. He was like a rolling stone until at age 36 he became an advertising man in New York City with Muller Jordan Weiss in 1967. When he retired 22 years later, he was Senior Vice President and Director of Marketing and Market Research.

Within eight years in the world of advertising, Mel decided to prepare to become a professor. He loved the life of the mind, which led him to spend so many years pursuing his doctoral degree in history. Both David Beisel and I found him to be an outstanding lecturer when he spoke at our colleges in the 1980s. In 1989 Mel moved to the gentler climate of Florida and a career as a professor. As an adjunct he lectured at Florida Atlantic (FAU) and Lynn universities, the Elderhostel to

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Jewish retirees, and the Lifelong Learning program of FAU. Professor Kalfus taught the most varied courses and had a wonderful time developing his ideas and exchanging with the students. Teaching from three to five courses a semester, far more than professors at research universities, was a lot of work but he relished it. Rather than take a full-time job as professor, he devoted himself to serving his new synagogue, Congregation B’nai Israel in Boca Raton as its president (1995-1999) during a large-scale building program. The words of a lengthy poem written in his honor on the occasion of retirement from the presidency catch a few of his special qualities and the feelings people had for him: “A man we all respect … a man who excels at all you do …you’ve touched us all deeply in so many different ways … [as] our president, our spokesman, and our sage.” Amidst all of his other activities, he continued to do market research, partly to supplement the family income.

A major contribution that Mel Kalfus made was to the International Psychohistorical Association, which he served as secretary (1979-1980), president (1980-1982), treasurer (1982-1995), and newsletter editor (1988). He worked to raise the level of professional service of whatever office he served and did an outstanding job, often inspiring those who followed in his footsteps.

Mel Kalfus was an autodidact and a lifelong learner. He learned from attending classes, disputing with other people, his own psychotherapy, reading, and seminars. He was a great fan of the work-in-progress Saturday seminars I convened, under the auspices of two different groups. To quote him:

The “special training” I most benefited from was the Saturday morning sessions of the Institute for Psychohistory and the Psychohistory Forum. In each case, someone would present an excerpt from work in progress. The work would be critiqued, and a gazillion suggestions made, by those attending. These were superb vehicles for learning psychohistory (through other people’s projects) – but especially for learning by doing (by presenting one’s own projects). In fact, these workshops successfully did what universities try to do with mixed success in their seminars. (Paul Elovitz, “Mel Kalfus: Psychobiographer, Institution Builder, and Survivor,” Clio’s Psyche, June 2000, Vol. 7 No. 1, p. 35)

Soon after its creation in 1983, the Psychohistory Forum met without paying rent in the lavish conference room of Kalfus’ advertising firm at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. At Mel’s prompting, his ad agency would donate its advertising expertise and printing services to the IPA.

As much as he enjoyed building institutions, organizations, and products, Mel loved the life of the mind even more. “The wonderment of birth and infancy” had fascinated him and then raising three teenagers had contributed to his thoughts about the intricacies of the human psyche. (Kalfus in Jay Sherry, “Interview with Melvin Kalfus,” Psychohistory News, 1996, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 1-6) He read Mahler, Klein, Winnicott, and other theorists to get a better sense of human development. He was a very practical man who liked to argue theory and passionately believed that truth would flow from such argumentation. He insisted that we must:

Be rigorous in our standards of what is and is not psychohistory, and in the quality of psychohistorical work, the integrity of psychohistorical argument. It is hard to build a profession upon work that is based upon wild speculation and unsupported “findings.” Good psychohistory, as with any other discipline, is hard work and we have every right to expect that the hard work be done. (Sherry, “Mel Kalfus,” p. 40)

Notwithstanding our friendship, I had an example of his rigor in his negative initial reaction as a psychobiographer to the idea of utilizing the dreams of deceased subjects for which I was pioneering a new methodology. He told me plainly that there could be no real benefit to examining the dreams of our biographical subjects. Yet, he welcomed my challenge to participate in a dream workshop. After experiencing it, he became open to this new methodology as an aid to the psychobiographer. Our colleague Ralph Colp still speaks about the lively discussions that the two had shortly before Mel’s move to Florida. Among Kalfus’ many friends was Mel Goldstein (1926-1997), a literature professor/psychoanalyst from Hartford who looked like a Hasidic rabbi and greeted everyone at IPA meetings and Forum sessions with a bear hug. Together they shared family stories, humor, history, psychoanalysis, and psychohistory, in addition to Yiddishket as among the “most Jewish Jews of the IPA.” When told of his death, our colleague Andrew Brink remembered him with admiration “as a scholar and human being of the highest integrity” and then immediately made reference to

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Mel Goldstein. It is so hard to believe that both Mels are now dead.

In reviewing Mel Kalfus’ life and contributions to psychohistory, I am inspired by his integrity. It shows in the interview we did of him for this publication and an earlier one for Psychohistory News by Jay Sherry cited above. In it there was much appreciation of the contributions of his colleagues in the field and a striking honesty. He loved psychohistory, warts and all. In writing the history of psychohistory, I will certainly refer back to it for information and inspiration.

In these pages colleagues and friends mourn Mel Kalfus. He will be remembered for his scholarship, teaching, methodology, institution building, and example of courage in the face of adversity.

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