This is about a man whose name was not a household word among readers of Jewish newspapers, but who revolutionized American Jewish journalism through his altruistic concern for community and his savvy for making a buck.
If that sounds contradictory, it’s a start at understanding Charles A. Buerger, who died unexpectedly at the age of 58 this month in Baltimore following complications from heart surgery. He was, as the rabbi who eulogized him noted, a “complicated, enigmatic” man who could be “tough in his business life but just as easily soft and compassionate to those who worked for him.”
I know that to be true because I worked for — and with — him for 19 years, and owe whatever success I have had in my career to his unwavering support and shared wisdom.
Chuck was a modest man who would eschew the limelight, but I owe it to him and so many he affected to try to place in perspective his contribution to contemporary Jewish society.
I met Chuck Buerger in early 1974, when he interviewed me for the job of editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times, which he published. I was 27 years old and quite nervous, but he was warm and open, and invited me to talk with the Jewish Times editorial staff — both of them — in private, to find out what he was really like.
He told me he was a businessman, not a journalist, and that he was looking for an editor who could relieve him of editorial headaches and improve the content while Chuck worked at making the Jewish Times grow economically. I jumped at the opportunity.
Chuck and his sister, Susan Patchen, had inherited the publication from their grandfather, David Alter of Pittsburgh, who founded it in 1919. The Jewish Times was a Baltimore tradition, with its social announcements, society pages and wire-service coverage of the Mideast, and it was a financial success.
But Chuck wanted to make it a publication he could be proud of. He had come to Baltimore in 1972 to take over the family paper, and he hoped to transform a weekly community bulletin board into an innovative, independent enterprise that would make people sit up and take notice.
“If the Messiah had arrived in Baltimore,” Chuck told me once, “the only way it would have been covered in the Jewish Times was if he’d sent in a press release.”
That was typical of most American Jewish newspapers at the time: mom-and-pop publications with a greater emphasis on wedding and bar mitzvah announcements than staff reporting of local issues.
Chuck changed all that, plowing profits back into the newspaper by hiring reporters, photographers and graphic artists and acquiring modern equipment. More boldly, he challenged his readers’ sensibilities and sensitivities by agreeing to probe, in the pages of his paper, Jewish communal issues that many would have preferred to leave hidden: from child abuse and alcoholism to Jewish flight from mixed neighborhoods and problems in Jewish education.
“By example, Chuck forced the rest of the Jewish newspapers in this country to improve their product,” said Marc S. Klein, publisher of the Jewish Bulletin. “He set the standard by which we all measured ourselves, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude for spurring us on to do better.”
It was never easy, though. Despite professional praise and journalistic awards, the Jewish Times took a good deal of flak from those who felt a Jewish newspaper should never wash the community’s dirty laundry in public. But Chuck firmly believed he was performing a service to the community by holding a mirror for self-reflection.
He was well-suited to his task as publisher because he had enough conviction, and wealth, to escape being cowed by critics. He felt his role was to shake things up, to challenge the status quo, to stimulate creativity in others. And that he did, in the newspaper office and in the community he cared so much about. If that stirred resentment at times, so be it.
Not content with his success in Baltimore, in the last dozen years he acquired Jewish newspapers in Detroit; Atlanta; Vancouver, British Columbia; Palm Beach, Fla.; and Boca Raton, Fla., and launched an upscale secular fashion magazine. In each case he gave talented people the opportunity to prove themselves, and they worked to their fullest potential to show their gratitude and loyalty.
Chuck said the secret of his success in Jewish journalism was discovering that there was no secret. He said he simply applied the same standards of excellence and creativity that would have been expected in secular journalism.
But the fact is that only someone with Chuck’s optimism, vitality and vision of making grand things possible could have succeeded in creating a mini-empire in a field not previously known for journalistic distinction or financial success.
For me, Chuck was a mentor, boss, father figure, colleague and, above all, a friend. He taught me a little about business and a great deal about life — about trying to make more time for family, appreciating the gift of every new day and never taking oneself too seriously.
I learned from him every day, and I learn from him still. May his memory be a blessing.