With Michael Freedland, you didn’t always know what you were going to get. He spoke fluent Hindi — and once facilitated a conversation between American and Asian tourists through a Hindi-speaking Chinese translator.
He was an innovative financial thinker who took over a community lending department written off by banks as a charitable, money-losing endeavor — and he whipped it into a powerful presence that made dreams come true. He also turned a profit.
And he was a passionate Jew, who turned his financial acumen to stretching the dollars the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation invested overseas.
One thing you weren’t going to get, though, was idle chatter.
“He could not stand nonsensical conversation. He was no chit-chatter,” said longtime friend Paul Cohen of Freedland, who died Nov. 4 in his Oakland home after an extended battle with lung cancer. He was 64.
Cohen and many others remembered Freedland as a deeply intelligent man of great candor, who was unafraid to ask difficult, probing questions or let his opinions be known.
He served on more than a dozen cultural or community boards and committees, including the East Bay Community Foundation and Non-Profit Services Loan Fund. He also was a highly active board member of the JCF’s Israel and overseas committee and the Bay Area Council for Jewish Rescue and Renewal.
Freedland took over Citibank’s community lending department in 1990, and racked up awards from grateful neighborhood organizations, while simultaneously running a profitable enterprise.
In his work with the Israel and overseas committee, he made numerous trips to the Holy Land — some while gravely ill — in order to examine the effectiveness of federation grants and its beneficiary organizations.
“He was a brilliant, brilliant man, but also, at the same time, he had a huge heart. He was so compassionate. He wasn’t the sort of higher-society chitchat volunteer you sometimes see around our tables. He came to do business. He was very serious. He always did his homework and read every single word of every single document,” recalled Dawne Bear-Novicoff, the director of the Israel and overseas committee, who considered Freedland a mentor.
Freedland, who lived alone and never married, is survived by a sister, Helene Zukow, of Tustin. His friends and family request donations in his memory be made to “a meaningful charity of your choice.”