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Rabbi Fishman married his wife, Ida, after graduating from Yeshiva College.  He was ordained as an orthodox rabbi in 1949.  His first pulpit was in Mobile, AL where he served for 2 years.  Then they moved to Tyler TX, where he served in a conservative congregation. 

In 1963 the Fishmans came to Temple Beth El, with a membership of 110 families and plans for a new building.  Membership grew with younger families and the Sunday School classrooms were filled with 80-100 children.  By the mid-1970s Temple membership had grown to 600 families, and our new Fread Sanctuary was completed.  During this time, Rabbi Fishman and Ida were instrumental in founding the Jewish Community Day School, now known as the Meyer Jewish Preparatory School.  Ida was a much-loved teacher at the school for several years.  Due to health issues, he resigned from Beth El 1n 1976 and was awarded a lifetime membership in the congregation. 

In 1977 Rabbi Fishman was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary.

From 1978 to 1990 he was the rabbi at Congregation Beth Israel in Greenville, SC.  Upon retirement, he was awarded the title of Rabbi Emeritus. 

In 1993 Hy & Ida returned to West Palm Beach and Temple Beth El.  In 1999 the Temple was “between rabbis” and Rabbi Fishman volunteered to officiate as rabbi and conduct services.  He continued to volunteer whenever there was a need for his services.  He was named Rabbi Emeritus in 2008.  That same year, the Men’s Club and Sisterhood held a tribute dinner in the Fishmans’ honor.  Profits from that dinner funded the Fishman Youth Fund, which still awards grants for Temple children to attend Camp Ramah, continuing the Fishman legacy of educating our youth.  Rabbi Fishman continued to attend Shabbat, Holiday and daily morning minyan services, where he gave a d’var Torah 4 mornings a week.  These talks were brief but informative, always leaving us with a newly learned tidbit of Jewish knowledge. 

We are saddened to report that Rabbi Fishman passed away last November.  His wisdom is sorely missed by the minyan regulars and many Temple members.

After law school, Bill joined the Washington D.C. branch of the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg in 1984, filing and prosecuting patents for worldwide clients.  Bill then joined the legal department at Harris Corporation in Melbourne, Florida in 1986 as in-house patent counsel. Bill progressed through the ranks at Harris within the Intellectual Property division, to Senior Licensing Counsel for both the Semiconductor and Communications Sectors. In 1992 Bill helped start the first ever patent licensing program at Harris.  Bill left Harris Corporation in 1995 with a colleague to form the patent licensing company, Andre‐Troner LC. They represent primarily large entities including Harris, Kodak, Stanford University and Cypress Semiconductor and have raised over a billion dollars in revenue for their clients. Bill is a member of both the Florida Bar and the Patent Bar as well as the American Bar Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association.

Bill and Lisa have been married for 28 years. Their son David is currently working as an Aerospace Engineer in the Advanced Concepts group of the Boeing Company in Long Beach, CA.

Bill has been a member of Temple Beth Sholom for over 32 years and has served on their Executive Board in various capacities over the last ten years.  He has also been a member of the Temple’s Men’s Club for 32 years.

We celebrate Michael as a Men’s Club activist, a builder of our Club, a stalwart “can do” guy, a proud supporter of our dynamic programming, a creator and coordinating leader of our “BIMAH SITTING” Committee for the past five years, and a good friend to all. Michael’s credo is “The only way to have a friend is to be one.”

Michael and Paula have been members of B’nai Torah Congregation since 2009 and during that time, Michael served on the B’nai Torah Board of Trustees. They are the parents of three children and have 7 grandchildren. Michael graduated from Washington University in St. Louis where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. After graduation, he joined the U. S. Army and served as a medic.

Michael was manager of his family’s two supermarkets in Chicago. In 1976, he became president of the company and expanded to a 3rd location by purchasing another supermarket. Michael served the supermarket industry as the president of the Illinois Food Retailers Association (IFRA), which represented 275 independent supermarkets. He was elected to the Board of Directors of Certified Grocers, Midwest, which sold close to one billion dollars of merchandise a year to over 300 supermarkets in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Michael and Paula’s son Stephen managed the supermarkets, and in January of 1993, Michael went to work at Equitable Life Insurance, now called AXA. He became a Charter Life Underwriter (CLU), a Charter Financial Consultant (CFU), and a Retirement Planning Specialist (RPS). Michael worked for AXA for thirteen years.

As a family member and/or a friend of Michael, our BTC Men’s Club invites you to honor him by participating in our awards dinner and placing an advertisement 2019 Men’s Club Florida Region fundraising ad journal. We would like to honor Michael and his commitment to B’nai Torah Congregation, and our Men’s Club.