Frank Stein z"l

By Dorron Kline
Frank Stein was a friend and a colleague. I remember him sitting in his small office at the entrance to the education building at Kiryat Moriah. Any first timer to the building thought that he manned the information counter and would ask him where so and so sat. Frank, always with a smile would provide the necessary information, never complaining about the incessant questions he had to field.

We were together on short term Shlichut to South Africa. The potential Olim and SA Aliyah dept. staff all loved Frank. He was caring yet precise with his information. He would work late into the night in order to ensure that the Aliyah files were properly placed onto the computer. When he returned to Israel from South Africa, he came to the Telfed offices to give us a full debriefing - all on his own time and budget. The world is a poorer place without Frank Stein. We at Telfed will miss him greatly. He was a Mensch and a professional in the field of Aliyah - his final "Aliyah" came too soon.
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This Obituary published in Haaretz

Frank Stein, community activist

By Raphael Ahren

Frank Stein, the popular former director of the Zionist Federation of Australia's Israel office, succumbed to cancer at the age of 52 earlier this week. The thousands of people whose lives he touched during his long career in the Jewish and Zionist community will remember him as someone whose raison d'etre was helping others with a smile.

"Everything he did was giving to others," said Ilana Cohen, who first met Stein when she attended the Hineni summer camps he ran in Sydney. "Growing up in Canberra, I was always 'the Jewish kid.' Through Hineni, Frank helped me develop my Jewish identity and be like everybody else. I didn't have that feeling again until I moved to Israel. And here, Frank was there again for me, at the British Olim Society. He helped me with lots of things, and I'd call him with stupid questions. But he never complained and always made time for me. He was a positive, happy person. He was fun. He wasn't this larger-than-life person, he was one of us."
Hundreds of people attended his funeral at Jerusalem's Har Menuchot cemetery, more than the eulogy hall could hold. Several of the mourners who came to pay their respects before Stein was laid to rest carried colorful wreaths or Australian hats. Two close relatives - his sister and a brother - attended the funeral.

Stein's involvement in the Jewish community took him from his birthplace in Brisbane through Sydney to Jerusalem and South Africa; from the Beitar and Hineni youth movements to the Jewish Agency, the Zionist Federation of Australia and the British Olim Society (now known as the UJIA).

Stein's former boss, retired Zionist Federation of Australia president Ron Weiser, called Stein's death "a great loss for Australian Jewry." He noted Stein was "absolutely instrumental in resolving the issues surrounding the Maccabiah tragedy," referring to the 1997 bridge collapse, which killed four Australian athletes. Speaking to Anglo File from Sydney, Weiser said that Stein "was a very large man physically, but he was larger than life in all his actions and activities." He added that the Jewish community in Australia would commemorate Stein with a ceremony later this month.

It didn't take long for friends and contacts from all over the globe to express their grief via the Internet. Within one day of his passing, more than 200 people joined a Facebook group founded in Stein's memory. "Frank's office was open to everyone," Natalie Taylor wrote on the group's message board. "There was always a supply of good tea and coffee, the Australian Jewish News and a friendly smile. From 2000 to 2007 I spent many early July mornings at Ben Gurion Airport with Frank [greeting new Australian immigrants]. Frank always insisted on buying us coffee."

Gaby Shine wrote: "Frankie was the epitome of the word mensch - I'll never forget sitting with him all night with the [coffin] of a chanich who had passed away in a tragic hiking accident in Ein Gedi - he taught me how to honor those who were no longer with us on their final journey."

David Hersh, a close friend of Stein's, delivered one of the eulogies. "Frank, you were never a technological person, e-mail was a challenge you conquered because you had to, SMS and Facebook - forget about it," he said.

Hersh then went on to read some of the messages posted on the Internet. "Just to let you know," one person wrote, "for me he was one of the few people who gave me wings. I don't think my mother ever paid one cent for Hineni camps. And I never even knew about it, let alone 'apply for a subsidy,' 'wait for approval,' etc. Frankie just quietly knew what to do."