[This page(s) will contain tributes and comments from Max’s former colleagues and students]
Max Berkovitz is a retired secondary and junior college teacher who has written and published The Byte and Bits of Language, which many of his students consider the simplest introduction to language structure in the English language. As you will note below, many of his former students are now his devoted friends and consider Max to have been an inspiration in their lives and careers.
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1972… I was a photography nut in high school and discovered a forgotten Graphlex Speedgraphic 4×5 camera that belonged to the journalism department. I approached Mr. Berkovitz, who taught journalism, and said I’d love to use the camera to take pictures for the school paper. Not only did he say yes, but gave me the funds to open up a complete darkroom for the paper. I had a ball, not just taking pictures, but sitting in his class, listening to him teach, joke, tease, and educate with the kind of enthusiasm that turns students into raving fans. “Ketzeleh” he called me. He remains today one of my all-time favorite teachers. What a surprise it would have been to me then that he would soon be one of my father’s dearest friends! Max, you’re the best!…Dan Katz; Birmingham High School; Class of 1973
I have such great memories of Max; I had him for three different classes — English, Journalism and Year Book. I became sports editor my senior year, and got in trouble with Coach Jerry Hayhoe for a tongue-in-cheek article I wrote on the school’s football team. Max was a great motivator, as well as instructor. I went on to become a journalist at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, and spent 25 years in a variety of editorial and management positions in journalism, winning 16 writing awards. I returned to Max’s classes on several occasions to speak to his journalism classes. I have Max Berkovitz to thank for my career. I can’t say any more but that he influenced me to embark on a career that has not only been successful, but one that I have cherished…Keith Tuber
Hello to peoples there,
Us are being Doug Tuber, Tim Maile and Steve Luchsinger. Max Berkovitz wuz our teacher of the english, also of how to Journalism things. From 1976 too 1978. He teached us to write goodly, also grammar stuff to. Doug waz editor-in-Chef of the Birmingham Currier and Tim and Steve helped, two. Later he gave to us a book about grammar that he was writtten. Now we will read that book for what the words and stuff that is inzide……Goodness gracious, what an enlightening tome! Entertaining, concise, a direct descendant of Samuel Johnson and Strunk & White. Bravo.
We have only thanks and admiration for Max Berkovitz — how better to illustrate that than by Doug and his wife Rachelle naming their first born in his honor. All three of us have earned our livings writing. Max gave us the tools that made it possible. We owe him everything. (Though not in any legally binding sense — we “owe” him gratitude, but not any past, present or future income. At least, that’s the statement our lawyers cleared.)Here’s wishing Max a happy and healthy birthday!
Doug, Tim and Steve
No Greater Teacher
For Max…
[Who made so much possible
With abiding love and gratitude]What chance delight I take in days,
In facing vagaries of fate,
Or laughing in denial’s face,
Whatever skills I have to glean
The sunspot in the deepest fog
To know that I deserve good care,
Was gleaned in some odd mystic path
From love your parents gave to you
So richly and abundantly
There was enough to shower me –
[and God know many others too]
To change my world from pain and rue
To self appreciation due
To every one – but in my life
A gift from you
It always, only, came, from you
And this is Max and this is love
And nothing else is quite as true.With love, always
Rowena [Silver]