Joel Fleishman: pioneering scholar of philanthropy, inspirational leader, connoisseur of fine wine… and a father figure to generations of teachers and students at Duke University

Joel L Fleishman, scholar of philanthropy, founding director of the public policy program at Duke University, wine connoisseur and the center of a legendary network of friends has died. He was 90 years old.

Professor of Law and Public Policy, Fleishman served as a transformative faculty member at Duke in North Carolina for more than half a century.

His distinguished career at Duke began when former University President and politician Terry Sanford decided to establish a public policy program – and had one name in mind.

Already an authority in the field, Joel Fleishman had developed a plan for integrating aspects of ethics, economics, political science and history into the study of public policy in a report for the Ford Foundation.

Professor Joel Fleishman, teacher, author, scholar of philanthropy and a hugely influential figure at Duke University has died 

It helped that the two men had worked together before: Fleishman served as Sanford’s legal advisor when the latter was state governor. 

Sanford persuaded Fleishman to leave his post at Yale University and return home to North Carolina and Duke where, in 1971, they founded the Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs. The first classes were taught the following year.

‘Joel was always enthusiastic about giving his time, careful thought and undivided attention to the development of what was first known as the Terry Sanford Institute of Policy Sciences and Public affairs,’ said Bruce Kuniholm, founding dean of the Sanford School.

‘Joel is and always will be the heart and soul of who we are and what we will become. We will miss him tremendously.’

Professor Fleishman grew up in a conservative Jewish family in Fayetteville, NC, where his father was cantor of the Beth Israel Synagogue, a role subsequently passed to his son, Joel, who went on to fill it for half a century.

Educated at the Talmudical Academy in Baltimore and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Fleishman embarked upon a formidable legal and academic career. 

Yet it was his Jewish faith and its tradition of social justice that lay at the heart of his outlook.

Giving is an important tenet of Judaism, as are the good works, or mitzvahs, commanded by God. Fleishman practiced both through his personal generosity to friends and organizations and through his academic study of, and service in, the field of philanthropy.

His relationship with Mesorah Publications, a small press that specialized in translating and selling important Jewish religious texts at affordable prices, was a good example.

Professor Fleishman was the founding director of what became the Sanford School of Public Affairs at Duke in North Carolina

In 1987, Professor Fleishman walked into the Brooklyn office to thank the staff for their work – and left promising the surprised rabbis he would help create a foundation to address their financial woes.

He kept his promise: Fleishman was a founding member of the board of trustees of the Mesorah Heritage Foundation. The press has since published hundreds of books in Hebrew, English, French, Spanish and Russian.

A gifted fund-raiser and administrator, Fleishman was appointed chairman of the Duke Capital Campaign for the Arts & Sciences and Engineering in 1982. It was Duke’s first campaign of its kind.

He hired staff, cultivated donors and created a database from scratch. The campaign raised more than $200 million in endowment funds and a total of $500 million overall.

Some of the Capital Campaign fund-raising was used for the construction of the Sanford Building completed in 1994. The central atrium was named Fleishman Commons in his honor.

A series of important administrative posts followed including as vice president of the university in 1985, senior vice president in 1988 and first senior vice president in 1993.

In 2009, his Institute of Policy Sciences and Public affairs became the Sanford School of Public Policy. And on Founder’s Day that same year, Duke presented Fleishman with one of its highest honors: the University Medal for Meritorious Service.

He was described as a real-life Pied Piper, ‘whose joyful enthusiasm for deep study and good deeds inspired generations of friends and students ‘

Professor Fleishman was known for cultivating a huge network of friends around the world – and sent out more than 2600 hand-addressed cards each holiday season 

There was further acknowledgement when, in 2019, the Sanford School established the Joel Fleishman Distinguished Professorship of Public Policy in his honor. The decision was announced at a celebration of Fleishman’s 85th birthday.

It wasn’t until May 2023, after more than 50 years of teaching, that Fleishman finally bid farewell to the classroom, although he continued to serve in a leadership role for several centers of study.

Prof Fleishman wrote and edited numerous books and articles, most recently ‘Putting Wealth to Work: Philanthropy for Today or Investing for Tomorrow?’, published in 2017 by the Hachette Book Group.

He held responsibilities beyond Duke, too. Fleishman was a founding trustee of the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro, NC, for example, and served as trustee of Brandis University, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the American Friends of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem and the Partnership for Public Service.

He was formerly chairman of the visiting committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and chairman of the board of trustees of the Urban Institute.

In 2003, Fleishman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Ralph Lauren Corporation.

Former Dean of the Sanford School, Judith Kelley, said: ‘Joel was a tireless advocate for those in need, an unstoppable creative force for solving problems to make the world a better place. He was beloved by so many whose lives he has changed. I miss him deeply.’

Professor Fleishman was the founding director of Duke’s prestigious  Institute of Policy Sciences and Public Affairs. In 2009, this became the Sanford School of Public Policy (pictured)

Lord Rothermere, Chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust plc, which publishes DailyMail.com, was among those who studied under Professor Fleishman at Duke.

Paying tribute last night, he said: ‘Joel Fleishman has left an enormous legacy, not only in the creation and development of the Sanford School of Public Policy and his immensely valuable work in international philanthropy, but in the huge number of people he inspired and mentored, taught and helped.

‘For us, his legacy will always be remembered – and revered. He is deeply missed.’

Adam Abram, former chair of the Sanford Board of Visitors, described Professor Fleishman had been a friend and teacher for more than 50 years.

He said: ‘Joel was a real-life Pied Piper, whose joyful enthusiasm for deep study and good deeds inspired generations of friends and students to join him in attempting to “heal the world”.

‘Joel loved his many friends generously, and he was deeply loved and respected in return. We will mourn him. But the generations of friends and students he inspired and taught will continue his work.’

Somehow, Prof Fleishman found time to be a connoisseur of wine and for eight years wrote a wine column for Vanity Fair magazine.

This had come about when he attempted to recruit Harold Evans, former editor of The Times of London, to the Sanford School  – without success.

There was, though, a compensation: Tina Brown, Evans’s wife and the editor of Vanity Fair, heard Fleishman discussing wine over dinner and recruited him to write.

Throughout his life, Joel Fleishman cultivated a vast network of friends across the globe.

Professor Fleishman was endlessly interested in sharing good food, wine, conversation and in bringing people together to work towards a goal

Joel Fleishman started his career at Duke in 1971 but it wasn’t until May 2023, after more than half a century of teaching, that he finally bid farewell to the classroom

He was endlessly interested in people, in sharing good food, wine, conversation and in bringing people together to work towards a goal. He especially loved mentoring students during and after their days at Duke.

‘People were always calling him for advice. He had a photographic memory and could immediately make a connection and put people in touch,’ recalled Pamela Ladd, his executive assistant for 37 years.

One way Prof Fleishman maintained this network was through his annual holiday card list. More than 2,600 people received a card from him bearing a poem he had composed reflecting on the past year.

Ladd says it was only about 10 years ago that he finally relented and dropped the insistence on handwritten addresses.

So extensive were the ‘Friends of Joel’, that Prof Fleishman’s colleague Bruce Kuniholm made a special game. 

For years, when he traveled, Kuniholm asked people if they knew Joel Fleishman. It turned out that many did, of course – in places as far-flung and various as cruise ship on the Baltic, an airport in Istanbul and a Nobel Prize giving ceremony in Oslo.