Photograph by George Sakkestad
Floyd Frisch works among his law books in his downtown Los Gatos office.
By Suzanne Cristallo
In 1933 Germany, as the Third Reich, backed by gangs of Storm Troopers, began its boycott of Jewish shops, 235,000 German Jews fled the country, leaving behind what they could not carry with them.
Five years later, the Nazi party passed the Nuremberg Laws, which gave them "legal" justification for confiscating Jewish property. From the very beginning, Jews were subjected to naked terror, which increased until it culminated in the "final solution of the Jewish problem" in 1941.
In the same year the Jews were fleeing Germany, a baby was born in Buffalo, N.Y., to Floyd and Pearl Frisch. Also named Floyd, the boy would grow up with an appreciation for his German ancestry and its language, a love of philosophy and an acute sense of ethics developed as a result of exposure to the teachings of some of the greatest scholars of his time.
The dark part of history occurring at the time of his birth would return to him in ways no one at the time could have predicted. He would meet some of those who fled for their lives as children and made it safely to California. His help would restore to them a token of their losses. Some of the things which occurred in his life made that path inevitable.
At the end of 1990, the Berlin wall came down. Thousands of Germans, helped by joyous tourists and students eager to hammer apart the cement barrier that separated the city for 29 years, began a new year with new hope and old burdens.
West Germans joined their brothers from the east to erase the damage done to a nation gone sour under communism. But the bill for the effort was laid at the feet of young Westerners who were not born when it all began. In spite of that, they assumed the debts of their predecessors. The wealth they had accumulated since WWII now would be tapped to pay for the restoration of the east and the debts of their fathers. Those debts included the legal compensation required by the German government in laws passed after the end of WWII for the property confiscated from Jews by the Third Reich.
Floyd Frisch, by then an Episcopal priest living in Los Gatos, was about to be called upon to help with the compensation process. Frisch volunteers his time as an assistant at St. Andrew's Church in Saratoga. He is also a Los Gatos attorney.
The duality of his calling--to represent both canon and common law--gives him a unique position among colleagues in both areas. It is a position chosen for the independence it offers him. As a self-sufficient attorney and a volunteer priest, Frisch is unfettered by the church politics that could hinder him were he an official part of church hierarchy.
Three years ago, attorney Frisch, a Los Gatan since 1967, who specializes in estate planning and tax law, was approached by a Jewish survivor of 1930s Germany seeking compensation for his confiscated land. Elderly and without family in Germany, as are many others like him, the man was unwilling to return to his homeland to claim his land. Instead, he wanted Frisch, whom he knew spoke German, to represent his quest for compensation. Since then, the man has been joined by others asking for Frisch's representation.
Once a year Frisch travels to Germany, where he works through German attorneys in Dusseldorf, Berlin and Leipzig. Already, he has been successful in obtaining compensation for several of his clients. The remaining ones must wait for verification of their claims by the Real Property Registry Authorities in Germany. Once validated, the claims the authorities determine to be appropriate will be paid through the conduit of the U.S. Treasury Department.
Meanwhile, Frisch spends an hour each week practicing his German with John Kessel, pastor of the Lutheran Church in Los Gatos. The two discuss world politics in German in the mahogany-paneled law office, which years ago was used by the president of a bank occupying the ground floor of the old Park Vista Building on Main Street.
On Sundays, Frisch assists in the Mass at St. Andrew's.
"I'm a freebie priest," he says of his volunteer position. He brings to it the benefits of a lifetime of study which in his earlier years produced a wrenching inner conflict based on his attempts to intellectualize his beliefs. "Eventually, I learned that I should stop trying to be St. Thomas Aquinas and submit to the idea that reason is only a small part of the religious experience."
He stopped fighting over who is right--Quakers? Jews? Catholics? --and adopted a mystical approach. His reflection on his life gives clues to his evolvement.
Frisch, 63, was the eldest of three children. His father worked as a laborer in the local railroad switching yard. Frisch remembers him as hard-working and rarely available because of the long hours he worked. "My father would come home tattered and black from the steam engines and just collapse," he recalls. "Mom was great until she had a 'change-of-life baby.' It was very hard for her, and she became paranoiac. When the phone rang, we all would rush to answer it before her out of fear of what she might say. ... She would throw out the mail, fearing who the letters were from."
The family was uncommitted religiously, so young Frisch was sent to whatever church was nearest. It happened to be an Evangelical Reform church where the pastor was formidable. "I was scared stiff of him," Frisch laughs. "Talk about the fear of God put in a child."
The first leanings he had toward the Episcopal Church came when he started dating girls from there. "I decided I liked it better. Besides, the Mass, the music and the liturgy were so colorful. There was a profound sense of joy."
Those leanings toward the church were reinforced by the pastor, whom Frisch recalls as one of the major influences of his life. The gap created by his father's long hours at work and his mother's growing detachment was filled by the priest, who always had time for him.
There were other attachments in his young life that left an impact. One was for his best friend, an Orthodox Jewish boy. When they were 12, it was time for his friend to prepare for bar mitzvah, the traditional confirmation of a Jewish boy in his faith at 13. The boy's parents did not want him traveling alone on streetcars to his preparatory lessons, so they asked Frisch's parents if Frisch could accompany him.
For the next year, young Frisch, a bright and interested student, listened and learned while his friend studied the Talmud, the Mishna and the Torah. Frisch attended all Orthodox family gatherings, speaking appropriately in Hebrew and Yiddish while wearing a yarmulka.
While he was proficient in all the study requirements for bar mitzvah, Frisch was reluctant to make one final commitment. "I found out that, at 12, I would have had to be circumcised."
His commitment to school, however, was consistent, if not without its own problems. He was the intellectual star in his family, so much so that his brother, three years younger, could not bear the comparisons by unthinking teachers who would revel in telling him about Floyd's accomplishments. He was turned off by it all and joined the U.S. Navy after graduation, delaying his eventual engineering degree by several years.
Floyd, on the other hand, went straight to the University of Buffalo, where he earned his degree in pre-medicine. "I was a streetcar college kid," he notes, "the first in my family to get a degree." He also earned a three-year graduate scholarship to Yale University. His family was awed. "I suppose with your going away, you'll become too good for us," his father said. His fears were ungrounded. They were close until his father's death at 86, when he was hit by a car while delivering Christmas presents.
A summer's work in a Buffalo hospital had left Frisch with the uncomfortable knowledge that he hated the sight of blood. This coupled with his emerging interest in theology caused him to switch from medicine to the seminary at Yale Divinity School.
His years at Yale exposed Frisch to scholars from a variety of religious traditions: Paul Tillich, German-born existentialist theologian; Roland Bainton, Lutheran Church scholar; and Reinhold Niebuhr, ethicist. He also became aware of the writings of Abraham Heschel, Jewish mystic, who gave him an appreciation of the Old Testament.
In 1958, Frisch achieved his masters of divinity from Yale Divinity School. Confused by his new awareness and not yet ready to be ordained into the priesthood, he went on active duty in the U.S. Army. As a lieutenant in the intelligence unit, he was assigned a brief tour of duty with the Atomic Energy Commission and then was sent to Thailand.
In this Asian kingdom once known as Siam, the people call themselves Thai, meaning "a free people." Their religion is Buddhism, which teaches that those with a pure mind will do pure things, and a pure heart will bring happiness. Frisch studied the religion.
He discovered he was more mystic than rationalistic. It was then the loose ends in his life came together. He knew he was ready for the priesthood.
He retired from the service to San Francisco. There, he met Bishop James Pike of the City's Grace Cathedral. Controversial, radical, liberal, intellectual and chain-smoking, Pike was the voice which was attracting national media attention. He probably was the most publicly recognized Episcopalian in the West in the 1960s.
"Through clouds of cigarette smoke, which ordinarily I couldn't abide, we philosophized," Frisch recalls. Pike, who generally was in hot water with the conservative forces both in and out of his church, encouraged him to go into law.
In 1965, Frisch graduated with a law degree from the University of San Francisco Law School. Next, he took his canonical examinations and was ordained at All Souls Church in Berkeley. Everything was coming together quickly for him. Even his social life.
"I met Leilani at a party she was giving," he recalls. "I chatted her up and asked for her phone number."
Their first date was a Sunday morning. First they went to his church, then they went to hers. She was Catholic. The double Sunday ritual continued all through their courtship.
"One counted, one didn't," Frisch smiles.
They were married in 1967 and moved to Los Gatos. Frisch became a deputy district attorney for Santa Clara County, and through his work became friends with former state Supreme Court justice Rose Bird, who was then in the public defender's office.
"She always teased me about my affiliation, claiming a 'man of God' should be in the defender's office," Frisch laughs.
While Frisch claims his dual roles never create a conflict for him, others sometimes fear one. His role as "token religious official" at the Santa Clara Bar Association's dinner meetings, where he gave grace before the meals, ended when a fellow attorney objected to the prayer on the basis of "separation of church and state."
"Actually, I was saying prayers all over the place," he recalls.
A problem arose in court another time when the judge asked during preliminary questioning if anyone knew someone in either the DA's or Public Defender's offices.
"A little old lady leaned over to me, cupping her hands over her mouth and asked, very audibly, 'What shall I say, Father Frisch?' Of course, the judge had to release everyone, because it was considered that my being a priest could influence the jury."
Being a priest has rightfully influenced other areas of Frisch's life, however. His interest in scholarly pursuits prompted him to apply to Oxford University for the purpose of writing a paper. He spent two months with a tutor assisting him with translations of source material written in old French and Latin. The result was a paper, "The Interaction of Church Law and Developing Common Law."
Frisch explained that papers on narrow subjects are filed for use by historians. "Someday, I may be quoted in someone's footnotes."
Because of his study at Oxford, Frisch is now part of the Oxonian Directory for Northern California, a list of people who have studied at the university. It entitles him to attend many events and openings by invitation. His association with some of the members, however, is a source of aggravation.
"I see people who have the benefit of a fabulous education and end up clipping family coupons," he says of some of the sons of wealth he knew. "I can't deal with that. I didn't like them then, and I don't now."
A particularly earthy person with respect for hard-earned credits in any area, Frisch rejects the "snooty" types he has encountered. "There are even people in the Oxonian who are Americans and have somehow developed an affected English accent," he recounts. "But then there are those on the cutting edge who are a delight to be around."
Frisch and Leilani, who has an interior-design studio on Village Lane in Los Gatos called Seneker Frisch, live in the hills above town on three acres in what was once the guest house for the old Huntington estate. Designed by Julia Morgan in 1928, the 5,500-square-foot home has been updated by Leilani. The Frisches live there with their son, Cameron, and daughter, Courtney, both of whom have chosen law as their professions.
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, October 2, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved