Kirk Cashmere This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. treppenwitz: December 2005

   bogieworks.blogs.com/treppenwi - [Cached]

   Published on: 12/1/2005   Last Visited: 8/24/2006

   Kirk Cashmere A"H (1955 - 2002)
   ...
   Tomorrow, December 2nd will be the 3rd anniversary of the passing of Kirk Cashmere.
   
   If you Google his name you will quickly discover that Kirk was a prominent civil rights attorney who argued several landmark cases that set the stage for legalized same-sex marriage in Hawaii. The Google results will also tell you that he was both the Legal Director, and a tireless advocate for The American Civil Liberties Union.
   
   If you scroll down a bit you will even find that Kirk was both an historian and pioneer of organized Judaism in the Hawaiian Islands.
   
   What the Google results won't tell you is that Kirk was one of the most influential people in my life, and that we spent a year as housemates in a big rambling mansion overlooking Honolulu that we, and our other two roommates called 'The Honolulu Bayit'
   ...
   Kirk - The motivation behind the venture. He approached each of the other members of the 'bayit' and sold us on the idea. At the time Kirk hadn't yet finished Law School and was working as a paralegal for the Hawaii Legal Aid Society.
   
   'The Architect' - A bright, attractive young woman who's architecture career was just getting underway. Arguably the least traditional of all of us, she (like me) viewed the communal living arrangement as a nice, no-pressure learning opportunity. The last I heard, she was married and living somewhere in Northern California.
   
   'The Handyman' - A scraggly-bearded Aikido master about my age who came from a local family of NY Jews who had moved to Hawaii to become anything but Jewish. While still relatively new to traditional Judaism, 'the handyman' embraced ritual observance and all the outward trappings of orthodoxy from the very start. I call him the handyman because he could build or repair anything under the sun. He made his living restoring old Saabs and selling them to collectors. He is now living in a 'black hat' orthodox community in New York with his wife and (I've lost count of how many) kids.
   
   Me - The wandering (navy) Jew, I was still trying to find my level of observance back then and was casting about for a mentor. Kirk, with his traditional Sephardi background and his degree in Jewish studies from Brandeis was more than happy to fill that role.
   ...
   In all that time, it never occurred to any of us at the Bayit that Kirk was gay. He was this tall, confident guy who always seemed to be at the center of a large group of male and female friends. But much later, when I was discussing his death with some others who had been friendly with him, it occurred to us that he had never seemed to date or 'pair off' with anyone in particular.
   
   Such is the nature of self-absorbed youth ... I never once questioned the fact that he didn't seem to have any non-platonic relationships. Just as we rarely think of our parents or teachers as having a life outside their interactions with us ... so too I never bothered to think about Kirk outside his roles as my friend and mentor.
   
   After I got out of the navy and moved to Israel, Kirk and I pretty much lost touch. We had dinner in New York once when I was finishing off my degree and he was on his way to Washington to argue a case before the Supreme Court. But in the days before IM and casual email relationships, neither of us entertained the idea of staying in close touch from halfway around the world.
   
   I read about his death quite by accident when I stumbled across a tidbit in the newspaper about the passing of a well-known civil rights attorney in Hawaii (how many could there be?). I immediately got in touch with a couple of old friends from my Hawaii days and we reminisced on the phone about our relationships with Kirk.
   
   As often happens, only after he was gone did I really get to see a relatively complete picture of the man.
   
   Yes he was gay.
   ...
   If Kirk were still alive I doubt that even the modern conveniences of computers would have allowed us to remain particularly close. Our lifestyles and politics had led our adult lives down very different paths. Ever the champion of those he perceived to be the underdog, Kirk authored several scholarly articles about the plight of the Palestinians ... while I ended up on a trajectory towards life in a 'settlelemt' where he believed Jews had no business living.
   
   But ironically, I have become the person I am today largely because of Kirk, and because of that brief moment in time when he and I were young and intellectually flexible enough to build a friendship based on shared values, while ignoring (or remaining willfully ignorant) of our potential differences.
   
   Though no mention was made in the media about a cause of death, We assumed amongst ourselves that he had succumbed to AIDS. Like any other aspect of his life, this small final fact has no right to define him.... it is simply the final little tile in a large, human mosaic that was rushed to completion before its time.
   
   Thanks for helping me to become the person I am, Kirk. I'm sorry I never thanked you in person. Bayit l - r: Me, 'the architect', and Kirk ('the handyman' took the picture)