Arnold M. Soloway

Arnold M. Soloway, former Harvard economics professor, real estate developer, state chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, prominent 1960s Democratic Party leader, and well known expert on Israel and the Middle East, died at his home in Westwood, MA on Wednesday, April 13, 2016. He was 95.

Arnie graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University in 1942, where he also starred on the football team. Following WWII, he returned to Brown as an economics instructor and assistant football coach, where he coached a young quarterback from Brooklyn, NY named Joe Paterno. He left Brown in 1948 and came to Harvard where he taught for more than 10 years and received his PhD in economics. During this same period, I n 1948, Arnie also founded Camp Walt Whitman, a co-ed summer camp in New Hampshire, which he ran with his brother for more than twenty years and which today remains one of the nation's highest rated summer camps. After leaving Harvard, he was an economics and business consultant for more than a decade.

He helped lead then-Boston Mayor John Collins's "New Boston Committee" and its seminal study on Boston's housing challenges, and later went on to serve on the consumer advisory council established by then-Attorney General Edward J. McCormack. In the years that followed he became increasingly active in Massachusetts and national democratic politics, including managing McCormack's Senate campaign against Edward M. Kennedy in 1961 and his later gubernatorial campaign against John Volpe in 1966; chairing the Massachusetts chapter of Americans for Democratic Action; managing the Massachusetts campaign for Hubert Humphrey in his 1968 presidential campaign, and serving as a senior advisor to the late Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson in 1976.

In the early 1960s, Arnie led the renovation of the old Bellevue Hotel next to the state Capitol into an apartment complex and built the landmark "Jamaicaway Towers," across from Jamaica Pond, at the time the tallest high rise apartment complex in New England. He later founded Design Housing, Inc., through which he built a number of residential developments including the Townhouses at Lars Andersen in Brookline, Allandale Farms in Boston, and Lochstead in Falmouth.

In addition, Arnie was the first Chairman of the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation, which was created when the now-internationally acclaimed holocaust-based curriculum began to spread beyond its roots in the Brookline schools. He also chaired and was an early backer of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) and founded the Center for Near East Policy Research, through which he published numerous monographs and papers on Middle East issues.

He received the Louis Brandeis Award from the Zionist Organization of America in 1996 and was inducted into the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1968, Sports Illustrated named him to their 25th Anniversary All American Football team.

Arnie is survived by three children: Nathaniel (Nick) of Helena, MT; Stan of Washington, DC; and Belle of Westwood, MA; a daughter-in-law Kathy, also of Washington, DC; and seven grandchildren: Aaron of San Francisco; Mollie of Orford, NH; Anna and Sonya of Washington, DC; and Daniel Robinson of San Francisco, Eugene Robinson of East Lansing, MI, and Hannah Robinson of Westwood, MA. He was pre-deceased in 2004 by his wife of 56 years, Joan Field Soloway.

Services at the Levine Chapels, 470 Harvard St., Brookline on Friday, April 15 at 1:00pm.

Burial in Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham St., Sharon.

Memorial observance immediately following the burial through 8pm and continuing Saturday 4-8pm and Sunday 1-4pm at the home of Belle Soloway.

In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to a charity of your choice.