Remembering Marty Schiffenbauer, co-author of Berkeley rent control legislation   

Marty Schiffenbauer, a Berkeley “legend” who authored rent control legislation and other reforms in city government, died on Feb. 5, at the age of 86.

Marty was born on May 16, 1938 to an orthodox Jewish family living in Brooklyn and was given the name Yechiel Mechel. The family, including a sister, two grandparents and an aunt, lived in the rooms behind and above a small shop in Crown Heights. Berdie’s Corset Shoppe was run by Marty’s mother and sold bras and other “foundation garments.” Marty’s father handled the business’s finances, shopped for the household, and introduced his son to the stock market – an interest that would prove useful to Marty later on. (Money given to Marty at the time of his bar mitzvah gave him his start in the world of investing.) 

At age 5, Marty was enrolled in the Crown Heights Yeshiva, where he remained a student through middle school. Early on, however, his inclinations were quite unorthodox, exasperating his mother, who was lovingly devoted to raising her son in the tradition. Indeed not all of Marty’s experiences were kosher — he recounts the many varieties of colorful errancy in his memoir (unpublished).

Marty’s departure from religious piety did not happen all at once. “My 12 years of indoctrination in elementary school and high school yeshivas had not entirely loosened its grip on my psyche,” he wrote in his memoir. “In addition, my immediate family and community were virtually all Orthodox Jews. So, for about another half-decade, I continued to go through the motions of being a practicing Orthodox Jew. I’d only eat kosher food, I attended synagogue on Shabbos and abided by the Sabbath rules and prohibitions.” 

Marty graduated from Baruch College with a major in business administration and worked briefly in a stockbrokers’ office in order to save money for a visit to Israel. He lived first at Kibbutz Schluchot, where he spent a six-day work week hauling irrigation pipes and vaccinating baby chickens. Visiting the port town of Eilat, he was mistakenly accused and arrested for robbing a pharmacy and spent a night in jail. 

Expelled from Schluchot, Marty moved to Kibbutz Chofetz Chaim, where he felt welcome. “Chofetz Chaim had its appeal,” Marty wrote, “but I can’t say I ever considered making it my permanent home. Skepticism about the existence of a Supreme Being was by then omnipresent in my brain. Despite my continuing to be a practicing Orthodox Jew, the prayers and rituals by then had little meaning for me.” One thing Marty did love about Israel, though, was its natural beauty, experienced for example when he snorkeled in the offshore coral reefs of Eilat, “surrounded by hundreds of spectacular multi-colored fish.”

Upon returning to New York, Marty began graduate study in psychology at NYU. But his education was interrupted when he was inducted into the army where he trained to be a vehicle mechanic. Following active duty, Marty had to attend weekly National Guard meetings, which, he wrote in his memoir, “were incredibly boring and a complete waste of time.” Marty wrote about this waste in a letter that got published in the New York Times, which alienated his captain, and that led to his relocation to California in order to terminate his military service. 

Marty spent the summer of 1964 in Berkeley, which was entering an era of political and countercultural exploration that Marty was only too happy to help inaugurate. In his Chevy II convertible, he also explored the larger Bay Area, from Muir Woods to Point Lobos. 

Marty wasn’t done with New York, however. Having abandoned any religious belief, he had to fake being observant at home, where he still lived with his parents. “In my Orthodox Jewish community,” Marty explained, “living with one’s parents until marriage was the norm,” and he had to tolerate his mother’s fear that his “rejection of religion would inevitably lead to my marrying a shiksa [a non-Jewish woman].” Soon after his return to New York, though, Marty moved out of his parents’ home and to Greenwich Village, where, continuing his research in experimental psychology, he lived until June 1967 after which he moved permanently to Berkeley. (He finished writing his doctoral thesis in Berkeley, and was granted a PhD in psychology from New York University in 1969.)

Marty was active in the 1960s protest movement against the war in Vietnam. Contributing to the counterculture flourishing in the Bay Area, he organized a Naked-Noisy Vigil for Peace rally that took place at the Oakland induction center. 

But Marty became best known in the community for his activism around local issues. He co-authored a rent control initiative that became the law in Berkeley and helped to keep rents reasonable and support the diversity of the community. In 1982, Marty drafted and gathered signatures for a charter amendment that switched Berkeley’s municipal election date from April to November to coincide with general elections. The consequences were dramatic: more students, tenants, Democrats, and low-income voters turned out to vote, which led to the election of many candidates who enacted progressive policies in the city.

In Berkeley Marty had several jobs during the 70s and 80s, including helping to teach the first ecology course at UC Berkeley and editing a Berkeley food cooperative newsletter, but he eventually made a living by investing in the stock market. He always lived frugally, telling his friends, “I’ve made this money, what am I going to do with it?” He answered that question by donating to causes he believed in. 

Marty’s knowledge of economics and finance came in handy when, in 1989, he came up with the idea of a ballot initiative to put a cap on the selling price of Berkeley homes. At a time of skyrocketing rents and house prices in the Bay Area, this concept — anathema to the real estate industry — received prominent coverage, first in California media like the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times, and then nationwide (Wall Street Journal, New York Times) and even abroad (The Economist). Marty was besieged by reporters seeking interviews and acknowledged that, as a headline in the San Francisco Chronicle reported, he wanted to be the “antithesis of Donald Trump.” 

Writing in his memoir, Marty said that, “my 1989 ’15 minutes of fame’ did have a long-lasting and enormously positive impact on my life.” He had been in a relationship with Caskey Weston that ended in 1981. Eight years later, she saw him being interviewed on TV about home price control, and called him up to tell him he needed a haircut. They got back together, along with Caskey’s two children Alex and Ariel. “Connubial felicity,” as Marty put it, culminated a couple of decades later in their wedding celebration in 2011.

Alex’s cartoon, above, shows Marty’s playful nature. Although he left orthodox Judaism when he was in his 20s, Marty retained an irrepressible simcha (joy/gladness) in living. He and Caskey were known for hosting exuberant communal gatherings on a birthday or other congenial occasion. 

Some people live ordered, even predictable lives. They have (or their parents have for them) a life plan — schooling, career, family — and they execute. This was not Marty’s path. Major turning points in his life, as he describes them in his memoir, came about seemingly by chance. Had he not come of age in an orthodox Jewish community during the Vietnam war, his application to be exempted from military service might not have been rejected by a local draft board intent on proving its patriotism, and he would not have served a couple of years in the army. Had he not been in the National Guard and informed by his commanding officer that he had to move to another state to apply for release, he might not have relocated to California. Had he not moved to the West Coast, he wouldn’t have been instrumental in lowering rents and changing the operation of government in Berkeley, his adopted hometown. Had Caskey not seen him on TV, talking about exorbitant real-estate prices, he might not have rejoined his beloved life partner!

Holding constant through this meandering journey was Marty’s reliable generosity, warmth, thoughtfulness, and good humor that made him a wonderful friend of so many. You made such a difference, Marty! Much appreciation, and much love.

A memorial for Marty Schiffenbauer will be held later this year.