Mandel/Shultz Family
--Post-eclipse in Nashville
Harold M. Shultz
Avi Shultz
Charlotte Mandel
Nora Lee Mandel
Steckels
Lifschutz/Lipschitz/Lipschutz
Harold M. Shultz, Esq., 
[photo by Marc Fader for City Limits] retired after achieving the goal of the Metropolitan Leadership Program we both matriculated at the former Bronx campus of NYU.
He is on the Boards of Zone A New York and Neighborhood Restore HDFC.
Now heading Benavi Advisors LLC on affordable housing issues and a Consultant for the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, where as a Senior Fellow he authored:
J-51: To Be Continued?
The Impact of Multifamily Foreclosures and Over-Mortgaging in Neighborhoods in New York City
Out of Sight, Out of Control takes a detailed look at the housing policy circumstances around a deadly fire on 4/23/2011 at a three-family house in the Bronx. (In The New York Times 4/28/2011 he was quoted: "We need to make sure, in general, that foreclosure is a process in which properties are watched over and don’t get lost in the shuffle.”)
The Invisible Transformation: Turning Debt into Revenue about the impact of In Rem foreclosure and the Third Party Transfer Program on tax lien securitization in New York City (co-author)
Fallout from Roberts vs. Tishman (but it was in The New York Times 5/27/2010 where his commentary was: "This is the ultimate case about rich people with problems that I’m not sure we should care about.")
Debt Threat: Saving Multifamily Rental Housing from Zombie Mortgages and the follow-up Riverton Apartments Sold at Auction
Starrett City: Paradise Lost?
Court Rules Stuyvesant Town Owners Can Exempt Apartments from Rent Stabilization Despite J-51 Tax Benefits, Stuy Town J-51 Decision Reversed and Court of Appeals Delivers Final Word on Stuy Town.
Prevailing Wisdom: The Potential Impact of Prevailing Wages on Subsidized Housing
EPA’s New Layer of Lead Based Paint Rules and
and New Federal Lead Rule Around the Corner
Liquid Assets on water and sewer financing.
The Sons:
Elder Son and Wife prefer to be anonymous.
Avi Shultz, PhD, is Director, Industrial Efficiency Office in the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Programs in the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.
On January 13 2025, he led a webinar on IEDO’s 2024 accomplishments; his audio is also available on YouTube.
In December 2024, Reuters widely distributed an interview with Avi about the DOE-sponsored report 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage: "This really signals to us where the frontier is in terms of growing energy demand in the U.S…What this report is highlighting is what's actually growing the fastest, and the leading edge of demand growth in the U.S. is the very new growth in artificial-intelligence data centers," Shultz said.”
In October 2024, Utility Dive interviewed Avi about projects IEDO was funding: “We expect that over 60% of carbon reductions in the industrial sector will come from technologies that are not [yet efficient to fully offset their emissions] under the Inflation Reduction Act or that will require additional research and development, so the investments in this funding opportunity — and many more investments in the coming years — are critical to closing that gap…As new technologies advance, it is critical for technology developers to engage with the codes and standards community for industrial buildings early to plan for their path to commercialization and widespread adoption. It’s also the case that new energy-efficient technologies can influence new best practices for sustainable facilities.”
In 2023, he participated in a NYU webinar panel on “Industrial Decarbonization Research Insights”.
He earlier described the Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power program he previously supervised to Design News. To Federal Radio News and Green Tech Media, he was interviewed about a new effort to find low-cost solar desalination solutions.
At Thanksgiving 2018, he married Michelle Weinberger, witnessed by four generations of both families, at what seemed like the United Nations of Love.
Just after their 2022 anniversary, those generations were happy to again join them, this time on Zoom, for the finalization of their adoption in Washington, D.C. of Third Grandchild!
The other grandchildren are:
First Born is named for “rabbi” or "teacher", together with the Hebrew for “Isaac”, is also in honor of his great-grandfathers/educators Isadore Bernick and Irwin Mandel.
His brother’s name also reflects his Jewish and Indian heritage. His father posed the wriggler at 4 ½ months scrunching up his “I Love My GGs” onesie for both his Great-Grandmothers Shirley Shultz and Charlotte Mandel at Eppes Essen, a traditional environment to meet.
Charlotte Mandel, Poet
We joined Charlotte Mandel to kvell when she received the Brooklyn College Lifetime Achievement Award at her 75th Brooklyn College Class of 1944 Reunion in 2019:
The Eldest Grandchild was anticipated with her poems ”Light’s Music” (scroll down) and “Great-Grandchild To Be” by his great-grandmother.
For her 90th birthday, The Eldest Great-Grandchild sported a special onesie: (front) “My GG's a poet/and I'm proud to show it" and (back) "Congrats GG on 90 wonderful years".
Her chapbook Light’s Music (Blue Lyra Press Delphi Series VIII, 2020) includes her birthday poems “A Sequence for” the Eldest. She explains: “Couplets are clearly 2-line stanzas; triplets are 3-line stanzas; quatrains are 4-line stanzas.”
Her birthday poems continue:
”To [Elder Son] at Five Days Old”
“To a Great-Grandchild Just Born…in the 18th year of the 2nd millennium (27 Av 5778)”
”Couplets for a Two Year Old”
”Fanfare for a Three Year Old”
”Quatrains for a Four Year Old”, then ”Quartets for a Four Year Old” (for The Brother)
”Cinquains for a Five Year Old” – (The Eldest’s birthday)
Five-line poem for 3rd Great-Grandchild’s 5th birthday
“Sestina For [Eldest] at Six”, a complex, thirty-nine-line poem featuring the intricate repetition of end-words in six stanzas and an envoi/tornada
“Seven Lines” for the Eldest, and His Brother “is Three”, with the lines in triplets
“Octave for an Eight-Year-Old”, defined as a group of eight lines of verse, for The Eldest
“Villanelle for [The Eldest] at Nine”, and (His Brother) Is Five”
“What a wonderful number is ten” in ten lines for The Eldest’s 10th birthday
”Seven Lines Of Seven Words For” 3rd Great-Grandchild
Three couplets for 2nd Great-Grandchild’s 6th birthday
She had dedicated: “A Blessing Via Skype” for when [The Eldest] was nearly year and a half, and at 3 years old he was referenced in “rimas dissolutas” in “Of Clocks and Love”, available in the Diane Lockward-edited anthology A Constellation of Kisses, who commented: “A delightful poem that combines love for her great-grandson with technology."
When The Pandemic limited her direct contact, she wrote for her great-grandchildren:
At her 100th Birthday Party
she read her centenary poem:
As part of WNYC’s annual celebration of “April Is Poetry Month” with listener participation, Carol submitted Richard’s recording of our mother reading “100 Years” that especially fit the week’s theme of “Memoir”. It was played April 3, 2025 at 6:20 am, with the local “Morning Edition” host giving her party context and wishing her “Happy Birthday”. Luckily, she set her alarm to hear it so early. (I heard it live too!)
Two great-grandsons also delivered their special poems to their great-grandmother at her 100th Birthday Party, March 29, 2025:
10-year-old Eldest Great-Grandson’s poem:
6-year-old Second Great-Grandson’s poem:
She corrected the facts in the Proclamation from the Mayor of West Caldwell, NJ (she published 11 books! she was active with the “Women” of WILPF!).
In 2012 she was awarded the New Jersey Poets Prize, so her three children honored her 100th Birthday by sponsoring the 2025 Prize. Accompanied by a tribute to Charlotte’s work, the 2025 winner will be announced in the May 2025 issue of Journal of New Jersey Poets and will also be invited to read at County College of Morris.
Nora Lee Mandel
- from 1913 brochure, 2nd edition
Beginning at the Pandemic of 2020, Nora and Harold walked our Morning Constitutional through the adjacent historic district, the distinct architect-designed community. Nora got obsessed researching its first settlers of 1912 - 1922. From posting almost daily findings, with photographic documentation, on her FaceBook Newsfeed, she presented a Zoom talk on “The Early Jews of Forest Hills Gardens” for Forest Hills Jewish Center Adult Education: available are the Audio and Video.
Since this presentation on March 2, 2021, her subsequent findings add more supporting details to her points.
Nora continues to do family history and has done “census” outreach, on all our branches:
Harold’s maternal PHAIR Family Circle and paternal Shultz/Alpert/Beller/Epstein Families.
Nora Lee’s paternal families: Bass/Blankstein/Aronowitz, originally from Vilna, Lithuania, and Mandel/Brody, originally from what's now Dokshytsy, Belarus - the descendants of Isaac Mandel and his six immigrant sons: Abraham, Herman, Sadie, Harry, Samuel, and Benjamin.
Nora Lee’s mother’s maternal family: Steckel, originally from Mielnica, then in Galicia of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, now western Ukraine - the descendants of the immigrant siblings, including David, Jennie (Charna), and Dora, and their brother Mordechai (Mordche) who stayed, and his children who emigrated to the U.S. as Leo, Clara, and Rose, while remembering the fate of their brother Nahum and his children who stayed, including Rahel, who survived Auschwitz to emigrate to Israel. My deep-dive into ship manifests discovered a forgotten half-sister Loie who came to the U.S. in 1921, also referenced in a note sent from her father to my grandmother in Yiddish – more searching needed.
Nora Lee presented her research on her mother’s favorite uncle (my middle namesake) in a Zoom talk on “Baron and Baroness de Hirsch and The Roots of Jewish American Farmers: Through the Life and Career of Leo Steckel” for Forest Hills Jewish Center Adult Education: available on Video. Plus my unique bibliography. Among his unusual accomplishments as an 1899 immigrant, Leo was in the Class of 1902 at the first agricultural secondary school in the U.S. for Jews:
As a student, he wrote up for the Hirsch School Journal nostalgia for his Galician childhood, the only documented memories I yet know by any of our Steckels: ”Winter In A Hilly Village” (February/March 1901 issue) and “The Blessings of The Barefoot Boy” (March 1902 issue).
In 1912, Leopold M. Steckel, DVM, began advising farmers and writing on livestock for The Baron de Hirsch Fund’s Jewish Agricultural and Industrial Aid Society’s The Jewish Farmer, the only agricultural journal in the world in (mostly) Yiddish, and he went on in 1914 to be Managing Editor:
The National Library of Israel digitized some 1909 – 1959 volumes, though the war-time limited distribution 1914 issues are missing in many collections. Please help identify, and translate, articles (perhaps 1912 – 1925) by Dr. Leo M. Steckel!
Appropriately buried in the Baron Hirsch Cemetery, with their Hebrew names, “Lipa” is alongside his sister “Chaya”:
Found: 
and Cleaned: 
Thanks to Dr. Mitchell Frank for the Hebrew translations, and the resources of the Center for Jewish History, New York Public Library’s Dorot Jewish Division, and many online archives.
Nora Lee also reaches out to her mother’s paternal relations: Lifschutz/Lipschitz/Lipschutz, originally Leboshutz, from Minsk, in what is now Belarus, the descendants of patriarch Aaron and his sons Abraham, Hyman, and Louis, some who became Lipton, Lewis, and Linden.
Louis Lifschutz wrote up his memories for the Bierman Home newsletter, a senior citizen residence where he lived happily for many retirement years in Montclair, NJ until his hundredth year.
Our family histories informed Nora Lee’s research on Joan Micklin Silver’s restored 1975 film for ”Hester Street ReVisited”. Her talk at the Forest Hills Jewish Center’s Adult Education Program starts with this opening section as written with visuals, then to the June 20, 2022 recording via Zoom on: video and audio only. Thanks to Harold for his image searches and IT assistance.
Updated 4/8/2025
To the Mandel Maven's Nest
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