Bree (Berzok) Robin

Bree Robin, wife of Edward Robin for sixty-seven years, died on November 30, 2024.

Bree was born in Brooklyn to Nathan and Pauline Berzok. Her older sister, Elayne Tendrich, of Miami, Florida, survives her. The Berzok family moved to Manhattan and then Miami, where Bree grew up. There, she met Ed, across a fence on Miami Beach.

She was 14, he was 16. That was 72 years ago; they’ve been together ever since.

One of more than twenty first cousins, Bree came to her desire for big families early. She had six children (Melissa, Valerie, Jessica, Corey, Emily, and Gaby), four sons-in-law (Mike, Brian, Bennett, and Jay), one daughter-in-law (Laura), and eleven grandchildren (Hana, Molly, Elle, Tadd, Hazel, Kay, Maddie, Bella, Noah, Aiden, and Roger). They were the loves of her life.

If her desire for family was strong, her talent for family was stronger. To the last, Bree was in constant touch with her beloved sister. No one had more time for her children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews—whether on the phone or in a text, on Zoom or FaceTime, while wiping down the counter or sweeping the floor. And, always, it seemed, near or around midnight. The 24-hour day meant nothing to her; bedtime was for other people. The later it got, the more friends and family she wanted to call, the more things she wanted to do. Even death she did in the middle of the night.

She was a flurry of motion and activity—out and about, getting coffee with friends at the local diner, going to the Chabad, meeting with her discussion groups. She also cherished her house and home. Combining these great passions—for movement and home—she loved living in hotels, sometimes for months on end, with her husband and six children in tow. And hotels loved her. She made friends with waiters and housekeepers, managers and owners. Everyone became family. Family became everyone.

From an early age, she had a love for the written word. She held onto books from her childhood, including a geography notebook written in the flawless cursive she had perfected at Ada Merritt Middle School (and continued to use on the many personal checks and cards she sent to her family and friends, on Hanukkah, birthdays, anniversaries, or just to say I love you).

In mid-life, she returned to college, earning her degree in English and communications at Pace University. As she planned and shopped for the dinners she prepared every night for her family, she read the novels of Jane Austen and wrote papers on Arthur Miller.

She carted the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman across states and continents—in the more than twenty homes she and Ed created over the years, from New Jersey to Florida to Maryland to Uruguay to Argentina to New York to Massachusetts.

She posted pieces of cherished text on refrigerators and walls. By the end of her life, each word bore the passage of time, whether in the form of a coffee stain or the holes of a forgotten thumbtack. But there was no page she loved to read more than the New York Times. Every day, till she died, she’d sit at the table or lie on the couch, poring over the details of some article.

One of the many poems she tacked up on the wall was Charles Reznikoff’s “Te Deum.” Sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s, she typed it out, on her blue IBM Selectric, on a small card that she kept in her possession until the end of her life.

Not because of victories I sing,

having none,

but for the common sunshine, the breeze,

the largess of the spring.

Not for victory

but for the day’s work done as well as I was able

not for the seat upon the dais but at the common table.

Bree, your work is done. You’ve done it well. You’ve earned your seat at the common table. And though you may not have sought it, we’ve kept a spot for you on the dais, too.

A memorial service for Bree Robin will be held on Wednesday, December 4, at 11:00 am, at Congregation Sha’aray Shalom, 1112 Main Street, in Hingham, Massachusetts. Burial will follow at Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham Street, in Sharon. The family will be sitting shiva that evening, starting at 6 pm, at the home of Melissa and Michael.

Donations can be made to the Pan Mass Challenge through the Jimmy Fund.