Max Frankel, Jewish New York Times executive editor who fled the Nazis, dies at 94

JTA — Max Frankel, the former executive editor of The New York Times who fled the Nazis as a child, died at 94.

Frankel died Sunday at his Manhattan home, according to an obituary in the Times.

Frankel began working at The New York Times at age 19 as the Columbia University campus correspondent and spent more than 40 years at the paper as a reporter, editor and columnist. He ran the paper from 1986 to 1994.

His career at the paper began less than a decade after his family escaped the Holocaust. Born to Jewish parents in Gera, Germany in 1930, eight years later Frankel was deported with his parents to Poland. His mother was later able to obtain rare US visas for herself and Max.

They were reunited with his father, who had been imprisoned in the Soviet Union, and settled in Manhattan, in the German-Jewish community of Washington Heights. He spoke German, Polish, and Yiddish, and was conversationally proficient in Russian, French, and Spanish, according to The New York Times.

After joining the paper, much of his reporting work was done in the thick of the Cold War and focused on the continent he fled. At the age of 26, he was assigned to cover anti-Soviet rebellions, articles in which, according to the obituary, he “made no pretense of objectivity.”

He served as the paper’s correspondent in Moscow and Havana, and covered the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as President Richard Nixon’s visit to China, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. He led the paper during the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

As The New York Times was weighing whether to cover the Pentagon Papers, Frankel authored a memo that helped sway its lawyers into publishing, despite concerns over litigation and fines. The memo was later cited in court.

His tenure as executive editor came as the paper was contending with the expanding constellation of TV news and a world that was just beginning to use the internet. He prioritized hiring women and people of color in the newsroom.

In a 1999 interview with NPR’s Diane Rehm, Frankel said he felt he was expected to take certain stances due to his Jewish identity.

“I come here and even in the midst of all this freedom, I’m expected to fight the battle for my tribe,” Frankel told Rehm. “And when Israel gets in trouble, I’m expected to stand up for them, whether they’re right or wrong.”

In 1956, Frankel married his first wife, Tobia Brown, with whom he had three children. Brown died in 1987. He is survived by his wife Joyce Purnick, a former reporter and editor at The New York Times, and his three children and six grandchildren.