EARLY YEARS
I am the only child of Jean and Alfred Sorkin, born in Brooklyn, New York on December 2, 1945.  Jean was born in Brooklyn, New York and Alfred was born in Russia.  December 2nd was a date of coincidents for the family since my uncle Moe, my mother’s brother, not only was born and married on December 2nd, but also died at the age of 38 on December 2nd.

You may have seen me on TV in the early 50’s when I was a frequent singer on the “Video Talent Hour.”  I also sang as a solo in front of the auditorium while attending P.S. 101 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York.  My passion for singing unfortunately attracted bullies.  I was terrified each day when walking home from school as there was a gang of boys always waiting to beat me up. These experiences made an indelible mark on me and are something I have vividly remembered all my life.  In spite of this I want all who have been victims of bullying to know that life DOES get better and, like a serious disease, you will be a survivor and probably have a better life than those who bullied you.  Thankfully I have survived and thrived.

I began taking piano lessons as a child.  At that time my grandmother Sarah lived in the adjacent semi-detached house.  When grandma sold her house, her piano was moved to the basement of my house (since the apartment I lived in was too small to accommodate the old player piano).  That did not seem to concern my parents but this freighted me.  The basement was dark, dingy, damp and scary.  There were always strange noises going on down there.  There was also a small shed in the back of the basement where I could swear I saw a grungy man living.  This used to scare me.  Was there really a man living there?  We will never know. 

BENSONHURST
I was brought up in Bensonhurst, a neighborhood that consisted almost entirely of Catholic Italians and Jews.  There were very few Protestants.  As a result, I thought everyone in the world was either Jewish or Italian.  Bensonhurst still has a large Italian population and is known as the Little Italy of Brooklyn.  Now it also has the largest population of residents who were born in China and Hong Kong of any neighborhood in New York City and is home to Brooklyn's second Chinatown.

Around the corner from me were two things, one of which fascinated me and the other which frightened me.  The thing that fascinated me was an unusually large corner brick house, basically a compound, with high gates and fancy Cadillacs and Packards parked inside.  I was told by people in the neighborhood not to spend too much time lurking near the house.  I always wondered why.  I finally found out.  The compound was the home of one of the top Cosa Nostra (the Sicilian Mafia) godfathers. 

The other thing that frightened me around the corner was the block bully, Tommy.  I was terrified each time I had to turn the corner in fear of Tommy being there.

JEWISH INSPIRATION
I also sang in the choir of Talmud Torah Sons of Israel where I met one of my lifelong friends, the renown French horn player and conductor Sam (Sammy) Gindin.

I was inspired by the late great Rabbi Benjamin Morgenstern, who had an immense influence in my life, stimulating my interest in Judaism and in my religious observance.  I remember how much fun it was to be called by Rabbi Morgenstern to be a witness to weddings performed at Rabbi Morgenstern’s home and to sign the newlywed’s Ketubah (the Jewish Wedding license).

LIFELONG FRIENDSHIPS
I am fortunate to have three additional lifelong friends, Joyce Levinson Edel, who lived down the street on Bay 34th Street, Joan Robbins Foley, who lived next door (her mother Ruth and her aunt Marion, who passed away in August 2019 at the age of 105 were close friends with my mother), and globally renown attorney and former Member of the Florida House of Representatives, Alan S. Becker of Fort Lauderdale.  I met him in the 4th grade.  Alan’s family treated me as if I were a member of the family.  Alan’s mother Lorraine and father Jack were like second parents to me.  I have great love for them.  Unfortunately Alan passed away on July 4, 2020, an appropriate date for such a patriot.  How many people can say they have had such wonderful friends for over 70 years?  I am especially thankful for this.

THE MOVE TO FLATBUSH AND THE ALL CITY ORCHESTRA ADVENTURE
In 1959 we moved to Flatbush where I attended James Madison High School.  I continued playing the viola and was accepted into the New York All City Orchestra.  This was one of the highlights of my high school years.  When I went for my audition I told the auditioner I did not care if I sat behind the curtain.  I wanted to be in the orchestra so badly.  Happily, I was accepted and was the last violist, but at least I got in.  I was one of the very few who did not take private lessons.  Being a member of the All City Orchestra was a very thrilling experience.  The members got to meet and spend time with such music greats as Leonard Bernstein and Lionel Hampton.  I particularly remember one rehearsal when I played a resounding horrible out of tune note that rang throughout Carnage Hall.  The conductor of the orchestra came running toward the girl in front of me (Alice), started yelling at her, took her music stand and threw it on the floor.  After that rampage ended and the conductor was back at his stand, I meekly raised my hand and confessed to being the person who played that horrible note.  The entire orchestra gasped.  It was a moment I will never forget.  Needless to say, I was not in the All City Orchestra the following year.

LOVE FOR MUSIC
I continued singing in the University chorus as well as in a men’s chorus and an Episcopal Church choir and I kept in touch with my music Professor Dr. Charles Ennis until his passing.

I developed a love for music as my childhood home was filled with the music of the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s.  I know the words to hundreds of songs.  I also love jazz and show music with thousands of titles in my collection.

FIRST TEACHING EXPERIENCES
My first teaching position was at Brownsville Junior High School.  The first day on the job stunned me as I saw no white faces anywhere.  In New York, even if a school was in a predominately black area the faculties were integrated.  1968 was the first year that the schools were integrated in Dade County.  I was shocked to realize that segregation still existed, especially in Miami.  It turned out that there were six white teachers on the faculty.  I would be the seventh, with a student body that was 100% black.  In a short time I was warmly accepted by most of the faculty (with one or two exceptions).  I enjoyed faculty parties, and became chairman of the math department.

COMING OUT:
- THE REALIZATION AND FIRST EXPERIENCES
- FOUNDING MEMBER CONGREGATION ETZ CHAIM
One of the teachers on the faculty at Brownsville Junior High was a woman who had the perfect credentials that would earn the approval of my mother and father.  She came from a very prominent and affluent Jewish family and was very intelligent, so I decided to ask her on a date.  After the date was over I felt nothing.  I began to wonder why.  After Shabbat services on Saturday I approached Rabbi Landau and confided in him about my insecurity about my date.  Rabbi Landau set up an appointment for me to visit a psychiatrist who was a member of the congregation.  After spending three hours with Dr. S., I came out floating on air.  I finally came to the realization that I was gay.  This was an amazing life changing event for me, but there was one thing that troubled me.  Jewish law it states “be fruitful and multiply.”  I felt this could not be possible if I was gay.  The next Shabbat I met with Rabbi Landau after services and shared what was bothering me.  Rabbi Landau’s response was that this is true for heterosexual people.  The Torah is written for the majority of the people.  There are others who are exceptional and you are one of them.  “G-d has a different mission for you, and especially you since you are a teacher.”  By the time you are finished with your life here on earth you will have touched and had influence over thousands of people and you will have made your mark on humanity.  This is your mission.  After hearing this it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  I was now free to be true to myself.

In 1973, at Brownsville Junior High School where I was still teaching, I used my newly realized “gaydar” to approach one of my fellow teachers.  Fortunately the “gaydar” actually worked and I made a new friend Merle.  Merle taught English and had a partner Emil, who was a bar tender.  Merle and Emil introduced me to the institution of the gay bar and a whole new world that I never even knew existed.  It blew my mind.  Often we went to the Warehouse bar on S.E. 8th Street in Little Havana where the most fabulous drag shows were presented.  Merle also introduced me to two additional gay members of the faculty, Mark and Arthur.  Mark taught the hearing impaired and had an additional job hand-signing the news for the hearing impaired, appearing in the corner of the TV screen for the local ABC affiliate WPLG.  Arthur taught Spanish.  (Mark and I are still good friends even though we live in different cities.  I lost contact with Merle and Arthur.  I heard that Arthur died of AIDS).  One day Mark suggested that I go to the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC - the Church which catered to the Gay and Lesbian community) where he heard there was a group of Jewish people who regularly met.  It took a little courage but I went.  There I met five other Jews and one non-Jew and before we knew it all seven of us set the ball rolling to form the “Metropolitan Community Synagogue of Greater Miami: MCS – Congregation Etz Chaim.”  Encouraged by Rev. Keith Davis of the MCC and with the strong the support of Rabbi Sol Landau the Synagogue was established in 1974.  It was actually Rabbi Landau who suggested the name “Etz Chaim.”  Services were first held in the recreation room of my condominium, then the downtown Miami YWCA, Aljamin’s Art Studio in North Miami Beach, the Biscayne Boulevard Lutheran Church, a triple rental storefront on West Dixie Highway in North Miami Beach, Levitt-Weinstein funeral chapel in Hallandale, the Unitarian Universalist Church in Oakland Park, a rental space in Wilton Manors, a space at Temple Beth Torah in Tamarac, and now a large space in the Pride Center in Wilton Manors.  I am proud to say that I am a founding member of the synagogue now officially called Congregation Etz Chaim.  Rabbi Landau was right for, addition to my thousands of students, I touched even more people by helping to establish and support the synagogue throughout the years.  I consider this to be one of the most important accomplishments in my life.

So many things were going on in my life between the years 1973 and 1976.  I was scheduled to take my Master’s oral exam in 1973, but when I came to the realization that I was gay I was so excited and happy (everything about my sexual feelings just fell into place, it was incredible) that I just could not concentrate on studying, so I delayed taking the exam for a year.  In May 1974 I finally received my Master of Arts degree with a major in Education and a minor in Mathematics.

1976 held a significant event. This was the year I met my lifelong love.  He be happened to be in Miami on business but had a day off.  He rarely went to the beach but on that day he did.  One of my friends happened to be next to him at the beach and invited him to dinner with us.  That was it!

EXPERIENCES TEACHING IN THE MIAMI GHETTO
In the meantime word got around about my teaching abilities and I was asked to become a part of the special Academic Achievement Program (AAP) at Miami Northwestern Senior High School.  This program was a school within a school that selected the top students at Northwestern and put them on a rigorous track for college preparation.  Miami Northwestern is located in the heart of one of the most economically depressed areas in the city and has a population that is more than 90% black.  The students that were in the program were very special and exceptional.  Many of them did not know where they were going to sleep at night, but yet they had the motivation, drive and sensitivity to study and push on.  The program also had students from more prominent and wealthy black families.  The principal’s own two children were in the program as well as the son of Dade County’s first black county manager.  It was in the AAP that I met who I consider one the greatest women in my life, Betts Watson.  Betts was brilliant, a great mathematician, an intellectual, and a genius with the rare ability to listen and empathize.  She was around 20 years my senior but was able to relate in a way very few could.  She was one of the first people I came out to, and she made me feel so comfortable and wonderful.  Betts’ daughter Marge was working for an independent social agency at the time MCS found out that Aljamin’s Art Studio had to close.  Her agency had offices at the Biscayne Boulevard Lutheran Church.  The synagogue needed a new place to hold services.  I mentioned this to Betts and before I knew it Marge arranged a place for Etz Chaim to hold services at the Church.

After all the “macher’s” (a Yiddish word for “bigshot”) kids graduated from the AAP, the enthusiasm for the program started to dwindle and the program disbanded; however, something new came up for me.  Computers started to take hold in the public schools and I was given time off to learn how to run and integrate the computer system into the daily running of Northwestern Senior High School.  I was in charge of computers at the school for several years while teaching a reduced load of math classes.  Things were not that good at that time at the school.  It was 1980, the time of the Miami riots.  Morale was very low and Northwestern was having problems.

TEACHING IN THE JEWISH HIGH SCHOOL
In 1981 I saw an ad for a new Jewish high school that was opening up adjacent to the Michael-Ann Russell JCC in North Miami Beach.  I was fortunate to get the math position at the school.  This position involved other duties as well.  I loved teaching there.  The kids were great and so were their parents.  I worked very hard and put in many unpaid extra hours each day, even on the weekends.  One day I found out that one of the female teachers was getting paid more than I was.  I asked the administration why and the reply was that she had a family and kids to support.  This answer was totally unacceptable.  Somehow the Hebrew Academy on Miami Beach found out about my unhappiness with my salary and wooed me to their school with a better salary and a chance to become department Chair.  I accepted their offer.  Unfortunately this turned out to be a bad move as I was miserable at the Hebrew Academy.  At the Academy there were students who were not there because of the Jewish education, but because they were unruly and could not handle the regular public school environment.  Many came from very wealthy families, where the parents were off traveling and could not be reached and had no control over their children.  The situation was so bad that in 1985 I decided to go back to teaching in Dade County schools. I was assigned to Miami Norland Senior High School, and to say the least it was in worse condition than Northwestern High School.  At the same time I happened to see an ad about adjunct math teachers being needed at Broward Community College for evening classes.  I applied and was accepted.  After teaching a few classes I thought I died and went to heaven.  Teaching at the college was totally amazing.  I loved every minute of it.  When I heard that there was an opening for a full time position I applied.  In 1987 G-d was looking down on me as he got the position.  I was now doing something that I always wanted to do, REALLY TEACH in a wonderful environment.  The administration gave me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted to do within the parameters of the courses I was teaching.  I was the pioneer and developer of online math teaching at the college.  I was sent to classes and given all the hardware and software I needed in order to create my own Webpages and online courses.  I was asked to present at many educational conferences throughout the country because of the successes I was having with my students.  In 1999 I won the coveted Endowed Teaching Award from the college for excellence in teaching and innovativeness in developing teaching mathematics online.  This is a $25,000 award, one-third of which was to be used for college purposes.  I chose to take this money and travel around the country to research what other colleges were doing with their online math programs and learned that people sought my guidance because I was a pioneer in the field.  This was very rewarding to me

The 80s were a horrible time for the Gay community and the Synagogue.  So many wonderful people and Synagogue members lost their lives to AIDS including my best friend, Jay Freier, who was also a founding member of the Synagogue and its first President. Jay was two years younger than me, but we shared the same birthday.  In spite of the setbacks the Synagogue continued to grow and I remained on the Board for many years.

THE 80S
The 80’s was also a time when I met two very close friends Bob Waterstone and Steve Citrin at Etz Chaim and this friendship continues.  Every Saturday evening when I am not traveling, all three of us get together for dinner.  This is something I really looked forward to every week.

2007 RETIREMENT, TRIPLE BYPASS
2007 was a very eventful year for me.  I was forced to retire.  Not that I wanted to but because I had reached the limit of years teaching under the Florida Retirement System, and if I did not retire I would lose over $100,000.  I loved teaching at the college so much but if I made the decision to stay I would not be getting a large chunk of money that I would need to live on after I retired.  Channel 6 Miami even did a piece on me and my dilemma.  I did continue to teach as an adjunct during the winter and spring semesters of 2007.  When I retired, after teaching for 39 years, I was summoned to a meeting of the Board of Directors at the College and given an award in appreciation for my dedication to service to the college and the title Professor Emeritus.

2007 was a monumental year for me for another reason as well.  On December 28th I needed a triple bypass.  This is something that I and everybody who knew me could hardly believe.  I had been basically a vegetarian (and occasionally some fish and chicken) for over 30 years.  I also was an avid runner who ran between five and ten miles, six days a week, and also swam laps six days a week.  How could this happen to me?  I was doing everything right.  This event was life changing for me and thanks to my surgeons, Dr. David Galbut and Dr. Naaman Abdullah, I am so far able to live for many years after this procedure.  I have two birthdays, December 2nd, when I was born, and December 28th when I was given another chance on life.  The bypass experience was one of the most positive ones I had ever experienced.  If it were not for my running I probably would not have survived.  Running made me very sensitive to my body and I had been feeling that something was not quite right for a while.  If I had been sedentary I would not have felt this “unusualness,” for lack of a better word, until it was too late.  Upon leaving the hospital the nurses in the ICU recommended I take up Yoga, and so I did.  In addition I continue running, swimming, and doing light workouts in the gym.  I also bought a bike and began biking to as many places as I could.  I attach a big basket to combine grocery shopping with exercise.

2015 – ANGINA COMPLICATIONS
In 2015 I once again began to feel some angina in my chest when I went out for my run.  My cardiologist first tried to treat this, sent me to a local specialist and then for a catheterization.  During this procedure the main mammary artery that was grafted by Doctors Galbut and Abdullah was punctured.  This was very serious and I almost died that day.  Fortunately they were able to fix this mistake.  I did not know about this error until months after it happened.  They just told me they wanted me to stay in the hospital as a precaution.  The angina was caused by a blockage in one of the main heart arteries.  Nothing could be done.  It was at this point that I decided to visit the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, not the one in Weston.  The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio is considered the best cardiovascular facility in the country.  In December 2015 I was seen by Dr. Samir Kapadia.  I was extremely impressed by the facilities at the Cleveland Clinic campus near downtown Cleveland.  The care, professionalism, and attention to the comfort of the patient are incomparable.  Dr. Kapadia was totally amazing.  He set me up for another catheterization and explained that he will be using a diamond drill in order to break through the blockage.  If Dr. Kapadia could not do it no one could.  Dr. Kapadia attempted to drill through, but told me that the blockage has solidified to such a point that the drill could not penetrate.  I would have to live with the 100% blockage.  Dr. Kapadia, Dr. Galbut, and others all agreed that another bypass would be too dangerous and should not be done.  That was OK since I had finally accepted the reality that I could not run any more, but instead I started a routine of long walks.  I also had to reduce the number of laps I swam but was thankful that I was able to do these laps.  I continue to work out at the gym, practice Yoga, and ride my bike.  I work out six days a week for about 3½ to 4 hours each day.  I take off one day a week from exercise, Shabbat.  I actually stopped going to the gym during this period of COVID, but continue to do work outs at home.

Throughout my retirement years I continue to pursue my many interests and care for my collections.

ZEST FOR TRAVEL AND AIRPLANES
My passion for traveling started when I was five years old driving across the United States with my parents from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in our 1950 Hudson.  We drove to LA to visit my aunt and uncle who had just moved there.  I have been to every state in the United States and every Province and Territory in Canada.  I have been as far north as Barrow, Alaska, the northern most town in the U.S.  If you stand on the shore of Barrow there would be no human being north of you at that point.  I have been there twice.  I have gone as far south as Antarctica.  I consider one of my greatest accomplishments climbing 13,700 feet to Annapurna base camp in Nepal.

I have also gone hiking in Death Valley (the lowest elevation in the U.S.).  I have done extensive traveling in Asia and in Europe.  I visited Israel several times.  My travel passion extends to my interest not only in flying but to the entire airline industry.  I possess many commercial airplane models and collect all sorts of paraphernalia from various airlines around the world, which I proudly display throughout my house.  I have attended the Airliners International Conventions when I possibly could and I could not resist picking up more airline stuff.  I also managed to “acquire” a lot of my collection from the many flights I took throughout the world.  I also have a large collection of vintage seltzer bottles which I display on top of my kitchen cabinets.

Speaking about the kitchen, I love to cook and bake and I love making many holiday and other occasion dinners for my friends and relatives.  One of my friends bought my an apron which say “Never Trust A Skinny Chef.”  I maintain that my Challah is one of the best ever createdJ.

I love creating my own greeting cards.  Each year I send out more that 200 Jewish New Year Cards and 200 Season’s greeting cards to my friends and relatives.  People tell me they cannot not wait for the holidays to see what I have created.  I also try to remember as many birthdays as possible.

Thank you for your interest in reading my bio.  I hope enjoy the many pages of my site.

Please feel free to contact me through the link above at any time.

Howie