DECEMBER 2021 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 123
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516.764.9400
1895 Flatbush Ave. 1 Block north of
Kings Highway
HELENE FORTUNOFF
LI RETAIL PIONEER
Pioneering jewelry retailer Helene
Fortunoff , who helped grow her family
run group of tri-state area stores into
a multimillion-dollar industry leader,
died on Nov. 8 in Miami Beach, Fla. of
an unspecifi ed non-Covid respiratory
illness. She was 88.
Born Helene Finke on March 2, 1933, to
Samuel and Tillie Finke in Paterson, N.J.,
Fortunoff graduated cum laude with a
bachelor’s degree in business administration
from New York University,
where she met her fi rst husband, Alan
Fortunoff , with whom she had six children
and launched her career.
“I always wanted a family and a career,”
she told The New York Times in 2000,
“and no one ever told me I couldn’t have
both.”
She and Alan, who was also a retail visionary,
grew his family’s housewares
business, started in 1922 in Brooklyn,
into six stores with locations on Long
Island, in New Jersey and its fl agship
store on Fift h Avenue in Manhattan.
Helene, who founded the company’s
fine jewelry division, took over as
president of the company after her
husband’s death in 2000 and she retired
fi ve years later.
She was also a prolifi c philanthropist
who supported myriad causes. She
was a past trustee of the North Shore
Child & Family Guidance Association,
a charter member of the UJA Women
of Distinction, and an advisory board
member of the Women Presidents’
Organization, and she supported The
Lustgarten Foundation and Mount Sinai
Medical Center Foundation. She also
contributed to The Fortunoff Video
Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
at Yale University, which preserves
testimonies of survivors, witnesses,
bystanders, and liberators.
She was repeatedly honored for her
trailblazing work. She was one of the fi rst
members of the Women›s Jewelry Association
and later received its Lifetime
Achievement Award. She was also one
of the fi rst recipients of National Jeweler
magazine›s Hall of Fame designation
for prominent retailers and was additionally
the fi rst woman invited to join
the prestigious Carat Club, a diamond
industry leadership group sponsored
by De Beers. She served as chair for both
the Gemological Institute of America and
Hofstra University boards.
“She taught us how to balance motherhood
and work, so that we could raise
our own children as she raised us,”
one of her daughters, Esther Fortunoff
, wrote in 2018. “Her guidance and
example have been central to our lives.”
She is survived by her second husband,
Robert Grossman, fi ve children, Esther,
Andrea, Rhonda, Ruth, and David, nine
grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
She was predeceased by her
brother Leon Finke and son Louis.
Her funeral was held Nov. 10 at Temple
Sinai of Roslyn in Roslyn Heights.
Donations in Helene›s memory may
be made to Fortunoff Video Archive
for Holocaust Testimonies, or The
Lustgarten Foundation: Pancreatic
Cancer Research, or North Shore Child
& Family Guidance Center.
-TB
OBITUARY
Helene Fortunoff
/LONGISLANDPRESS.COM
