David Fishback's Blog: Play Ball!! May the Gods and Goddesses Be With Us.

Sunday, March 19, 2023

Play Ball!! May the Gods and Goddesses Be With Us.

My high school friend Ray Goldstein is a fellow baseball fan. For half a century, he has lived in San Francisco, so his allegiance with with the Giants. That is fine with me, since my first baseball love was my father's New York Giants (and Willie Mays) -- a love which was transferred to the West Coast, even though the only time I saw the San Francisco Giants play in person was a game against the Mets in the old Polo Grounds in 1962. (Growing up in DC, it was hard to love the Washington Senators of the 1950s, who resisted signing Black ballplayers and who never got out of second division.)

With 2023 Opening Day coming soon, Ray sent these pictures. With his permission, I post them here. Play Ball! (Glad that the infielders now must start each play where God, or Abner Doubleday, or whoever, intended them to be. The time clock for pitchers, well, we shall see.)

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David S. Fishback, a retired attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice, is Advocacy Chair for the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays). His involvement in social justice efforts began as a college student in the 1960s, when he ran a tutoring program in Washington, DC. Following a year as a VISTA volunteer at a prison in Memphis, TN, he went to Harvard Law School and worked on Democratic Party reform issues.

After graduation, he joined the Office of General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board. In 1983, David went to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, where he litigated environmental tort matters, most notably the government's successful defense against lawsuits brought by asbestos product and Agent Orange manufacturers, who were seeking to shift their tort liability to the federal taxpayers.

In 1984, David became co-president of the PTA at a magnet integration primary school in Silver Spring, MD, beginning his efforts as an education activist in Montgomery County. He began advocating for LGBTQ youth in 2002 when he was appointed to the County Board of Education's Citizens Advisory Committee on sexuality education issues. During his time as chair of that committee and later through PFLAG, he was integrally involved in the ultimately successful effort to bring intelligent discussion of LGBTQ topics into the secondary school health curriculum and guidance offices.

A past member of the Temple Emanuel of Kensington MD Board of Trustees, David and his wife Bobbi co-founded and co-chaired (from 2002 to 2019) the Temple's Kulanu Committee for LGBTQ outreach. He is also a long-time member of the Temple's Social Action Council. In 2020, David was appointed to the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism.