Samuel L. Frieder, 86, of Lafayette Hill, retired co-owner, chief executive officer, and president of S. Frieder and Sons cigar manufacturers, former co-president and chairman of the board of trustees at Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Greater Philadelphia, lifetime trustee of Einstein Healthcare Network, former chairman of the board at Einstein Medical Center, and community advocate, died Wednesday, June 28, of a brain aneurysm at Chestnut Hill Hospital.
Mr. Frieder’s grandfather started S. Frieder and Sons in New York in the early 1900s, and Mr. Frieder rose from a sales position in the mid-1950s to the executive leadership in the 1960s. The company, then based in the Philadelphia area, was making about 100 million cigars a year in the 1950s,Mr.
He became involved with the Einstein Healthcare Network in the 1970s, was a lifetime member of its board of trustees, and served as chairman of the board at Einstein Hospital, now Einstein Medical Center, from 1999 to 2002. He contributed to many civic organizations and was a past vice president of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia.“He was a man of great patience, wisdom, and empathy,” his son Stephen said at Mr. Frieder’s funeral service.
Mr. Frieder’s parents, Herbert and Selda Frieder, helped more than 1,000 Jewish people flee Germany to the Philippines before World War II, and their efforts were described in Frank Ephraim’s 2003 book