Ash Gerecht, 97, newsletter publisher
Ash Gerecht, a 63-year member of the National Press Club and pioneering newsletter publisher, died Nov. 18 at his home in Silver Spring. He was 97.
In the early 1970s, Gerecht successfully helped fight for equal treatment of newsletter publications seeking credentials to cover Congress from the House and Senate periodical press galleries. He started his first newsletter, Housing Affairs, with 11 subscribers in 1961 and built his Silver Spring-based business, CD Publications, to include more than two dozen newsletters with some 100 employees.
"As kids we’d go downtown [from Silver Spring] on Saturdays to get out another newsletter, lugging mailbags to the press building because it had Saturday pickup," recalled his son, Mike. "One day he read in an IRS Bulletin that if unemancipated minors worked for you, you didn’t have to pay them. He enjoyed reminding us of that."
Gerecht was co-founder of a trade group that became the Specialized Information Publishers Association, which in 1996 named him Newsletter Association Publisher of the Year. "He was a master at eliminating verbiage so readers got more news in limited space," said Mike, who succeeded his father as publisher until the business was sold in 2013. "He insisted on enterprise, walking the halls to get news, and talking with subscribers to learn their needs. He believed you should always try to improve and his post-edits of most issues — even his own — were legendary."
Gerecht had offices in the National Press Building before moving to Silver Spring in the 1980s.
A World War II Army veteran, Gerecht was awarded a Bronze Star for risking his life to repair communication lines during combat in Italy.
"The war shaped him greatly," Mike said. "He believed in leading from the front, despite the risks, practicing management by walking around, not asking people to do anything you wouldn’t do, and above all, treating everyone you interact with fairly -- sources and vendors as well as staff."
Born in Kansas City, Gerecht had degrees from Kansas City Junior College, Washington University and the University of Chicago. He founded the National Center to Encourage Judaism, which offers grants to organizations introducing people to Judaism, and established the Gerecht Family Institute for Outreach at Hebrew Union College.
He wrote short stories for Harpers and Esquire and was a reporter in Hobbs, N.M., Savannah Ga., and Chicago before moving to Washington.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Gloria ,and survived by three children, Ellen and Mike of Kensington and Dan of Ashton, Md; six grandchildren and four great grandchildren.