Obituary of Harry Rosenstein
Harry Rosenstein, local business owner, renowned martial artist, and devoted family man died on December 19, 2020 at home in Marlboro after a long illness.
He was born in Havana, Cuba on May 26, 1944, the third child of Masza and Solomon, who had fled Poland ahead of the Nazis during World War II. They eventually relocated to Brooklyn where, at age fifteen, Harry would find the two great loves that set the path for the rest of his life: on East 2nd Street he met his future wife Phyllis, and on television he saw a demonstration of a Japanese form of karate called Goju Ryu. At the time of his death, he and Phyllis were less than a month away from their fifty-seventh wedding anniversary, and he had devoted over sixty years to the study and teaching of Japanese Goju Ryu.
Harry and Phyllis had two sons, Steven and Stuart, and moved to Marlboro in 1972. Together with Phyllis, he raised his family, and worked as an accountant for various corporations in Manhattan. With Phyllis as the bedrock of the family, he would eventually leave accounting to devote more time to teaching karate and start his own business; OVOX was a successful gym chain that served thousands of members in Monmouth and Middlesex counties. And all the while he led his karate organization, Kanzen Goju Ryu, teaching traditional martial arts in dojos up and down the east coast.
Harry would say that he made his living as a gym owner, made a life with Phyllis, and made himself as a karateka. In all three roles, his presence was enormous, his kindness and good humor a balm to all who knew him. And in the last, his influence was incalculable. In The Official History of Karate in America, Al Weiss wrote, “Harry Rosenstein didn’t make his mark on karate with any earth-shattering, record-breaking accomplishment. What Rosenstein did, quite simply, was to forego monetary gain, personal advancement and prestige to help maintain the integrity of an art he felt was losing touch with its very valuable past.” Integrity defined him, inspired generations of students, and even left its mark on many who had left the dojo in their youth; for years, former students would return to him, seemingly from out of nowhere, to thank him for his lessons, and to say, over and over, “You were like a father to me.”
But to Harry, his greatest achievement was becoming “Poppy”, the loving grandfather to his granddaughters Lex and Max. The substance he offered as a father, grandfather, professional, and community leader was beyond definition or category. He was a great father and a good man, “good” as in righteous, as in one whose actions benefit others, the kind of word spoken in tones suggesting it carried the entire weight of admirable character.
Funeral services for immediate family were held through Freeman Funeral Homes on December 21, 2020. The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Leukemia Research Foundation or to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
