Photo Credit: College of Charleston/Provided

Remembering Marty Perlmutter

Dr. Larry Krasnoff

Martin Perlmutter, former professor of philosophy and director of Jewish Studies at the College of Charleston, died January 16, 2023, a few months short of his eightieth birthday. Marty was a widely known and much-loved figure on campus and in the Charleston community. He had been ill with leukemia for ten years, but with the help of advanced medical treatments, had been living an active life until the last few months.

Marty came to the College in 1979, from the University of Texas at Austin. Born and raised in New York City, he earned his B.A. from the City University of New York and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His main philosophical interests were in bioethics and philosophy of religion.

He served as chair of the department from 1983 to 1991, significantly raising the profile of the department within the institution and the profession. Under his initiative, the department started a program and a major in religious studies, which eventually became an independent department. He also helped start a program in Jewish Studies, and became its director in 1991. He eventually gave up his appointment in Philosophy, but continued to teach philosophy courses until his retirement in 2019.

It was in Jewish Studies that Marty achieved the remarkable institutional successes that built his legacy. He sponsored public events that attracted wide community audiences, such as Sunday brunch lectures, panel discussions with the local rabbis from the three main branches of Judaism, and the Hanukkah celebration in Marion Square – all of which continue today. With community support, he raised a significant endowment for Jewish Studies. He created a non-profit corporation to purchase the site of what was once a dry cleaning shop, and built what is now the Jewish Studies Center. He recruited significantly larger numbers of Jewish students to the College and sponsored a thriving Hillel chapter. Under his supervision, Jewish Studies grew into an independent academic unit with its own faculty lines, a major, and a minor. The kosher/vegan dining facility in the Jewish Center is now the Dr. Martin Perlmutter Dining Hall. But everyone knows it as “Marty’s Place.”

Marty devoted his life to serving the academic and the Jewish communities, and to building institutions that made those communities stronger and richer. Everyone in those communities seemed to know Marty, his wife Jeri, his four children, and eventually his eleven grandchildren. He made everyone part of his family, and he never stopped enjoying making his family bigger. The force of his personality and the institutions he built will long endure in the memories and the lives of everyone who came to know him, and they will enrich generations of students and faculty who have not even yet arrived on our campus.