Jeweler Alvin Goldfarb Dies at 84

Seattle--Alvin Goldfarb, a fixture in the jewelry industry since the late 1950s, died Sunday in his hometown of Seattle. He was 84.

Born to Sylvia and Samuel Goldfarb, Alvin Goldfarb grew up in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood and attended Garfield High School, where he played basketball and performed in a well-known local quartet called the Debonaires.

He went on to attend the University of Washington. There, he enrolled in ROTC and continued to sing with the Debonaires, which eventually became a duo called The Two-Tones.

After graduation, Goldfarb served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force and earned his graduate gemology diploma from the Gemological Institute of America.

He married Jackie Friedlander, the woman who would be by his side for the next 59 years, in 1957 and decided to join Friedlander & Sons Jewelers.

There, his caring and attention to clients laid the foundation for a long career in the jewelry industry and friendships that lasted a lifetime.

Goldfarb opened Alvin Goldfarb Jeweler in the Seattle suburb of Bellevue in 1980, a bold move in the days when the neighborhood was strictly suburbia.

But the shop survived and today it is run by his son Steven, who is store president.

Outside the jewelry industry, Goldfarb taught Hebrew school at Temple de Hirsch Sinai, was president of the Pacific Northwest Jewelers Association and the Mercer Island Country Club, and was vice president of Big Brothers and Big Sisters of King County. He also served on the boards of directors of the Corporate Council for the Arts and Temple de Hirsch Sinai.

He was a member of the downtown Seattle Rotary Club, Tamarisk Country Club and the Central Park Tennis Club.

Goldfarb was a man who loved a good chocolate milkshake, taking in a Seattle Mariners game, the TV show Two and a Half Men and playing poker with the guys.

Above all, though, he loved his wife, his children and his grandchildren.

Goldfarb is survived by his wife, Jacqueline; his three children, Susan Goldfarb Wolfe of Palo Alto, Calif.; Steven (Fredda) Goldfarb of Bellevue; and David Goldfarb of Los Angeles; grandsons Jack and Sam Wolfe; and one brother, Royal (Kris) Goldfarb.

He was preceded in death by his other brother, Michael Goldfarb of Medina.

Services took place Tuesday at Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Seattle and the store was closed that day in his honor.

Memorial contributions may be sent