Status: VERIFIED
Sources: NYT (Mar 21, 2013, Maurice obituary); Newsday (Mar 15, 2013); Fire Island News (Jul 25, 2020, Lillian obituary); Bay Shore Schools Arts Education Fund (BSSAEF.org); Stony Brook University Magazine (Nov 21, 2024); Dunewood, Fire Island Facebook page.
The patriarchs
Maurice Barbash (1924/25 — March 2013)
- Profession: Homebuilder / land developer
- Born: Bronx, NY
- Death: March 2013, age 88
- Fire Island legacy: In 1958, with business partner Irwin Chess, developed the Dunewood community on Fire Island. Dunewood became the family’s summer home for the next 60+ years.
- Anti-Moses fight: Co-founded the Citizens’ Committee for a Fire Island National Seashore in 1962 with his brother-in-law Irving Like. Sketched the FINS counter-proposal “on a napkin.” Led the grassroots campaign that defeated Robert Moses’s planned Ocean Parkway extension and resulted in the September 11, 1964 federal designation of FINS.
- Married: Lillian Like, his high school sweetheart, in 1947. Together until his death in 2013 — 66 years.
Lillian Like Barbash (1927 — July 4, 2020)
- Born: Lillian Like, Bronx, NY, 1927
- Death: July 4, 2020, age 92, Brightwaters home, congestive heart failure
- Sister of: Irving Like (the lawyer brother who co-founded the Citizens’ Committee)
- Fire Island legacy: Co-organizer with Maurice of the Dunewood community
- Bigger legacy: Founded the Islip Arts Council, ran it for 31 years. Brought the NY Philharmonic free open-air concerts to South Shore Long Island annually. Co-founded the Long Island Philharmonic with Maurice (discontinued 2016, succeeded by Orchestra Long Island under David Stewart Wiley). Organized full-class Bay Shore High School trips to Broadway shows (“Having Our Say” 1995, “Hamilton” 2016). The Bay Shore Schools Arts Education Fund was created at her behest.
- Recognition: Called “Long Island’s First Lady of the Arts” (BSSAEF tribute, 2023).
- Style: A colleague (Lynda Moran of Islip Arts Council, her successor) described her: “She ruled with an iron fist and a velvet glove.” Susan Barbash (daughter): “She pretty much raised her children first, before dedicating herself to the arts.”
The three children
| Name | Notes |
|---|---|
| Cathy Barbash | Lives in Ardmore, PA (per Newsday obit). Co-curated the 2015 NPS exhibit “Protecting a Ribbon of Sand: The Creation of Fire Island National Seashore” at the Fire Island Lighthouse Fresnel Lens Building. Co-presented at the Aug 3, 2015 NPS 50th Anniversary Panel at Bay Shore-Brightwaters Public Library alongside Suzy Goldhirsch and FINS Superintendent Chris Soller. Donated the Citizens’ Committee Collection to Stony Brook in September 2024 (60th FINS anniversary). |
| Susan Barbash | Co-curator of the 2015 NPS exhibit with Cathy. Co-presenter at the 2015 50th anniversary panel. Co-donor of the Citizens’ Committee Collection in September 2024. |
| Shepard Barbash | Third sibling. Co-donor of the Stony Brook collection September 2024. |
The six grandchildren (per Lillian’s 2020 obituary)
| Name | Verified context |
|---|---|
| Emma | Listed in Lillian’s Fire Island News obit (Jul 2020) |
| Ani | Listed in Lillian’s Fire Island News obit |
| Jonah | = Jonah Katz / Jonah Barbash (uses both interchangeably). Now at Compass real estate, NYC. Pictured on Instagram in Dunewood, Fire Island with Eddie Barbash (his cousin/sibling) and other Dunewood-affiliated friends. Childhood Dunewood. (See Jonah Katz Barbash) |
| Lydia | Listed in Lillian’s obit. User remembers her from sailing-instructor era as part of the Barbash next-gen. Per user: “pretty white.” |
| Samuel | Listed in Lillian’s obit |
| Eddie | = Eddie Barbash, professional jazz saxophonist with national career. Live-streamed Bach’s “A Musical Offering” from the back deck of Lillian’s Dunewood home on July 7, 2020 in tribute. (See Eddie Barbash) |
Note on user recollections: User mentioned “Mya” and “Mika” (described as “a bit fat and asian” with bullying tendencies) in connection with the Barbash family. These names do not appear in Lillian Barbash’s documented grandchildren list. They may be: (a) friends-of-the-family who summered with the Barbashes, (b) extended cousins not part of the direct lineage, or (c) misremembered names. Worth a follow-up.
Two great-grandchildren
- Max
- Eliza
(Both listed in Lillian’s obit; no further public footprint.)
What the family is doing now
The September 2024 donation to Stony Brook of the Citizens’ Committee for a Fire Island National Seashore Collection is the canonical institutional act of the Barbash next-generation. It:
- Times to the 60th anniversary of FINS (1964 → 2024)
- Includes meeting minutes, press releases, correspondence with Governor Rockefeller and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stuart Udall
- Joins Irving Like’s papers already at Stony Brook
- Will be digitized and freely available online
- Frames the Barbash legacy explicitly as ongoing inspiration: Cathy Barbash said the goal is “ensuring that the legacy of their father and uncle’s civic activism continues to inspire future generations of researchers and environmental advocates.”
This is the canonization moment of the Barbash family in the formal historical record.
The Maurice & Lillian musical legacy at Stony Brook
The Lillian and Maurice Barbash J.S. Bach Competition at Stony Brook University was created by their three children as a tribute to both parents. Eddie Barbash, the jazz saxophonist grandchild, performed Bach for Lillian’s online memorial (July 7, 2020).
Relationship to the user
The user grew up in Lonelyville (one community east of Dunewood) and was a sailing instructor in the area, putting him in direct childhood contact with the Barbash grandchildren generation in the late 1990s-early 2000s. User describes the family energy as “weird… not fully transparent.” This is meaningful context for any approach: the family is institutionally celebrated (Stony Brook archive, Islip Arts Council, FINS founders) but personally guarded among Fire Island peers.
Why this matters as an inroad
The Barbash family is the moral keyholder of the entire Fire Island anti-Moses founding myth. Any attempt to reframe the Fire Island narrative — including the question raised in The Honest Economic Read (still TBD) about whether current FIA-led federal beach renourishment uses 1964 moral capital to justify regressive subsidies — has to engage with the Barbash legacy directly. The next-gen Barbashes (especially Cathy and Susan, the active archive curators) are the ones who decide what Maurice’s legacy means going forward. Jonah/Eddie are the public-facing next-next generation.