Former UHJ member Howard Borrah Kavelin was a Baha'i of Jewish Background

Howard Borrah Kavelin

KAVELIN, HOWARD BORRAH (1906-1988). (Member, Universal House of Justice.) A real estate developer by profession, Kavelin was born in Russia to a distinguished Jewish family on 16 March 1906, the sixth of seven children. The family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old and remained in Denver, Colorado. His father was a greatly beloved rabbi in Denver, a pillar of the Jewish community, and well known as a healer; he lost his life caring for others during an influenza epidemic. His mother was founder of the Beth Israel Hospital and Old Folks’ Home in Denver. As a young boy, Borrah had obtained a job as an usher at an opera house. His love for music drew him to New York City, and his debut as an operatic tenor occurred on the stage of Carnegie Hall. Through music, he met Martha Hamilton, a pianist studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. They were married in 1936. Those years of the Great Depression were difficult financial times for everyone, and a singer’s income could not support a family. So he turned from his musical career to become a secretary to the director of a real estate firm. His diligence and ability were soon recognized, and he became a partner in that original firm. He had an untarnished reputation for trustworthiness and honesty, considered by some to be rather unusual qualities in the New York City realty world of that time. He was introduced to the Baha’i Faith in the late 1930s, and he and his wife accepted it, after some years of study, in 1940. From 1941 to 1950 he served on the local Spiritual Assembly of New York City. In 1950, he was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States, where he served for 13 years, with a number of years as treasurer, and from 1958 to 1963 as chair. In 1957, on their behalf, he chaired the first National Convention for the formation of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Benelux Countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) and represented them at the International Teaching Conference held the following year in Kampala, Uganda. Shoghi Effendi, to whom Borrah Kavelin was deeply and personally devoted, invited him to come on pilgrimage directly after the conference. He had never had the bounty of meeting Shoghi Effendi personally, and he was deeply touched by the opportunity to pay homage to him. However, this meeting was never to occur. The greatest blow of his life came when he learned of Shoghi Effcndi’s untimely death in London, shortly before they were to meet. He grieved openly, as did so many others. After this, he dedicated increasing time to service to the Cause for which Shoghi Effendi had given his life. He was elected to the International Baha’i Council and served the Council as member at large rather than in residence in Haifa; he was also given permission to continue serving on the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly. He was elected to the Universal House of Justice in 1963 and served on that bodv for a full quarter of a century , until 1988. He represented the Universal House of Justice on four significant missions to Iran to consult with the Baha’is in that country about the financial needs of the Faith.

After the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, he again represented the Universal House of Justice at a time when the Baha’i world was reeling from loss of income from the Iranian Baha’i community (which the then new Islamic government had forbidden to function). During a 10-week mission, he traveled throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States meeting with thousands of Baha’is who thronged to hear him. His mission was to explain the state of the Persian friends and the financial impact on the Baha’i world community of their open persecution. In 1987, after nearly 25 years of service, at 81 years of age, he asked to be released from service as a member of the Universal House of Justice. Within two weeks from the time his release was announced he was hospitalized for cancer surgery. He recovered and felt ready to begin a life of retirement in the United States. The National Spiritual Assembly of the United States asked him to serve as a keynote speaker at six regional Vision to Victory conferences throughout the United States. This became the driving force of his day-to-day life. When the cancer recurred, and his health began rapidly to fail, he was driven even more to fulfill his commitment to these conferences. He was able to address the first conference in Boston, Massachusetts: His frail voice did not diminish the ardor with which he spoke to the friends of the imperative necessity to raise the Arc on Mount Carmel. However, by the time his plane arrived at the second conference site, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, he was so ill that he had to be rushed to the hospital in acute distress. His undeviating concern about making his promised presentation was creatively solved by a doctor who asked if the Baha’is could videotape his talk there, in the hospital room. Mr. Kavelin agreed, and arrangements were swiftly made to tape his talk. Shortly after the talk, Mr. Kavelin lapsed into a coma. However, he recovered to the extent that two minor “miracles” were to occur. One was to give a Thanksgiving dinner to thank the doctor and all the many Baha’i friends in Chattanooga who had been so kind to him. The other was to return home to Albuquerque. He lived another three weeks in his home in Albuquerque; then on 18 December 1988, he passed away. “You wander all your life in search of meaning and then you find at the end, at the core, there is only the Covenant.” These were among the last words of Borrah Kavelin, a man who lived to his last breath the commitment he had made to Baha’u’llah. One of his favorite passages, read at his funeral, attended by hundreds of friends, was “As ye have faith, so shall your powers and blessings be.” 

 

He was laid to rest in the Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His epitaph reads simply, “Howard Borrah Kavelin, 1906-1988, Charter Member of the Universal House of Justice” (from an unpublished memorial by Linda Kavelin Popov).