lit a candle 15h agoI keep coming back to this one line in the obituary, the 43 combat missions over the South Pacific, and then that reconnaissance run over Brunei Bay in 44 that got him the Distinguished Flying Cross. My grandfather was Army Air Corps too, different theater, and he never talked about any of it at the table, so reading about a navigator who lived to 104 and apparently kept working, kept showing up for civic things into his hundreds, it does something to you. Kielce to Chicago in 1929, seven years old, then all of that. I don't know why I'm writing this, I never knew the man, I just saw the piece over coffee this morning and couldn't put my phone down. Edit: fixed the year, it was 1929 not 1928, I looked it up again.
Their story
Sidney J. Machtinger, a Los Angeles tax lawyer, decorated World War II veteran and civil liberties advocate, died peacefully on September 15, 2026, surrounded by loved ones. He was 104. His death was announced by his family through Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries in Los Angeles, with arrangements at…
Sidney J. Machtinger, a Los Angeles tax lawyer, decorated World War II veteran and civil liberties advocate, died peacefully on September 15, 2026, surrounded by loved ones. He was 104. His death was announced by his family through Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries in Los Angeles, with arrangements at Hollywood Hills.
Born April 23, 1922, in Kielce, Poland, to Morris and Sylvia Machtinger, he emigrated with his family to Chicago in 1929 at age seven and grew up there through the Great Depression. In 1942, months after Pearl Harbor, he enlisted as an officer in the U.S. Army Air Corps. As navigator of a B-24 bomber he flew 43 combat missions over the South Pacific and received the Distinguished Flying Cross for a dangerous reconnaissance mission over Brunei Bay near Borneo in 1944.
After the war he attended Northwestern University, earning undergraduate and law degrees and election to the Northwestern University Law Review and the Order of the Coif. He began as an attorney for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., then served with the Internal Revenue Service in the Chief Counsel's Office in Washington and later the District Counsel's Office in Los Angeles. He spent more than 50 years as a partner at Greenberg, Glusker, Fields, Claman and Machtinger, specializing in tax controversy work before the IRS and the California Franchise Tax Board and in complex estate and gift tax matters. He received the Dana Latham Award from the Los Angeles County Bar Association Taxation Section in 2004 and the Bruce I. Hochman Award from the UCLA Extension Tax Controversy Institute in 2008.
Civic service defined his later public life. He served for many years on the board and executive committee of the ACLU of Southern California, receiving its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, and sat on the Legal Advisory Committee of the Constitutional Rights Foundation. For 30 years he served on the board of the Center for the Partially Sighted, including three years as chairman, and he sat on the Board of Visitors of the UCLA School of Medicine.
He was predeceased by wives Hilda (Zabin) Machtinger and Paula (Levine) Machtinger, and is survived by companion Debora Stein, five children, grandchildren and a great-grandson. In lieu of flowers the family asked that memorial gifts go to the ACLU Foundation of Southern California or Leo Baeck Temple. A funeral service was scheduled for September 23, 2026, at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills.
Biography adapted from Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries family obituary; Echovita; Greenberg Glusker professional biography notes.
In their own words
“Mr. Machtinger's life was, in many ways, the personification of the American Dream.”
Family obituary published via Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries, September 2026
“Countless members of the community relied on him for his advice and support, which he gave wisely and generously.”
Family obituary describing his tax and estate counsel career
Photos
1Sidney J. Machtinger, portrait from family memorial page
by People Forever
