On Feb. 25, Dr. Harvey S. Fenster, 82, of Palm Beach, Fla., and Potomac. The son of the late Lena and Joseph Fenster of Washington, who owned the New Yorker Bakery in Washington, Fenster became a bar mitzvah at B’nai Israel Congregation, marrying his wife, Marlene Blankstein Fenster, at the synagogue in 1957. They lived in Bethesda for 50 years before moving last September to Potomac.
Fenster graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington in 1956 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in pharmacy from George Washington University in 1960, before earning a dentistry degree from Howard University in 1962 and an orthodontics degree from Columbia University in 1964.
He served as a captain in the Air Force at Mount Clemens, Mich., from 1960 to 1962 and was a solo practitioner in orthodontics in Wheaton from 1964 to 2004. Fenster was a professor at the Howard University College of Dentistry and a founder of the Kennedy Bank and Trust in Bethesda and the Capital Bank of Maryland in Rockville. He headed the dental division of the United Jewish Appeal and was an officer in the Alpha Omega Dental Society.
Fenster was a founding member of Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac and an active member at Congregation Beth El in Bethesda. He was also a member of Beth Sholom Congregation and Talmud Torah and a member of Chabad of Montgomery County. He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Marlene Blankstein Fenster, sister Phyllis Oram, daughters Carole Garfinkle, Pamela (Daniel) Ely, Gayle (David Greene), grandchildren Harrison and Lauren Garfinkle, Joseph (Bayla) and Zoe Ely, and Robert, James and Elizabeth Greene, and great grandson Betzalel Ely.
