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Neil Drossman, ad writer famous for his wit and wordplay, dies at 83
(JTA) — Neil Drossman, who began his career in copywriting at the tail end of the “Mad Men” era and went on to create some of the most admired tag lines and campaigns in the history of the advertising business, died Nov. 25 at age 83. The cause was cancer, family members said.
The Brooklyn-born Drossman was known for witty catchphrases that stuck with consumers, advertising products such as Meow Mix cat food, Einstein Moomjy Carpets, Airwick air freshener and Chemical Bank.
When Purina introduced Meow Mix in 1974, Drossman wrote the tag line, “The Cat Food Cats Ask For By Name.” For Emery Air Freight, an air cargo carrier, he wrote an ad featuring a photo of globe-trotting Secretary of State Henry Kissinger with the headline, “Emery flies to more places than he does.”
One of Drossman’s most memorable campaigns was for Teacher’s scotch, which featured ghost-written testimonials by various celebrity drinkers, including the Jewish entertainers Groucho Marx, Zero Mostel and Mel Brooks.
The Mel Brooks ad featured the creator of the “2,000 Year Old Man” dressed as a caveman holding a glass of scotch while sitting on a pile of boulders. “2,000 years ago when you had a scotch on the rocks, you really had a scotch on the rocks,” the headline reads.
The family still has a autograph from Brooks addressed to Drossman, reading, “You do me better than I do me.”
“Seeing his work transformed my views of what advertising could be,” the advertising executive Lee Garfinkel wrote in a tribute last month in the trade journal Ad Age. “Each headline was smart, funny, insightful, unexpected and thought-provoking. I didn’t know that advertising could be so clever and feel so fresh.”
Drossman, born on Feb. 26, 1940, grew up in Brooklyn and was a devoted Brooklyn Dodgers fan until the team decamped to Los Angeles in 1958. His father Edward started a jewelry business on Manhattan’s Canal Street. When the elder Drossman died of a heart attack in his early 60s, his widow, Anne Drossman, took over the business, which survives to this day, co-owned and operated by Neil’s wife, Ellen Drossman, and Neil’s sister, Phyllis Bulhack.
The basketball-loving Drossman attended Alfred University in upstate New York and after college got a job working at CBS News. He got his first job in the advertising business in the 1970s and worked on and off for 50 years with the legendary ad man and restaurateur Jerry Della Femina, who ran a series of agencies.
“When it came down to day-in-day-out Joe Lunchpail writing, with the kind of amazing talent that got everyone’s attention, whether he was first pounding a typewriter or later composing on a computer,” Della Famina wrote in a tribute on Facebook, “Neil Drossman was the best copywriter there ever was.”
Grossman also served as chairman and co-creative director at Needleman Drossman & Partners and was co-founder of Ryan Drossman/MARC USA.
The witty Drossman could also turn serious or sentimental when the occasion demanded it, as he did when Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey needed an image makeover. Drossman came up with the slogan, “When you feel good, we feel good.”
Other copywriters admired his ad for Goodwill Industries, which showed a man in a wheelchair fixing a TV set. The headline reads, “What you see here is a TV set repairing a man.”
He also created the slogan and logo that appears on the doors of NYPD patrol cars, reading “Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect.”
Drossman retired on Jan. 31, 2023. A New York Knicks fan, Drosssman was a regular player in a year-round weekly pickup basketball game in Greenwich Village before he was sidelined by hip surgery. The Knicks player and future coach Phil Jackson would sometimes take part in those games, and he nicknamed Drossman “the Glove” for his skills at defense.
His survivors include his wife, Ellen Drossman; his son Edward, his daughter Jill, and three grandchildren.
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The post Neil Drossman, ad writer famous for his wit and wordplay, dies at 83 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.