Abe A. Kassam, Dec. 5, 1921 – Dec. 7, 2016

Abe Kassam, a prominent San Diego businessman who valued family above all else, died of natural causes on Wednesday, December 7th, two days after his 95th birthday.
A patriarch, a leader and a gentle man, Mr. Kassam was known for his generosity, his wisdom and judgment, his financial acumen and his dapper attire: Never a hair out of place and always sporting a thin 1930s-style mustache.
He played a significant role changing men’s fashion in the early 1970s by popularizing, manufacturing and marketing leisure wear under the Hang Ten brand.
Abe A. Kassam, one of eight children of Alli and Pan Kassam, was born on December 5, 1921, in the town of Eldoret, the center of a farming community in the western highlands of Kenya.
His father had emigrated from western India, where the native language was Gujariti, to Eldoret, sometime around 1912, where he opened a general store selling farm tools and dry goods.
Mr. Kassam, always a good student, took correspondence courses from Cambridge University in England after finishing high school. As an adult, he spoke several languages fluently.
During World War II, as a young man in his early 20s, he worked for the Allies from a storefront in Leopoldville, across the Congo River from Brazzaville and the French government in exile.
Operating as a storekeeper, his job was to identify German agents trying to smuggle diamonds out of Africa to finance the Nazi war effort. He gave that information to others who took action against the German agents, he said.
In the mid-1950s, he relocated to Winnipeg, Canada, with his first wife, Suki, and then moved to San Diego.
He found employment working as an accountant for the Ratner Corporation, a San Diego-based men’s suit manufacturer, and rose quickly in the family-owned business to become its comptroller.
In 1969, Mr. Kassam, then a widow, married Pauline Millman. She predeceased him by three years.
Mr. Kassam had the foresight to see that men’s fashion was changing, and in 1970, bought the small Huntington Beach-based surfing and sports apparel business, Hang Ten, and developed it into a major leisure wear brand.
Over the years, some of Mr. Kassam’s brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews joined him in the United States. He truly became a patriarch to the next generation.
Survivors include sisters Daulat Manji, Farida Ashbrook, sister-in-law Adeline Dean, stepson Neil Strassman, grandson Joseph Strassman, nieces and nephews Gulshan Terry, Jim Hasham, Haider Kassam-Lakha, Zainul Jaffer, Mansur Kassim, Fatima Kassim, Shiloo Hasham, Rashida Merali, Firoz Kassam, Shamim Charania, Anar Kassam, Naseem Kassim, Amin Patani, Bashir Manji, Faruk Manji, Zainul Noorani, Gunnar Dhanji, Khairoon Kassam, Nasreen Kopecky, Salim Janmohamed, Shafique Janmohamed many other cousins and countless others who loved him.
Funeral Services will be held graveside, Sunday, December 11, 2016, at 3:00 p.m. at El Camino Memorial Park, 5600 Carroll Canyon Road, San Diego, CA. 92121. Rabbi Wayne Dosick of the Elijah Minyan is officiating. Arrangements are by Am Israel Mortuary.