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• For your safety and the safety of our staff, you must wear a mask when entering the funeral home, unless you are fully vaccinated.
• We also ask that you please follow all CDC and New York State guidelines before entering the funeral home.

Thank You,
Clavin Funeral Home


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Visitation: Tuesday 7-9 PM and Wednesday 2-4 PM and 7-9 PM
Funeral Mass: Thursday 9:45 AM @ Saint Andrew the Apostle R.C. Church
Cemetery: Resurrection Cemetery (Staten Island, NY)

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Joseph F. Seminara, Esq.

2/25/30- 6/7/2021

Joseph F. Seminara passed away at his home in Bay Ridge on June 7, 2021 at the age of 91.  Born in Sicily, he and his family suffered through the Allied invasion of Sicily during WW II.  Thanks to his American-born father, at age 17, Joseph, crossed the ocean alone to claim his American citizenship and begin a new life in Brooklyn, New York. Eventually his widowed mother, Antonina, and three brothers, Frank, Vincent, and Vito followed.

Despite poverty and language barriers, Joseph excelled in this US studies, graduating from Brooklyn College and then NYU Law School.  Upon graduation from law school, his dream of practicing law was temporarily interrupted when Joseph was called to serve in the US Army during the Korean War as a member of the 264 ^th Regiment of the Ninth Infantry (the same Ninth Infantry he had watched march by a few years earlier as Sicily was liberated.)  Joseph was then assigned to the Third Armored Division based at Camp Chaffee in Fort Smith, Arkansas where he served in the judge advocate's office.  Prior to leaving for basic training, Joseph married Anita Garofalo, his Brooklyn college prom date.  Joseph and Anita had four children, Joanne, Juliette, Joseph, and Frank.  Anita, Joseph's wife of more than 55 years, a talented public-school teacher and community volunteer for more than 25 years, died in 2016.

Joseph, who never forgot from where and how far he had come, had a long and illustrious legal career serving hundreds of Italian immigrant families in southwest Brooklyn and an intense corporate and labor law practice in New York City for business clients as a partner of Kurzman Karelsen & Frank LLP.  In legal practice as in life,  Joseph lived in several worlds: sharing the joys and tragedies of his neighbors with sincere, generous, and compassionate counsel while challenging and defending corporate clients in the board room and tribunals. A passionate devotee of civic life and politics his entire adult life, Joseph ran for the New York City Council, U.S. Congress and was elected to the local District 20 School Board. He also  served as Assistant Special Counsel NYS Assembly Committee on the Judiciary (1962-1963), the NYS Committee on Urban Public Education (1990-1992) and the Congressional Panel on Special Education (1966.)

Joseph F. Seminara's many honors and awards included the 2004 Ellis Island Medal of Freedom award, the Army Soldier of the Year Award Fifth Armored Division (1955); Man of the Year Award, Friends of the Retarded Education Award; Guild for Exceptional Children Appreciation Award (1983); and a special award for 25 years of participation in local career day activities at Dyker Intermediate School.  He was most proud to receive the Cesare Beccaria Award from the Italian American Legal Defense Fund for Higher Education Fund for his legal work to fight against illegal ethic discrimination again Italian Americans in higher education.

Joseph is past president of the Bay Ridge Lawyers Association and was a member of the Knights of Columbus Regina Pacis Council. Board Member and counsel to the Bay Ridge Day Nursery and a member of the Catholic Charities Board, among other volunteer civic activities, Joseph considered it his responsibility to reach outside his family circle and improve his community by offering his expertise and extending a helping hand to neighbors and clients, many of whom became his friends.

Joseph is survived by his four children, eight grandchildren, three great grandchildren, and his brother, Vincent.  Joseph F. Seminara will be missed by each of them and so many others with whom he shared his talents and love.

In lieu of flowers, family kindly requests donations in Joseph's memory to Doctors Without Borders