Harvey Rovinsky, former owner and president of Bernie Robbins Jewelers, has died at 77
He used his engaging personality, innate promotional skills, and marketplace savvy to turn a small family business into a nationally-acclaimed nine-store chain.
Harvey Rovinsky, 77, of Huntingdon Valley, celebrated former owner and president of Bernie Robbins Jewelers, marketing innovator, national retail hall of famer, and philanthropist, died Tuesday, Jan. 28, of a cardiac event while traveling.
The son of a watchmaker and grandson of a bench jeweler, Mr. Rovinsky got his start in retail delivering refrigerators and air conditioners for his high school sweetheart’s father in 1966. In those days, Bernie and Lorraine Rosenberg sold mostly appliances at Bernie Robbins Co. in Center City.
But Mr. Rovinsky had other ideas. And, over the next 60 years, he used his engaging personality, innate promotional skills, and marketplace savvy to turn the small family business into a nationally acclaimed nine-store chain, renamed Bernie Robbins Jewelers. Along the way, he married his sweetheart, Maddy Rosenberg, in 1969 and went from selling Timex watches on a side counter to offering luxury watches, pendants, and rings from Rolex and Cartier in elegant showrooms.
He and his wife were inducted into National Jeweler magazine’s Retailer Hall of Fame in 2022, and National Jeweler officials said: “Bernie Robbins provides unparalleled expertise and an exceptional customer shopping experience in a warm, comfortable atmosphere where it’s not uncommon to see Maddy and Harvey’s granddaughters. After all, it is a family business.”
Mr. Rovinsky and his wife assumed full ownership of the company after the death of her father in 1996 and continued to focus on personal customer service and offer a dynamic inventory for an ever-changing market. She was vice president and head buyer, and they strategically opened stores in Southeastern Pennsylvania and South Jersey where no other high-end jewelry stores existed.
Their showrooms feature marble floors, special lighting, elegant furnishings, customer-friendly display counters, and a framed picture of the founding Rosenbergs. They hosted all kinds of special events at their stores, and offered free jelly beans, cappuccino, Champagne, and flowers to customers. “Our clients are our friends,” Mr. Rovinsky told the Jewish Exponent in 2024.
“We realize people don’t need what we sell, so we have to overdeliver to bring them back.”
Repeat customers became the norm. “I’m selling engagement rings to the grandchildren of people that I first sold engagement rings to,” he told The Inquirer in 2023.
They employed dozens of people and were praised for treating them like family. Several managers worked there for decades, and the company received a 2018 Family Owned Business Award from The Inquirer and was named a top workplace in South Jersey by NJ.com in 2022.
They were featured often in The Inquirer, the Daily News, and other publications. They overcame recessions and robberies, and passed ownership of the company to their management team when they retired in 2024. “Who could better succeed us than the people that are running the company with us?” Mr. Rovinsky said in 2023.
He was a serious negotiator, colleagues said, and he stayed on as a consultant to the new owners after he retired. One of his favorite sayings was: “We’re only one sale away from a great week.”
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Away from the sales floor, Mr. Rovinsky opened an insurance replacement business in Radnor and was on the executive board of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University. He and his wife also contributed to Chabad at the Shore, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, the Albert Einstein Society at Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia Hospital, and many other organizations.
Friends called him a “true gentleman,” a “mentor,” and an “inspiration” in online tributes. “He was,” one friend said, “larger than life.”
Harvey Morris Rovinsky was born March 8, 1947, in Philadelphia. He met Madalyn Rosenberg at Northeast High School, and they married later and had a daughter, Julia, in 1979.
They lived in Huntingdon Valley and Longport, N.J., and traveled around the world together for years. Douglas Sills, a New York jewelry manufacturer, described their marriage and business partnership in 2023 as “truly remarkable.”
Maddy Rovinsky said: “We didn’t agree on everything. But we agreed on everything that was important.”
Mr. Rovinsky was open-minded and pleasant, family and friends said. He drove Corvettes, went boating and scuba diving, and embraced his Jewish faith. He went to Eagles and Flyers games, and enjoyed cigars and drinks with family and friends after dinner.
He was an engaging storyteller and a people person, and he told Instore magazine in 2006: “A surgeon’s job is way more important than mine, but they have to see people that aren’t happy.”
His daughter said: “He had a big personality, and he was always excited to see you.” His wife said: “He was steadfast and honest, generous and true to his beliefs. He did things his way that were best for the business and the customers. He always said we were the luckiest people in the world.”
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In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Rovinsky is survived by two granddaughters and other relatives.
Memorial services were held on Feb. 2.
Donations in his name may be made to Chabad at the Shore, 6605 Atlantic Ave., Ventnor, N.J. 08406; the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University, 101 Vera King Farris Dr., Galloway, N.J. 08205-9441; and Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, Box 4224, New York, N.Y. 10163.