“Who is guaranteed a portion in the ‘world to come’?” the Talmud asks in Sanhedrin 8b. “One who is humble, lowly of knee, bends as he goes in and bends as he goes out … and never takes credit for himself.”
Few of us — perhaps even none — will ever have such words spoken about us, even during the flowery language of comfort offered in a eulogy. But those were the words used to describe one quiet community leader who died last week after a battle with cancer.
Mel Wolf was a pillar of the community, a volunteer who worked behind the scenes to make things happen. He was as likely to attend a board meeting as visit the hardware store to pick up supplies for his synagogue. He shied away from honors and tribute dinners. You can’t visit a building named after him.
Rabbi Moshe Kletenik of Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath explained how the quote from Talmud applied to Mr. Wolf at a funeral attended by people from across the breadth of the community. Fellow synagogue members, other Holocaust survivors, volunteers from the organizations he served such as the Hebrew Free Loan Association, the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center and the Jewish Federation, plus people he worked with during 34 years as a sewing machine repairman at Sears Roebuck all filled the chapel to overflowing at the Bikur Cholim Cemetary. Some of the qualites the rabbi mentioned included humility, physical and mental strength, unpretentiousness, generosity, choosing to live a modest lifestyle.
“I think this captures the essence of the life of Mel Wolf. He was a brilliant man, very wise. People constantly sought out his advice and yet he always referred to himself as a simple man,” Kletenik said.
The rabbi shared several stories from the last months of Mr. Wolf’s life. A few days before Yom Kippur, he visited him at home. Already very ill, Mr. Wolf told the rabbi he would be at Kol Nidre services on the eve of Yom Kippur “no matter what,” and added that he would try to ttend Yom Kippur morning services, if he was able. “I know this is the last time I will be able to come and daven (pray) in shul,” Mr. Wolf told the rabbi.
On Yom Kippur morning, the gabbai, or service “coordinator” came over to his seat and offered Mr. Wolf, an aliyah, an opportunity to say the blessing before the Torah is read, which is considered a great honor. At first he accepted and then, one minute later, with tears in his eyes, he called the gabbai back over. “There are so many people here, give it to someone more worthy and deserving than me,” he said, according to the rabbi.
“No one was more deserving that Mel Wolf,” Kletenik added.
Born Menasche Wolf in Jedlicze, Poland, in 1924, he died on Jan. 3 at age 75. Before immigrating to the United States in 1951, he spent more 4han five years in concentration camps and work camps during the Holocaust and then time in a displaced persons camp in Germany, where he met his wife, Ilse, who died in 1995. Most of his immediate family died during the Shoa. Ilse and Mel had three children, Hinda, Sherry (Lonnie) and Fred (Charlene); and three grandchildren, Amanda, Alexis and Shelby Wolf. He also is survived by cousins in New York and Israel and Ruth Glass of Seattle.
Mr. Wolf’s life story was recounted five years ago, in November 1995 at the Bikur-Cholim-Machzikay Hadath Annual Banquet. In a booklet written for the occasion, historian Meta Buttnick summarized he? notes from extensive interviews for the Washington Jewish Historical Society. Because we are not able to share anything so long and detailed in the newspaper, her story is reproduced on The Transcript website.
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Mr. Wolf fondly remembered Jedlicze (pronounced “Yedliche”), “my little town,” as the home of his family for many generations. It had 80 Jewish families, all Orthodox, all related in one way or another. When the Nazis marched into Poland in 1939, life in the shtetl changed completely.
He has recorded in detail an account of his 65 months, 1939-1945, in the German death camps, on videotape, a copy of which is kept at the Holocaust center in Seattle and another is at the Holocaust Historical Memorial Museum in Washington. He said in 1995, “I’m proud that we have such a center to which people can come, especially from the schools, to see that the Holocaust was a fact, not a fiction.” He has served on the organization’s board and last year traveled to Olympia several times to witness testimony before a legislative committee on the Holocaust insurance bill, which was approved unanimously by both the House and the Senate.
The story of his rescue after the war, which included swimming to shore from a bombed transport boat, is the stuff that movies are made of. But instead of Hollywood, Mel and Ilse Wolf ended up in Seattle after the war, resettled by the Jewish Family and Child Service (now the Jewish Family Service).
“I am living proof that Hitler did not do what he intended to do for the purposes of history — destroy Jewish institutions. I had that inner compelling force to make Jewish institutions survive and prosper. God guided me. My Orthodox values were preserved even after those 65 months. In the displaced persons camp, eVen there I felt I had to do something,” he said in the 1995 article.
In the dp camp, he became involved the Zionist Organization, and his volunteer efforts were deemed so outstanding that when he and Ilse Huppert married in 1949, “the Zionist Organization, to honor me, made us a wedding unheard of in Germany at that particular time.”
The Wolfs came to Seattle in 1951 and not only did they settle into jobs and the community quickly, but Mel immediately took up his volunteer work again. They joined Bikur Cholim and struggled to save up enough money to send their children to the Seattle Hebrew Academy, where he served on the board for several years. At the same time, he started a lifetime of work at Bikur Cholim, through the men’s club and evntually the synagogue board. He says he has chaired or served on virtually every committee of the shul.
“I had a compelling force to do some good, to give time and work for the congregation, and I wanted to prove to myself that Hitler hadn’t stopped me,” he said. Mr. Wolf began the synagogue’s ongoing tradition of an annual luncheon to honor the memory of the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. He was also instrumental in helping the congregation build the new chapel at Bikur Cholim Cemetary where the memorial service was held on Jan. 4.
The family suggested remembrances to Congregation Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath, Surviving Generations of the Holocaust or an organization of the giver’s choice.
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