Rabbi Joseph Katz, a longtime educator, spiritual leader and community outreach worker particularly well-known on local college campuses, passed away on Tuesday, June 3.
The longtime Northwest Baltimore resident, who was known for his friendly demeanor, love for Yiddishkeit and engaging personality, was 93.
“Rabbi Katz, my dear Joe, was a beloved chaplaincy colleague at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore,” wrote Rabbi Jerry Seidler, staff chaplain at LifeBridge Health, on the website of Sol Levinson & Bros. “He amazed me with his calm, loving demeanor, his quick smile, and his dogged dedication to the care of his fellow human beings. I knew him for years as an elder statesman. … His gentle neshamah and his spiritual stature shone through. … I pray his family can find comfort in a life well-lived by a Jewish gentleman who gave immeasurably more than he ever received in this world.”
The son of a shoe salesman and a homemaker, Rabbi Katz was born in Guxhagen, a community in the Schwalm-Eder district of the northern German state of Hesse. An only child, he grew up in an Orthodox family with his parents and a grandmother.
During Kristallnacht, the 1938 pogrom in Germany and Austria viewed as the precursor to the Holocaust, the Nazis destroyed the home of the Katzes. Rabbi Katz’s father was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp and remained there for four months.
The family eventually relocated to the German city of Kassel, where his father worked in a factory. Rabbi Katz’s mother and aunt immigrated to the United States, while he and his father eventually relocated in Stuttgart to request exit papers. They waited there for 18 months until boarding a train for Berlin, and then traveling to France, Spain and Portugal.
They arrived in New York on Labor Day of 1941.
Rabbi Katz received a degree in psychology from Brooklyn College. He eventually attended graduate school at Columbia University.
After meeting his wife, Mashe, in Queens, New York, the Katzes moved to Kingston, Pennsylvania, near Wilkes-Barre, where the rabbi worked for 24 years as a spiritual leader, teacher and principal. He also taught at Wilkes University.
They moved to Annapolis and then Baltimore, where Rabbi Katz worked at the Baltimore Board of Education and spent 17 years teaching and coordinating efforts with Jewish college groups at Johns Hopkins, Goucher, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Towson University. He also worked at Hillel of Greater Baltimore and Sinai Hospital, and taught at Talmudical Academy.
The gracious and humble Rabbi Katz and his family were well-known by Jewish college students and others for frequently opening their Park Heights home for joyous, song-filled Shabbat dinners. He also wrote a weekly Jewish studies newsletter that went to approximately 300 people.
“Rabbi Katz taught me so much about life, religious work and love for family, education, loving hospitality and so much more,” wrote Sharon Kugler, his former chaplaincy colleague at Hopkins on the Sol Levinson & Bros. website. “Such a large part of my career in university chaplaincy, from my time at Johns Hopkins and onward to Yale University was influenced by his spirituality, sense of joy and steadfast moral ethics. His memory will surely be a blessing and will live on in countless ways.”
A member of Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Congregation, Rabbi Katz is survived by his wife of almost 68 years, Mashe Katz (nee Anemer); his children, Zev (Esther) Katz, Shany (Joel) Hecht, Chaim (Peshi) Katz, and Mordechai (Chana Sorah) Katz; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Services for Rabbi Katz were held on Wednesday, June 4, at 4:30 p.m. at Sol Levinson’s Chapel in Pikesville. Interment at Chevra Ahavas Chesed Cemetery, 9780 Liberty Road in Randallstown.
Contributions in his memory may be sent to Torah Institute, 35 Rosewood Lane, Owings Mills, Maryland 21117; Ner Israel Rabbinical College, 400 Mount Wilson Lane, Baltimore Maryland 21208; or the Yeshiva of Greater Washington, 2010 Linden Lane, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910.
The family will be in mourning at 6414 Park Heights Avenue, Apt. D1, in Northwest Baltimore, with mincha-maariv at 8:10 p.m. and shacharis at 7 a.m., and Friday mincha at 3 p.m.
At the funeral, Bnai Jacob’s Rabbi Daniel Rose called Rabbi Katz “a great man” and said, “We stood under his tallis. We saw a man from a different world. … We will try to do what you did, live like you lived, and value what you valued.”
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