Joe Willon Memorial Shabbat
Joe Wilion Memorial Shabbat
There are four pillars outside our shul. They define the building. They give it character. You can’t miss them. Joe Wilion was one of the pillars inside the shul. That’s why once a year we celebrate the Joe Wilion Memorial Shabbat. He defined our community, he gave it character, and you couldn’t miss him, either. But now, we do. The following memories of Joe Wilion were lovingly contributed by members of the TBZ community.
From Reb Moshe
Joseph Wilion (may his memory be a blessing) was born in Vilna in 1920. At that time Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, was part of a newly formed independent Poland that had emerged from the defeat of the Axis powers in the First World War.
Joe grew up in a very cosmopolitan Jewish community called the “Yerushalayim deLita,” the Jerusalem of Lithuania. It boasted a rich religious and secular Jewish life, a vigorous Yiddish and Hebrew press, yeshivot, libraries, Zionist and Socialist movements, all-told a vital and multifaceted cultural and intellectual life that Joe took advantage of in his formative years.
Joe was 19 when the Germans invaded the Western part of Poland and the Russians the Eastern part including Lithuania. In the years 1939-1941 it was still unclear what the Russian-German pact would yield, but it soon became clear that the Germans were going to attack Russia, and the systematic killing of Jews in the path of the German invasion began. Joe, along with over 100,000 other Jews under Soviet occupation retreated deep into the Russian eastern areas of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. There he survived the war. His mother and father and other family members were killed by the German mobile killing units and his sister was incarcerated in labor camps. One of Joe’s best stories was of how he was reunited with his sister (who predeceased him by a few months) after the war through a chance meeting of someone on a line for rations. This kind of chance encounter was repeated many times, but sadly not enough.
After reuniting with his sister, Joe then attempted to get to Palestine through Italy. At that time, between 1945 and 1948, Palestine was still under the British White Paper (which had been issued in 1939). Immigration of Jews to Palestine was restricted and Joe and his sister’s clandestine voyage was stopped by the British and they were incarcerated in a British camp in Cyprus.
Another of Joe’s remarkable adventures was his digging out of the Cyprus camp and swimming to a waiting boat offshore that would finally smuggle him in to Palestine just in time to fight in the Israel War of Independence in 1948.
Joe served in the Haganah in the Be’er Sheva area. After the war he began to establish himself and in the early 1950’s was introduced to Shulamit Rashish, a Boston girl who was living in Israel. They became a couple, married, and in the mid-50’s came to the States, first to Roxbury-Mattapan, where they had two sons, Harold and Aaron, and then in 1968 to Tappan Street in Brookline and to TBZ. From 1968 until his sudden death on Shabbat, 15 Heshvan, October 30, 2004, Reb Yossel was an integral part of TBZ’s continuity. In the past six years, Reb Yossel and I became close friends and had many an opportunity to engage in our many polyglot conversations in Hebrew, Yiddish and English. Being a child of Holocaust survivors I will miss Joe as a last link to a world that is no more; a world that we must never forget; a world that still yields a key to the mystery of our survival.
From Irwin and Gloria Pless Our memory of Joe goes back to the summer of 1992 when we wandered into the Chapel of Temple Beth Zion the Friday night after we arrived in Brookline. We were greeted by the regular minyan of several men, headed by Joe, the President. With a warm handshake and a big smile, Joe welcomed us into their midst. During subsequent months, Joe told us with a parental glint in his eye “you know, you can come on Saturday morning, too.” During those early days, we saw Joe almost single handedly doing everything: buying the kiddush food, making the brunches, negotiating the rabbi’s contract, making the repairs, shoveling the snow, occasionally davvening the Pesukei di Zimra, and deftly handling the Ladies of the Sisterhood. Joe continued in many capacities at the temple after those days, which others can reflect on, but without his carefully handling of finances and his concern for the welfare of the temple, none of us would be here today to pay tribute to him. Temple Beth Zion was his legacy — after his family — and his memory will always be sacred to us.
From Betsey Glaser I am grateful for Joe’s loving presence and the way he moved through my life and the life of our community with such love and dignity and bounce. I am grateful for Joe’s grace and warmth and enthusiasm. I am grateful for Joe’s willingness to learn new things and his openness. I am grateful for the way he walked seemingly unburdened by ideologies.
I am grateful for the way Joe would stop to greet me with a Shabbat kiss. I am grateful for all the times we shared Shabbat blessings and schmoozing and the holidays. I am grateful that I learned to stand when I take my tallis off, from Joe. I am grateful for the many times we said Kaddish together. I am grateful for the succahs he constructed each year so that we could decorate them. I am grateful for the stories he told me about Vilna and Israel. I am grateful for Joe’s confidence in me.
When I told him one Yom Kippur how blessed I felt to have his friendship, he told me how happy he felt that he could share community with so many new members like me at Temple Beth Zion. I am grateful that I really get it, that people, mensches like Joe, do live in this world.
From Deborah Chassler Perhaps at first Joe thought that a woman on the bima is like an orange on the Seder plate. But, literally and figuratively, Joe went along with women on the bima. At first, as gabbai, he would mumble, grumble, and correct. But when I first started reading Torah at TBZ, he stuck with me as I made mistakes. He would correct me and then afterwards, shake my hand, nodding his head. Years later I was still reading Torah, and each time he would pat my hand and say, “Good, good.”
The night before his heart attack he stood next to me for a moment while I practiced the Torah portion for Shabbat. He smiled, gently, patting my hand.
From Jack Gottlieb I am writing this from Israel and was saddened by the news. To me Joe was one of the few survivors left who spoke Yiddish and reminded me of my parents and a way of life that has disappeared forever. I will miss him very much.
From Len Rosen Joe helped define the TBZ community. My first impression of Joe has to be the way he shook hands with you and smiled. Joe shook hands with everyone, and that one act placed him in the middle of shul life — because when he shook your hand, he shook your hand. You were present to him. You mattered. Such a simple act, and so profound in the context of our lives at TBZ and what we were doing here in building a community. We thought we were onto something new, and Joe was welcoming us into a world he understood well and that existed long before we arrived. If he ever smiled at our expense, he never showed it. He just shook our hands and said, “Good Shabbos.”
Joe loved the children in this community, and my seat in shul, slightly behind Joe’s, allowed me to witness the special friendship that blossomed with one young girl. On Saturday mornings I would watch her walk by a dozen people, eyes only for Joe, and on reaching him hold out her hand for a good shake, then a hug. The smile, both of their smiles, was part of what made Shabbos, Shabbos for me.
In Board meetings I valued the way Joe would speak his mind. Here was a man who never censored himself. Perhaps with his 80 plus years he had earned the right to call the ridiculous by its proper name. But he never made you feel small or angry when he disagreed. He had the gift of speaking without leaving tension in the air. Later, he’d shake your hand and that would be that.
I see him bending over to play with children here in the sanctuary on Saturday mornings, delighted with the signs of new life at TBZ. I see him in a suit and tie, always stylish. I see him meditating, well into his 80s. He brought no agenda or ego to this place, no grand hope that we become anything other than what he knew mattered most: a group of good hearted souls, trying our best, and caring for each other.
You learn of some deaths and say — “That’s too bad,” and in the next breath find yourself moving to the next task on your list. The news of other deaths knocks the wind out of you and you say: “I didn’t want this to happen. I wasn’t ready.” Joe’s passing was such a loss. I did not know many details of his life; but here is what I did know: that Joe was honest and honorable, dignified and gentle and vigorous, a man who looked you in the eye when he spoke and expected good things of you. Here was an elder whom I respected not because his hair was white, but because what he had seen and learned in all those years he had both the strength and the grace to wear lightly, with a ready smile. I can still feel his handshake. I know I will look for him in his seat each time I enter this sanctuary, and that when I do I will remember this good man. I will speak his name and say a prayer.
Five years ago most of us didn’t know this man. Today we thank God that he was part of our lives.
From Meredith Joy I loved Joe. He was a gift and I know I am a small part of a very large fan club. Of all the people I have met in my life he had both the most challenges and the absolute best attitude. I can’t tell you how many stories he told that would end with the line: “You need to have an open mind.”
I never had the experience of grandparents, although it seems like a nice concept. Having Joe in my life, I think I actually get it, what this relationship is about. Having someone dote on you a little, think every little thing you do is fantastic, and worry about you just enough to be sweet.
In turn, to me he was larger than life. I adored everything about him, his kindness, generosity, warm-heartedness. His interest in everyone, the joy he took in seeing young people and children in this shul, his truly impressive stubbornness. I learned quickly that if I was not going to be in shul for Shabbat, that I should tell Joe in advance. He liked to see people, and if he was accustomed to seeing you here, he would be concerned if you were not. I am grateful to have been included in the collection of people he kept track of.
During Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur Reb Moshe encouraged us to choose something to focus on this year, something to do, to learn. Joe was my something. I planned to spend more time with him. I was starting by taking the Yiddish short story class; I knew he would be there. We had only two classes before he died, but I learned so much.
The stories we were reading, the stories that people’s parents and grandparents told them, he lived. He was the past, present and future in one person, right here in our shul.
From Mitch Glassman I was fortunate to have had many special moments with Joe, but one in particular will stay with me. Each and (almost) every Shabbat morning for the last three years I sat next to Joe in Torah study. His presence can not be measured in words or deeds. For me, he was all the uncles and grandfathers I never knew: the imagined resilience of generations of Jews and their dedication to our tradition of study. He spoke to me simply and eloquently of our traditions and welcomed the rewards of transformation and change. He had great faith in the new young members in our congregation and the promise they offered to the continuance of our community. He will be sorely missed.
From Stephen Landau My connection to Joe is through my Bubbie, of blessed memory. I learned right away that Joe was from Vilna, my Bubbie’s own native town. On a whim I once asked Joe if he knew the Rudnitzsky family in Vilna. He got all excited about how there was a major street in Vilna called Rudnitzsky Street, and for the first time in my life I could almost see my Bubbie’s old neighborhood in my mind’s eye.
Joe told me the beginning of many stories about his life, about Vilna and boats and camps and Eretz Yisrael, about Yiddish literature and the many languages he spoke. And he always stopped short of the whole version. I will really really miss not being able to hear the end of all those stories.
From Bob Katz In the early 1990’s, in the pre-Reb Moshe Temple Beth Zion era, I would come to Shabbat morning services, and I would usually arrive after the Torah service had started. Joe would always walk over to where I was seated, greet me and give me give me that wonderful, effusive handshake. He would then say, “If only you had come earlier, I could have given you an aliyah,” as if giving me an aliyah would have made him, as well as me, happy for the rest of Shabbat. I will never forget those greetings, or the genuine feeling with which they were made.
Joe always wanted to be in the company of good people. Once when I was davvening next to him on Yom Kippur he turned to me during the Ashamnu (where we confess all sorts of transgressions) and said, “If we really did these things, I wouldn’t want to be around such people!” His intonation and body language made it clear that he really didn’t think his friends could really be guilty of such bad conduct.
From Fay Kravet When I was new to the shul, Joe was the first one to greet me with a big “Good Shabbos”. He welcomed me and made me feel at home. This greeting came weekly and I ALWAYS looked forward to it. He will be missed.
From John Powell After a particularly beautiful reading on a recent Shabbat, Joe took me aside and told me about the beauty of the singing of the cantors of Vilna — I felt as if we were standing together in front of those shuls. I also loved that he would speak to me in Yiddish, even though he knew it was hard for me to understand — somehow, I always did.
From Michael Ross Joe and I always were vying to be the 1st to park our cars outside the shul prior to kabbalat shabbat. Most often, we’d tie, both of us arriving and parking at approximately 5:20 PM. He’d take the spot in front and I’d park right behind him. Then, we’d both nap for about ten minutes waiting for someone to arrive with a key to open up TBZ. Joe was a one-person welcoming committee once we got inside. He never failed to shake my hand and wish me good shabbos.
I went to Joe’s house when he was sitting shiva for his sister some months ago, met his wife, and learned a bit about his life. Even while sitting shiva, he put out the welcome mat, with all sorts of food. I’ll miss our early arrivals and welcoming of each other to kabbalat shabbat at TBZ.
May our memories of Joe be a blessing for the entire TBZ family.
From Reggie Silberberg Joe was a man generous of spirit who spoke from his heart and had great concern for others. Joe never missed Shabbat and would always greet me by holding my face in his hands, kissing each cheek, asking me how my week was and telling me about his week. I am in awe of the special gift of appreciation he had for people and the work they contributed to TBZ — his graciousness and gratitude were endless.
Joe was a man of love and acceptance — accepting meditation, chairs instead of pews, and loving our dancing on Erev Shabbat, our Torah reading, our children, our growing community, and our rabbi. He was a role model and inspiration for life long learning.
Joe’s memory in Holocaust circles will serve as a living reminder, a living marker, of how the human spirit has the will to live despite tragedy and loss, to be brave in new lands, and to find community in new places, as Joe found community abroad, here in America, with us at TBZ, and with the Russian community in Brookline and Brighton.
In Yiddish one would say of him — er hot gehat a gute neshome, a zeyer gute neshome, er iz a finer mentsh, a zeyer finer mentsh. He had a good soul, a very good soul, he was fine person, a very fine person. Joe was a man generous of spirit.
From Enid Shulman Through all of the challenges of the last 6 years — Joe never left our side, never doubted that we would survive, and that we would thrive. He became our patriarch, part of the establishment of TBZ, who was able to totally embrace the new. And Joe didn’t approve of everything we did. And when he didn’t, he let us know Anytime anyone went to the bima in jeans, I heard about it. If you came to shul in shorts — I definitely heard about it. Yet in the end he would always say: “vell, at least they come.”
This fall, Joe was on a ladder, stringing the lights for our succah as he has done every year for many years. And this year, he told us to watch how he did it. Because some day, he said, some day someone else might need to know how. But most of us thought that Joe was still in his prime.
Joe had a certain nobility, an Old World style, and old world values. I know we will always honor that seat, second row, to the right of the Bima. It has been a privilege for us all, Joe, to have known you.