Rabbi Howard Wolk
Rabbi Wolk was born in New York City in 1952. He lived in the Bronx until he was about six, then grew up in Queens, where he attended a local day school where his father served as cantor and made friends playing stickball, baseball, and street hockey. Both of his parents were born in Europe and came to America before the war. His father was born in a small shtetl in Poland, the son of a rabbi, and came over with his parents and siblings. His mother was born in Berlin and arrived with her parents and sister; family lore holds that a Gestapo officer, with a replica skull marked by a Star of David on his desk, warned her father that it was time to leave Germany. Much of his mother's family had earlier gone to Palestine, so he had more relatives in Israel than in the States.
Rabbi Wolk attended Yeshiva University High School in Manhattan, commuting from Queens, and continued at Yeshiva University for college, spending his junior year, 1972 to 1973, studying in Jerusalem during Israel's 25th anniversary. He completed a rabbinic program and earned a master's in education. He married his wife, a graduate of Stern College, in 1975, and received ordination in June 1977. His first congregation was in Patchogue on eastern Long Island, near where his parents lived, where he stayed nine and a half years. Seeking a new opportunity, he and his family came to Dallas to become the founding rabbi of Congregation Shaare Tefilla, arriving when only the frame of the building was up and services were held across the street in the Akiba Academy gymnasium.
Rabbi Wolk led Shaare Tefilla for about sixteen and a half years, working to establish an Orthodox presence alongside Dallas's conservative and reform congregations and involving himself in Jewish communal life through the Federation, the rabbinic association, and Israel-related work. The family later moved to West Hartford, Connecticut, to be closer to children and grandchildren, but returned to Dallas after five years, unable to bear the harsh winters. Six years before the interview he came back and now serves as community chaplain with Jewish Family Service, an organization he praises as the most hands-on in the community, working with the food pantry, victims of domestic violence, and end-of-life issues, and never turning anyone away for inability to pay. He and his wife raised six children and have fourteen grandchildren, and he remains a devoted Mets fan.
Full Transcript
have you seen the Jewish community change over the years in Dallas I mean tremendous amount of growth the founders of Shari tefillah really wanted this Orthodox synagogue to take its place along with conservative reform congregations and to really have an impact on the community and I think it has now in its 26 years of existence when I became the rabbi they I made a conscious effort to participate in Jewish communal events right as I was very active on the Federation the rabbinic Association Israel Commission because I felt I mean coming from New York it was kind of axiomatic that you were involved in a whole host of activities beyond the walls of your your own synagogue and I came and I applied that hero is there an organization or something that you would really recommend for people in the community well what I work for them and that i would recommend Jewish Family Service dr.
salary a blessed memory was as a past president of JFS and he once said to me that JFS is the most hands-on organization in the community it's interesting fifty percent of the clients that Jewish Family Service are non-jewish I've had non-jewish clients people want to talk to a clergyman didn't feel they were getting any attention from their Minister etc it's the most hands-on because we have a food pantry we work with people of victims of domestic violence end of life issues from children to gerontology and maybe the most outstanding trait is that no one has ever turned away because of economics someone cannot pay for
the service they still receive receive the service like anyone else right rabbi 1952 New York City let's so let's go back when you're a little kid tell me about what was life like for you well until I was six years old we lived in the in the Bronx that's actually my parents grew up they were both born in Europe came to America before the war I don't remember a whole lot from living in the bronx when I was about six we moved to Queens and that's where I did all my growing up from then until my parents moved when I was in college yeah now
you say your parents moved from Europe yes where were worthy so my father was born in Poland and a small shtetl and Poland they came over with his parents and brother and sister my mother was actually born in berlin and she came with her parents and sister before the war it actually took a Gestapo officer to warn my grandfather that he should maybe lead Germany that truth finally convinced my grandfather to leave well I wonder why did he I don't know fortune you know God intervening he was called into a meeting was very involved in the synagogue and zionist organization called into the Gestapo office
the fellow had a skull a replica of a human skull in his desk with a Star of David on it I think that was the hint to my grandfather was time to leave your grandparents on either side that they ever talk about that journey they talked about the journey actually my mother wrote a story that was published and readers digest they came by boat they first went to France to Paris and happened to be in Paris for Yom Kippur and we're walking around looking for a shul and they stopped a man on the street who showed him to a small shul and they never show
that man again not at services not anytime thereafter and my mother always felt there was a larger the profit that was guiding them to the sure what did your grandparents do for a living with when they got well his father was an accountant and actually our son who lives in Dallas moved back a year ago with his wife who's named from my grandfather he's also an account he's a CPA so my grandfather was account my father's father was a rabbi a rabbi in Poland and then we came to America had a small shul in the browser what you do for fun is little kid played
sports and my neighborhood in Queens I went to the local day school only a few kids from the neighborhood went there as well the rest were public school kids talking about primarily Jewish kids who went to the Hebrew school when my father was Cantor but in order to make friends you have to play so we played stickball baseball you know hockey on roller skates football that was the way to make friends I know you're a med Finn yes but when you were a little kid there's no meds well I mean the Mets were born when I was ten years old okay so I remember watching
the very first Mets game with my father on TV against the st. Louis Cardinals we went to a couple of Yankee games before the Mets were born right but ten years olds really when I first got into we lived in Queens the Mets were you know a bus ride and ash one stop on the subway away so that was literally our home team you know but I'm just so curious because there were so many great players on the Yankees right and you became a baseball fan literally when they I guess the excitement of the medscan I you know I followed baseball I remember watching on TV Roger Maris hitting his 61st Homer right versus 1961 for the Mets
were born but it's exciting we were there when that when the team was born so he rooted literally from day one and I passed it on to my children and my grandchildren when world war two was in full force your family was here yes you know they literally escape yes did they tell how they were feeling did they ever talk about that you you know you got a little bit older and could understand what my father lost several uncles and cousins in the showa so my mother's side my grandmother my mother's mother was one of five children her four siblings all went to that time
Palestine right in 1929 1930 for some reason my parents my grandparents decided to come to America so I actually had more relatives in Israel than in the States well so they talked about my father's parents a little bit they died when I was young but they would talk a little bit about life in Poland I got more of that from my mother's parents you know how there was a vital Jewish life in Berlin and then how things certainly started to change and that's when they left where did you go to high school you shave university high school in Manhattan and then what was your high
school life like for you high school life was I mean I commuted from Queens my senior year I had a car to drive to the Lord that took the subway and bus the long day it's a double program in yeshiva so I would take the bus ten after seven in the morn I didn't Warp six miles in the snow I want to overdramatize it but also long it didn't get home to about 7 p.m. right there's some guys from high school that I'm still a friendly with my two oldest friends are two guys who I know from second and third grade and we were together in high school as as well now when you were a kid what were your hopes and dreams I think pretty I was very close still I'm with the rabbi of the shoe of my father was cantor and so he was a big influence and I think I felt pretty early on that I wanted to be a rabbi or a baseball broadcaster now I knew that really to be observant to keep shops in the holidays
would be impossible writing a broadcaster so still to this day it annoys my why and drives my kids crazy be watching a game and I'll say something that other was a play like that in the you know 89 World Series and five seconds later the broadcaster will say wife always says you went into the wrong business you know so I feel I know as much as those guys on TV the only difference is they have all the stats in front of the writer ever like what what if I would have taken that other slow know or I mean what I don't think I ever seriously
considered it because I knew you know I would have to give up really religious life in terms of Shah pipe and I wasn't prepared to do that I did have one opportunity to broadcast in 1995 i think it was when the all-star game was here so they had that at the convention center hole fanfare several days of baseball memorabilia said i went with my boys and one of the exhibits they showed you a famous baseball scene and you were the broadcaster forth and you got a videotape us and my son and i did the 86 world series the play with Mookie Wilson and Buckner the
ground below the ground ball so we have it they have a videotape of it so that's my one thrust into broadcast yeah I'd like to hear that take on that ground ball to buckner yeah prophetically even though this was a six-game I son somehow knew that the Mets were going to win game 7 yeah he knew they just right all right you graduate from the issue of oh yes in the thank you from so that I went to yeshiva university for collagen undergraduate my third year I spent in yeshiva in Israel at that time the style was many guys and girls spent a year either
sophomore junior year in Israel right over time it shifted now it's become really standard practice including kids who graduate from yojna from high school here in Dallas after high school they spend at least a year in Israel either in a seminary Hebrew University Shiva so my third year affect my whole group of friends we all went to Israel for the year and i was there from 72 273 in Jerusalem it was a great experience it was a 25th anniversary of the State of Israel it was really a tremendous in all ways in terms of being on our own in terms of study in terms of
you know seeing the country I had been there once before in 1965 the summer of right after my bar mitzvah we went to Israel because my grandparents my mother's parents lived there for about four or five years so we went to visit them so that was my third year and then came back then one more year of college graduated and then I continued on to four rabina coordination at yeshiva what what is it about Israel life that you would like the people in the United States to know I mean I'm happy to say that all six of our children spent at least a year studying
in Israel sometimes or often Israel has bad PR because you open up the newspapers you think it's a war zone but it's certainly not I think when people get off the plane and I've gone on nine Federation missions from Dallas and to me it's always exciting to see Israel through the eyes of first timers and as soon as they get there they feel at home I think that's a feeling anybody gets you feel at home tremendous feeling of pride of what's been accomplished 19 year olds walking around with weapons soldiers if we saw that here we'd jump under a table right there you see how
they are really the elite of Israel protecting the country and like I said you really feel you know at home yeah well now you come back from Israel yes where you going to go so it came back from Israel finished college then the rabbinic program in yeshiva was three years three more years of study and achieve in addition to getting rabbinic nation you have to also go for a masters so I have my masters in education and my wife is a graduate of stern college that's the women's branch of yeshiva and we got married in 1975 I was still in school my wife was working
i was teaching hebrew school is going to graduate school like the life of the most young couples right whether its medical school law school I was in a rabbi school right and then when i received ordination this is june nineteen seventy-seven got my first position in Patchogue Long Island which is eastern Long Island that was my first congregation what did your folks think when you finally got that first congregation they were mean very proud that I was continuing to study to be a rabbi my father's father had been a rabbi and as it turned out my position in Long Island was 20 minutes from where
my parents lived your grandfather who's the rabbi was he still alive when you became a rabbi no he he died in nineteen fifty-nine when I was seven okay okay what brought you guys to Dallas so we were in Long Island nine and a half years was time for a change could have stayed there longer but we want the new opportunity the congregation here sorry to feel it was just starting and we let's try it I mean most rabbis their first position is out out there somewhere right right and many of them then after that first position looked to come east or go back to Chicago
if that's where they're from right here we did it in reverse first in Long Island in New York area and then to Dallas in fact a week ago was the 27th anniversary of the first Shabbat we spent in Dallas when we came to be interviewed for congregation shaarey to fela just the frame of the building was up service and being held across the street in the gymnasium of akiba Academy now New York Dallas there had to be some kind of a culture shock a lot of culture shock it took time to get used to being for people being polite like when you would pay the
toll now the normal people at the toll but you paid told people would say thank you to get used to that from New York the slower pace certainly that we enjoyed the lack of traffic we lived in Long Island wherever you went there was traffic and besides the congregation I taught in a day school in in Long Island traffic weather was a long island expressway all that stuff we came here tremendous difference we felt a much more enjoyable lifestyle here than in Hoonah that have six children yes were they born all in Dallas without five were born in one was born in Manhattan the other
four in Long Island and our youngest who is now 20 and a half he was born here in dallas and plano okay now you took some time you left out yes so I'm the founding rabbi of congregation shaarey to feel and we were there for about 16 and a half years and then my wife missed our children our grandchildren who were all in the new york new jersey area so we moved to West Hartford Connecticut so about a two-hour ride from our kids and grandchildren right very nice community but I think after being here for 16 years your blood changes we hated the winters in
Connecticut certainly we were much more severe than we remember New York old and his snow and the ice we had a dog at that time so of course my job to walk him every morning and to get dressed was a whole ordeal to get dressed in the morning if during the winter so after five years we said we had enough we had been back several times to visit dallas for different occasions and we had many friends here and now six years ago we moved back so where are you now today so I work for jewish family service on the community chaplain with Jewish Family Service
dealing primarily with individuals families who are unaffiliated with congregations end-of-life issues hospital situations domestic situations for the first five years that we were back I also taught at yonder high school and my wife teaches third grade Judaic Studies at akiba Kadim but you're still a met fan still AM FM I root for the Rangers also okay my number two thing number 2 teen but I mean I'm a committed met fan if you see a car around pan with the license plates one dash Mets that's me but what about well you're a judge failed 01 / what about the Cowboys yeah well I take I think
we rooted for the Cowboys in the 90s maybe because they were winning that I think we my family we grew tired of Jerry Jones okay so actually the last two times the Jets came to Dallas we went to the game in your lifetime you've lived through so many momentous occasions of course we had the tragedy of the Kennedy assassination hear something good the moon landing in 69 for the first time of course the tragedy of 911 unrest in the Middle East seems to be all the time is there something that really had an effect on your life that you kind of said cash I remember
that I know where I was well I would say in addition to the events you mentioned I was in high school in 67 during the six-day war so this is before CNN and all I met my mother were waking me up for school not monday morning tell me there's a war myself a lot of fellow students from yeshiva high school we collected money for Israel in the subways in new york number that made a big impact the yom kippur war I was conducting services at a senior citizen facility for Yom Kippur and when I walked in there they had the TV on and then in
the lobby reporting about break out of war so I remember you know I remember that you know on a personal level of things that I vividly remember I was present for the birth of all six of our children not that it was a big help but I was you know I was there to be the coach so that's those are unforgettable moments oh you an event have six kids yes 14 grandkids yes what advice does grandad have for that next generation to listen to their parents to be honest sincere people and to always know their heritage and where they come from our youngest grandchildren are
twin girls who were born here in Dallas about nine months ago so they would thank you they were with us it's a treat to have grandchildren in town with us so they were with us yesterday in the pool so a little bit young for me to impart any advice except splash but today our oldest grandson God willing is being bar Mitzvahed in October so we're very proud of him and thank God all of our children and grandchildren of following in there I would say their grandparents footsteps in terms of being good people and observant the Jews and active in their community one of our sons
who graduated akiba here and yamna here is now his name is akiva rabbi akiva he teaches in a day school in New Jersey he's a basketball coach you mentioned his name in around town including the JCC a basketball courts they'll remember him because he was one of the superstars that was produced here in Dallas so our oldest is Ellie he works in advertising he and his wife Amy have three sons then our one daughter Michal she now has been have four children three girls and a boy she teaches she's a speech therapist for the New York City public school system and then young time lose
New Jersey has two boys and a girl he's also in advertising and then a rabbi Akiba his wife's a dentist they have two girls and then gavi who's the cpa he and his wife kyly been living in dallas for a year July is a year they have the twin girls and our youngest shimmy the one who was born in plano he's a student at Yeshiva University he's 20 and a half right now he's home for the summer he just finished two years of study in Israel excellent well thanks for doing this today real my pleasure