November 2, 1999

Sol Katz

Sol Katz grew up in South Dallas, then the dense heart of the city's Jewish population, where he recalled walking home from Forest Avenue High School alongside classmates from every part of the community. He witnessed firsthand the sharp divide between the Reform community and the more traditional families, a split so severe that Jewish children who studied and played together during the day rarely socialized outside of school. His family later moved to North Dallas, to Wycliffe and Prescott, during the 1930s, a move that neighbors regarded with surprise. He completed his medical training at Parkland in 1938 and served as a Dallas city health officer and epidemiologist before entering private practice in 1939.

Katz served in the military in the early 1940s, was wounded, and remained on active and temporary duty until around 1946. After the war he returned to Dallas to rebuild his medical practice while becoming increasingly involved in community affairs. As president of the United Hebrew School of Dallas, he struggled constantly to meet payroll for teachers, often personally calling on a handful of generous benefactors for short-term loans. He recalled a memorable occasion when a bank president extended a five thousand dollar note on the strength of the school's name alone, remarking that he had never known a Jewish organization to renege on its debts.

Katz became a leading force behind the Jewish Community Center, an idea he traced to a boyhood summer in Omaha, where he encountered the AZA youth movement, and to his own high school experience of a divided community. Working with a small committee and only a hundred dollars from a Federation youth chairman, he organized dances and programs for teenagers and introduced membership dues to qualify for Community Chest support. He faced strong opposition from established community leaders but persisted, hiring a social worker and athletic director and using an old former YMHA building until the city condemned its gymnasium. His accounts offer valuable insight into the origins of organized Jewish youth and education programs in Dallas.

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