Mel Wolf, The `Glue' Of Seattle's Jewish Community, Dies

In Yiddish, the word for Mel Wolf would be "macher."

"It's a guy who does things," Mr. Wolf's son, Fred, said. "Someone who doesn't just talk about doing things, but really does them. He was a power guy who knew where to find the money for people who didn't have it. He was the glue that kept the synagogue together."

The macher of Seattle's Bikur Cholim-Machzikay Hadath Congregation - the chairman of a half-dozen committees, the man who raised the money and helped the poor and swept the floors - died of cancer yesterday at home. He was 75.

Until a few days ago, friends say, most people in the congregation didn't even know Mr. Wolf was sick. He had too much to do to bother telling them.

He was born Menasche Wolf in 1924 in Ludwicz, Poland, an impoverished village where water was drawn from a well in the center of town and where people died young. His father died when Mr. Wolf was 6. Most of the rest of the family - his mother, a sister and many aunts and uncles - were killed in the early days of the Holocaust.

Mr. Wolf was a teenager when Hitler's troops stormed into Poland on a quest to obliterate Jews and conquer Europe.

"He was one of those first in, last out of the concentration camps," his son said.

In all, Mr. Wolf spent 65 months in camps from Buchenwald to Dachau. Much of the time, he worked in coal mines.

At some point - Fred Wolf isn't sure of the details because his father rarely talked of his days in the camps - the Nazis were moving Mr. Wolf and hundreds of other prisoners by ship from one location to another. The ship was hit by Allied bombs. Three survivors - including Mr. Wolf - crawled ashore, only to be taken back into German custody.

Mr. Wolf was released in 1945, at the end of the war. He met the young survivor who was to become his wife in a relocation camp. Ilse Wolf, who came with him to America, died in 1995.

The couple settled with other friends from the camps into the Central Area's Jewish community in about 1950. Mr. Wolf studied English and learned a trade, repairing sewing machines. He worked as a sewing-machine repairman for several companies and retired at age 70 after 34 years with Sears.

Most of that time, Mr. Wolf worked other jobs as well, his son said. He founded and ran a bingo operation in the 1970s, Talmud Torah, which benefited Seattle Hebrew Academy. He so loved tent camping with his wife and their three children that he once bought a resort in Eastern Washington and ran it.

During much of his life, Mr. Wolf slept only four hours a night, getting up at 4 a.m. to work on the books for the synagogue or one of his various enterprises, Fred Wolf said.

Mr. Wolf did not grow up in the Orthodox faith. But he joined the Orthodox Bikur Cholim congregation because friends worshipped there. Along the way, he became one of the congregation's most active members, serving as chairman of most of the synagogue's committees. He was president of the synagogue from 1985-1988.

"He was available for everything," said Cliff Godwin, a friend. "If a room had to be cleaned after a meeting or event, he either lined up someone to do it or he did it himself. He really gave his life to the Jewish community."

It was Mr. Wolf's lifelong dream to go to Israel, where one of his two surviving cousins, Dov Zevi, lives. He never quite had time to make the trip, his son said. But he helped raise money for others to make the pilgrimage and encouraged young people to go.

Though Mr. Wolf didn't like to talk about the Holocaust, he participated in a recent Steven Spielberg project to videotape the stories of thousands of survivors.

He also joined the board of the Surviving Generations of the Holocaust, a local group dedicated to making sure the terrors of that time are not repeated.

"My dad was not an educated man, and yet scholars approached him," Fred Wolf said. "He was not a learned man, and yet rabbis consulted him. He was a man who beat the odds at every turn of his life."

Besides his son and Israeli cousin, Mr. Wolf is survived by two daughters, Hinda Wolf and Sherry Wolf; a son-in-law, Lonnie Bevers, and daughter-in-law, Charlene Wolf; three granddaughters, Shelby, Amanda and Alexis Wolf; and two step-grandchildren, Desiree and Brandon Hogan, all of Seattle. He also is survived by a cousin, Frances Glass of New York, and her daughter, Ruth Glass of Seattle.

Services were to be held today at Bikur Cholim Cemetery, 1340 N. 115th St. The family suggests remembrances to Surviving Generations of the Holocaust, 2031 Third Ave., Seattle, WA 98121.

Sally Macdonald's phone number is 206-464-2248. Her e-mail address is smacdonald@seattletimes.co.