The man I am talking about is Dr. Joseph Walder. He was
featured last week in a cover story in Inyan, the weekly magazine of Hamodia.
I don’t really know him that well. My only real contact with
him was during the taping of an interview that was going to be played at an out
of town banquet honoring him that he could not attend. During that interview he
used that phrase quite liberally.
Dr. Walder is an MD and PhD who has built a scientific and financial
empire. Among other things his company, IDT (Intergrated DNA Technologies) synthesizes
DNA and provides it all over the world for medical research and other
things (Dor Yeshorim is one of his customers using it for genetic testing.) IDT
is fully Shomer Shabbos - the business is closed in all its facilities and
branches.
Dr. Walder passion is science. But he has another passion. And
that is doing things for the Jewish community. Now many of us work for the community in
various ways. But Dr. Walder more than anyone else has a special talent for finding voids and filling
them with innovative ideas. He is a doer, not talker.
Among them are the following.
He has created something called the Kehilla Fund. This is a
fund where people are encouraged to donate a monthly fixed amount to a fund that
is distributed to the 10 religious day schools here in Chicago. One can donate
as little as $5 a month up to any amount one wishes. There are many people that
participate in this fund some of whom donate $1000 per month! This amount is automatically
deducted from your checking account.
Last year it raised 650,000 dollars. The money is divided per capita among
all the schools. His goal is to fund one third of all tuitions costs, the rest
to be provided by tuitions and traditional fundraising.
There is another fund he created to help those parents whose
schools subject them to a minimum payment no matter how little they make. There
ar some who cannot afford even that. This fund helps them cover their shortfall.
As an aside I am opposed to these extortionary tactics. If parents
don’t have the money they should not be forced to pay it. That can lead to all
kinds of bad things.
The problem of course is that many of the parents who are
that poor, are poor by choice. If one chooses to live on a Kollel stipend – which
is the case with many of the parents in certain schools, those schools would
never be able to pay their teachers and would end up closing. So it’s hard to blame
them for having this policy. They are desparate!
Ideally there should be no minimum in any school This fund
should help all parents in every school who are unable to pay what a school
feels they might need as a minimum amount per family. But I digress.
Another great thing he has done is to create a resource
center for teachers. Teachers from any school can come there and utilize many
innovative ideas with materials provided by the center. There are workshops
where teachers can learn about the latest and most innovative new curricula,
teaching techniques, use the latest technology, and attend seminars on the
latest teaching techniques and bring them all to the classroom. Rabbi Yaakov
Perlow (The Novominsker Rebbe) who was invited to see it was so impressed that he has urged
Torah U’Mesorah to adopt a similar program in all of their affiliated schools. According
to the artilce - they have begun to do this.
He has also opened a Holocaust educational program. With the
dwindling population of survivors, he feels that everything should be done to
assure that it never be forgotten. As
far as I know this is one of the few (if not the only) religiously based
projects in the country. He has hired the best professionals to see this task
through.
Perhaps one of his greatest undertakings is the creation of
a science laboratory and learning center for Chicago’s religious students. Students
from any school can come and learn the value of science and more importantly see
that there is no contradiction at all between science and Torah. He provides
the resources and has hired an administrator dedicated solely for that purpose.
This project sponsors science competitions
and gives students the facilities and materials to be able to compete at a very
high level.
As part of his belief in promoting the philosophy of Torah U’Mada
he has had world renowned scientists and educators that are observant give public
lectures there. Among Dr. Gerlad Schroeder and Rabbi Natan Slifkin. (You read that correctly.)
Not satisfied with what is -he always
thinking about what could be. An idea that really sounds both interesting and plausible
is hiring top teachers to teach certain subjects like science. Realizing that religious
schools do not have enough money to hire that level of teacher on their own, he
has suggested hiring teachers for top dollar and sharing them with all the
schools. In this way it would not break the budget of any single school.
He is also known for his kindnesses to individuals. I know
of at least three people who lost their jobs or businesses. The incomes of
these people had ranged from very large to very modest. He found a place for
them in his organization. I would not be surprised if there are plenty more like
this in his organization.
These are just a few of the things he has done, which he
tries to do as quietly as possible. Doing things quietly is hard to do for a
man of his many talents. But it isn’t for lack of trying. Dr. Walder is a quiet
man who shuns the limelight. If you saw him you would think that this man with
a trim beard and black hat is just a simple Charedi Baal Habos. But there is
nothing simple about this great man. We
in Chicago are very lucky to have him.
