Milwaukee businessman and philanthropist Joseph J. Zilber liked to tell a story about how, in 1948, as a young man he attended a meeting of a local Jewish fund-raising organization and pledged $10,000.
Mike Mervis related the story during a telephone interview on March 22. But Mervis, who knew Zilber for some 40 years, said Zilber told him that “a lot of people [at that meeting] were looking and wondering, ‘Who’s that young guy?’”
Today, people in the Jewish community and all over Milwaukee know who Joe Zilber is. His death on March 19 at age 92 made front page news; and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran an editorial on March 20 lamenting the “Passing of a friend.”
The news coverage naturally focused on Zilber’s achievements and gifts in the general community — to Marquette University’s Law School, to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Public Heath, and especially the Zilber Neighborhood Initiative, to which he gave $50 million.
But he did not neglect Milwaukee’s Jewish community. “I think Joe felt a strong commitment to his Jewish and his city-of-Milwaukee roots,” said Mervis, vice president and assistant to the chair of Zilber Ltd.
“For over a generation, Zilber has been among the community’s major donors,” said Richard H. Meyer, executive vice president of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, in a telephone interview March 23. “He also when called upon has supported additional community projects.”
Gerald Stein, former president and chief executive officer of Zilber Ltd., and a long-time Jewish community activist, said Zilber was one of the first to make a major gift for the 1985-87 campaign to purchase and build the Karl Jewish Community Campus in Whitefish Bay, where the field house is named for him.
Two years ago, he announced that he would give $3 million to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation, $2 million for the Jewish Community Capital Campaign, and $1 million to MJF annual campaigns in increments of $100,000 for ten years.
As part of that capital campaign gift, he provided funds for construction of the new building for Hillel Milwaukee, the organization serving Jewish college and university students throughout the Milwaukee area. This building is named for him and his wife, Vera, who died in 2003.
He also provided gifts to his synagogue, Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun, whose campus also is named for him and Vera.
Zilber’s Jewish heritage also played “a major role in how he did business,” said Mervis. For example, “he believed your word was your bond.”
Moreover, “When he selected employees, he asked about their families,” said Mervis. “He always wanted to make sure they had time for their families and to benefit the community.”
Indeed, a sense of family was important to him, going back to the grocery store run by his Russian-immigrant parents, according to Rabbi Marc E. Berkson, spiritual leader of Emanu-El, who officiated at the funeral service held at Marquette University on March 23.
“He was a father figure to so many” of the Zilber Ltd. employees, Berkson said in a telephone interview March 23. Moreover, Zilber saw his synagogue as family also, said Berkson, and provided not just fatherly support but fatherly encouragement.
“He called for us to reach beyond to what we could become,” said Berkson. “He forced us to rise to what is best in us.”
Zilber earned business and law degrees at Marquette University. He founded Towne Realty and made his fortune in real estate development in Milwaukee and outside the state. In the 1980s, he formed Zilber Ltd. as a holding company for Towne Realty and other spun off businesses.
Stein said that Zilber refused to retire, as he so thoroughly enjoyed the making of business deals. “Between giving money away and enjoying his great-grandchildren and making deals, in a nutshell that was his life,” Stein said.
After the funeral service, interment was in Second Home Cemetery.
Zilber is survived by daughters Marcy (Michael) Jackson and Marilyn Zilber, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His son, James, died in 1997.
Memorial contributions should be sent to the Aurora VNA Zilber Family Hospice, 1155 Honey Creek Parkway, Wauwatosa, WI, 53213.
Formerly op-ed editor, Leon Cohen has written for The Chronicle for more than 25 years.
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