"Over the years, Mel built the Milwaukee Jewish Federation as a training ground for Jewish professionals who went all over the Jewish world and became leaders and servants of the Jewish people in their own right," wrote Rabbi Irving "Yitz" Greenberg in the introduction to Zaret’s 2006 book, "Community, Heritage, Legacy: In Pursuit of Progress: Selected Speeches, Papers, Essays."
"Mel always looked for ways to help and connect and did not seek the honors to be upfront but rather to get the job done and to enable the best in others…. He advised Jewish communities in Brazil and Belgium and Europe and Israel. He offered them help and made connections. In many cases those communities sent people to train in Milwaukee in order to improve their skills and their ability to work at home. Thus this quiet but skilled leader continued to be a source of blessing for his profession, for his community, for the world of federations, and for Jewish communities."
Federation executive vice president Richard H. Meyer wrote about Mel, "In terms of leadership, vision, passion and commitment to Jewish federation work, Mel was quite simply in a class by himself. He was motivated by a single-minded dedication to human welfare and to relieving human suffering."
Before his death, Zaret spoke of witnessing “the blazing rebirth of a worldwide Jewish spirit” and of his vision “of a Jewish community bound together by a common past that sustains the present and will secure the future.”
Funeral services will be held Wednesday, June 2, 1 p.m., at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun. Burial will be in Spring Hill Cemetery.
The family has requested that memorial contributions in Mel’s memory be made to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Melvin S. Zaret Endowment for Professional and Volunteer Leadership Development.
Read a full obituary in the July Chronicle.
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