Polansky often took controversial positions, actions in Milwaukee

          If you were a reader of The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle in the 1960s through 1990s, you knew of Burton B. Polansky.

          This Milwaukee-native attorney — who died in Boynton Beach, Fla., on Feb. 1 of a heart attack at age 84 — was an active and often controversial member of Milwaukee’s Jewish and Israel-defending community. As such, he was in The Chronicle often.

          It wasn’t just that he held many leadership positions, though he did. He served as president of the Milwaukee District of the Zionist Organization of America, of the Coalition of Organizations Against Nazism and of the local Parents of North American Israelis.

          He also was a member of the Jewish War Veterans and the then Milwaukee Jewish Council (now the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation).

          Besides that, he performed publicly controversial actions — like helping to bring Rabbi Meir Kahane (1932-1990), who was denounced as an extremist by the mainstream Jewish community, to speak in Milwaukee; and Polansky defended him both in The Chronicle and the then-Milwaukee Journal.

          Polansky also wrote opinion articles and especially many letters to The Chronicle, blasting people he regarded as enemies of Israel and the Jewish people and defending the proposition that Israel should keep the territories it captured during the 1967 Six Day War.

          “It is my belief,” he wrote to The Chronicle in the issue of Oct. 14, 1983, “that if a survey were made of those persons and leaders truly concerned with the welfare, security and continued survival of the State of Israel, the general consensus would be that Israel needs to hold on to Judea, Samaria and the Gaza district as a prerequisite to its survival…”

          According to an email from his wife, Sheila (nee Busch), when a neo-Nazi group organized and became active in Milwaukee, Polansky “gave up two years of his law practice” to struggle against it, “all the while fighting the established Jewish community who not only did nothing but sabotaged the work of the different groups involved.”

          Kahane was not the only controversial person that Polansky admired — although Polansky also acknowledged that he did not agree with all Kahane’s positions.

          When Likud leader and future Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin came to Milwaukee for his first time in 1968, Polansky met him and got to know him.

          “He was a most gracious gentleman,” Polansky told The Chronicle at the time of Begin’s death in 1992. “I can’t say enough about what a wonderful person he was.”

          On the other hand, Polansky devoted a Chronicle opinion article in the issue of Oct. 28, 1994, to stating how he completely disagreed with then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s negotiations efforts.

          Yet when Rabin was murdered in 1995, Polansky told The Chronicle (Nov. 10, 1995) he did not celebrate as some of Rabin’s critics did. “Though we had a difference of opinion, murder is not the answer. I mourn his death,” he said.

          Polansky didn’t come to his positions from pure Zionist theory. As he said in letters many times, he had a daughter who lived with her husband and children in the territories, and so he had a personal stake in the issue.

          Polansky graduated from North Division High School in 1948 and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1952 He served in the U.S. Army for a time, then graduated from the UW-Madison Law School in 1956.

          He had his own private practice law firm, later joined by one of his three daughters.

          He was a member of Anshe Sfard Kehillat Torah and Congregation Agudas Achim Chabad in Milwaukee, and of a Chabad synagogue in Boyton Beach after his retirement.

          According to his family, he avidly played duplicate bridge — he was president of a club for the game in Florida — liked Civil War history, played the clarinet and enjoyed racquetball and paddleball.

          His daughter and law partner Cheryl P. Baraty died in 2014. In addition to his wife, he is survived by daughters Geela Spira and Laurel (Hezi) Kadouri; brother Ronald Polan; six grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

          Beth Israel Memorial Chapel in Boynton Beach handled arrangements. Rabbi Sholom Ciment officiated at the funeral on Feb. 3. Burial was in Eternal Light Memorial Gardens in Boynton Beach.

          The family suggests memorial contributions to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, 1430 Broadway, New York, NY, 10019.