If you are the kind of person who reads all the way through Your Daily Phil’s birthday announcements — our favorite kind of reader — you may have noticed the name Walter Levy. 

Turning 103 years old on Monday, Levy appears to be eJewishPhilanthropy’s oldest regular reader (please correct us if you know of another). He’s also a German-born Holocaust survivor, social worker, father and former Jewish communal professional, acting as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas for several years in the 1970s, including during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the American Jewish community was again rapidly mobilized after a surprise invasion devastated Israel. 

Though a pair of heart attacks forced him to step back from his leadership role in the local Jewish community, focusing instead on his private social work practice. Yet he has remained deeply involved in the Jewish world, particularly in Texas.

When Levy contacted eJP about including his birthday in our newsletter, we were happy to oblige, but we also wanted to hear more. eJP spoke with Levy on Sunday, the day before his birthday, about his life’s work, how he sees the Jewish community’s current state of affairs and his excellent taste in news outlets. 

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Nira Dayanim: What are you doing for your birthday this year?

Walter Levy: My birthday celebrations began in late May, and they will end in late June. The actual birthday is tomorrow.

ND: So a whole birthday month, then!

WL: That’s correct. It’s with my family. It is in the retirement facility in which I live. It’s with friends, it’s in restaurants, it’s by telephone, it’s by email. I’ve been quite busy.

ND: Can you share with me a little bit more about yourself and your journey into the Jewish communal work? What inspired you to take that path?

WL: I’m a Holocaust survivor and that inspired me to help others. So what I did in the social work specialty of community development was leadership development, fundraising, budgeting, consultation. I started off, really, as administrative assistant here in Dallas in the 1950s. I left and there were other communities, and I worked for what was then the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds — now the Jewish Federations of North America — as a consultant. And then Dallas wanted me back, and we came back. 

During the 1970s, I was the executive director of the federation. I had an interesting but also a very rough time, because during my tenure was the Yom Kippur War, the federation had a fire and burned up, my father died, and I had a heart attack, so that caused my departure. Then I changed specialties in social work and developed a private practice of social work with the elderly— gerontological social work. I have been a published author and professional journalist in various aspects of social services. I had four daughters. My wife and two of my daughters have passed away. I am the oldest person in my family. No one has ever reached my age. The oldest person who passed away was my father, who died at age 82 all the others passed away at a younger age, grandparents and so forth. 

ND: Why did you decide to study social work?

WL: During my work teaching, and later on, I began to have more contacts with the social work profession and with colleagues who were social workers. I was in educational and vocational counseling and had more contacts with social workers. And most importantly, my wife was a social worker. 

So I became more interested and thought that I could be more helpful. I went back to get a masters in social work. One of my main responsibilities since that time was helping immigrants who were coming from concentration and displaced persons camps in Germany, and returning veterans from the war and the handicapped. Those three areas were my primary concentration at the time. When I had to leave the federation, really, because of heart attacks, two of them, I decided to open a private practice and do social work with the elderly. And I did that for several years, until I retired completely.

ND: Can you tell me a little bit more about your time as executive director of the federation? You mentioned you worked during the Yom Kippur War — I’m wondering what other global events impacted your time in the Jewish communal profession?

WL: We had to mobilize the community for public relation purposes and fundraising. We raised very high level campaigns. Everything was second of importance except the mobilization of the community to make sure that we could raise maximum funds, which we did, and also the interpretation to the community at large of what this was all about. So it was a very trying time, but successful, and I had good leadership in the community and federation was really mobilized. We had other things to do, but they were of second degree importance. The primary purpose, the primary work, was to raise maximum funds for Israel for the Yom Kippur War.

ND: What challenges were dominant for the Jewish community when you started, and how do they compare to the challenges we see today?

WL: I cannot talk too much about other communities, but when I arrived, Dallas was a relatively new community. The Reform element was primary in the building, the continuation and the fundraising of the community. The Dallas Jewish community was our Jewish Federation, which was founded in 1911 or 1912. Until 1954 every president of the federation came from the Reform community. The first president from the Conservative movement was in 1954. So for some 50 years, the leadership of this community was on the Reform side. This has changed. The Conservative element has become much more active, has been giving much more money, and there is a much more cohesive community. The Orthodox are beginning to be involved, but still are not a major element in terms of social services. 

The other thing that has changed here is that, because of the Reform leadership that I talked about, the Dallas Federation did not support Jewish education. There was a Jewish day school here, but they went out of existence before I ever came in. Dallas did not support Jewish education until about the late 1950s when a Jewish Day School was accepted, with great difficulty, as a beneficiary of the federation. Today, the Dallas Jewish Federation supports six Jewish schools.

ND: What do you think that today’s funders could learn from earlier generations of Jewish philanthropists? 

WL: I just attended last week the annual meeting of the Dallas Jewish Federation. This is a completely different leadership than what I experienced. There is much commitment also, but they think differently. They are younger people, and we have to be mindful that they are the builders of the community now. It’s a different situation, because it’s a different time. People see things a bit differently, and also the needs may be different. For example, we no longer need [to build] a home for the aging. We no longer need [to build] a Jewish Community Center. Because we made homes for the aging, and we have built a Jewish Community Center. 

Now there are new needs. At this time, we are concerned about the physically and mentally impaired. We are concerned about antisemitism. We are concerned about Israel. And these are different needs requiring different emphasis on the problems. I remember when Jewish Family Service consisted of two professionals, and there’s now a very large agency which is building a new home for itself in a suburb of Dallas, with a very large staff. And I am a member of a committee that looks after the needs of Holocaust survivors in Dallas.

ND: Do you have any advice you’d like to share with emerging Jewish professionals?

WL: There are opportunities in Jewish communal work, and there’s a shortage of professionals. Dallas created a foundation in the 1970s as a one person operation, and now we have a thriving, multi-employee foundation that has become a major force in this community, not in competition with federation, but they work closely together. In some communities, as in Dallas, the foundation is a separate corporation. In other communities, there are foundations which are departments of federation, and they have been a major force in bringing forth additional funding of all kinds of preferences and needs, which the federation may or may not fund. So the development of foundations is a major thing that happened in the country. Communities change, and not every community is alike. 

Needs for the aging is a major avenue that federations are involved in, and that is not only in retirement homes, as Dallas has two of them, but in terms of their needs: living at home, medical, Nutrition, financial, people needing help, and we have now a dwindling number of Holocaust survivors. They’re dying out but still they need help. And I am involved with this on a committee with Jewish Family Service. These are some of the changes that I see. 

ND: What gives you hope for the future of Jewish communal life and leadership?

WL: Well, I’m not a prophet. I can talk mainly about my own community, which is growing. I tend to see a rather positive growth, both numerically and in terms of attitude with Jewish community. Of course, we have problems. Of course we have disagreements, but I think that there is a willingness to come together and compromise for the good of the community. So my attitude for the future is rather positive, despite the current antisemitic situation that we are confronted with. 

ND: Why do you read eJewishPhilanthropy?

WL: I have been in Jewish communal work for some 50 years, and I’m still interested. I don’t necessarily read every paragraph, but I’m still interested in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and in your newsletter. And I still have friends in the Jewish community. I still go to some meetings that interest me, which may or may not be within the Jewish community, but I’m fortunate that despite my health problems, I’m still quite active, socially and intellectually.