Leon Wildes, and his son the mayor, Michael Wildes of Englewood, N.J., at Yeshiva College dinner.
by Tim Boxer
Leon Wildes started life in the small mining town of Olyphant, in northeastern Pennsylvania. There were just a handful of Jewish families out of a population of 5,000. Wildes was the only Jew out of 100 in his high school graduating class. He was set to follow in the footsteps of his brother and cousins and enroll at St. Thomas Aquinas University in Scranton when the telephone rang and changed his direction. His uncle, Alter Sokolow, was calling from Brooklyn. He couldn’t believe that his young nephew Leon was going to a Jesuit university. “He suggested that I should go to Yeshiva College in Manhattan where I could get both a religious and secular education under one roof,” Wildes said. “We never knew
there was such an institution.” At Yeshiva College Wildes became part of an experimental group of 10 students of limited Jewish background. Ultimately four were ordained; the rest became doctors, dentists and lawyers. Wildes graduated magna cum laude in 1954, became a prominent immigration attorney, and is a professor at Benjamin Cardozo School of Law. He made headlines when he successfully represented John Lennon and Yoko Ono when President Nixon tried to have them deported. About 300 guests applauded as Yeshiva College honored Wildes at a gala dinner last month at Chelsea Piers. Mayor Michael Wildes of Englewood, N.J., and Rabbi Mark Wildes of the Manhattan Jewish experience were shepping nachas as their father reveled in the limelight. Yeshiva University President Richard Joel paid tribute also to Barbara and Michael Gamson, and to the memory of Dr. Bernard Gamson who had established a number of scholarship funds at Yeshiva College. Michael, a senior partner and group manager at Vitol, a multibillion-dollar oil trading company in Houston, is a strong supporter of YU, just like his father. He told how his father conquered prejudice and made a life. There were only three Jews out of 80 in his father’s science class at the University of Michigan. “I know there are some Jewish kids here,” the professor said. “I think you should study something else. Chemical companies don’t hire Jews.” Gamson persisted, keeping kosher, observing Shabbat and davening three times a day. It paid off. He earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering in 1939, and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1943. He built refineries and recycling facilities, and pioneered the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in oil well exploration. He retired as president of Martin Marietta Aluminum when he died in 2000.
Son Of A Gun Nina warned me that the photo caption in my Joey Bishop story was wrong (Oct. 26). But who listens to the wife? It took reader Frank Harary to open my eyes. The man in the photo was not Phil Silvers, who was hairless, but another pal of Joey’s, comedian Phil Foster, who had plenty of hair left. I learned a vital lesson — listen to your wife. (She has a sharper eye than I.)
Boldface Knowtables n UJA-Federation, Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine will honor hospital President Spencer Foreman at a reception on Nov. 18 in Scarsdale. n Paul Levine has succeeded Alan Siskind as executive vice president and chief executive officer of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, one of the country’s leading providers of mental health programs. n Tobie Brandriss, a biology teacher at SAR Academy in Riverdale, was one of 10 American high school science instructors selected to participate in the Schwartz International Leading Science Teachers Seminar in Israel. The program, which included teachers from the UK, Germany, Singapore and Canada, was held at the Davidson Institute of Science Education at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. N Doron Krakow, former senior vice president for United Jewish Communities (OJC) and former national director of Young Judaea, has been appointed executive vice president of the American Associates of Ben Gurion University. N Following a meeting of Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Education Ministry and seven universities, David Newman was named Israel’s academic representative in matters pertaining to the potential British academic boycott. Newman, a native of the UK, is a political geography professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
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