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April 19, 2002
Morris Wosk’s extended family
The man they called M.J. loved life and loved to make people happy.
KYLE BERGER REPORTER
Anyone close to the late Morris J. Wosk will tell you how much
the love of his family meant to the husband and father of three
sons and a daughter. And, while his immediate family gathered to
mourn the loss of their father and grandfather at the Schara Tzedeck
cemetery April 10, another group was there to mourn as well –
an overwhelmingly large extended “family” who began their
own period of grieving for the beloved community leader.
In the more than 70 years that Wosk lived Vancouver, he reached
out to a large number of organizations and individuals in a kind-hearted
way that left many considering him a close personal friend.
“I could say I loved Morris,” said Gerry Zipursky, executive
director of the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCC).
Zipursky had known Wosk since the former had been the program director
of the centre 32 years ago.
“When I was a 21-year-old, I looked up to this man because
he had this great smile, a sense of humor and this warmth of wanting
to give,” said Zipursky.
In his 18 years at the helm of the JCC, Zipursky interacted frequently
with Wosk, the man whose family name is displayed above the main
entrance to the centre’s auditorium, in recognition of a generous
donation.
“He was approached by everyone in the community and he never
made you feel like he didn’t have the time to spend or consider
supporting you,” said Zipursky. “He would say, ‘OK.
If it’s got to be done, it’s done.’ And that’s
a very special way of giving.”
Wosk started his life in Vancouver as a man in need himself. Born
in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1917, Wosk and his family came to Halifax
in 1928 with little more than the clothes on their backs. The Hebrew
Immigrant Aid Society gave them some food, then sent them on a train
to Vancouver where a cousin lived.
His business began when he and his father, Joseph, joined Morris’s
older brother, Ben, in a father-and-son operation in which they
collected secondhand goods, fixed them up and re-sold them for a
small profit.
The family rented a storefront in Downtown Vancouver, which they
eventually developed into the now well-known 12-store furniture
chain, Wosk’s.
Since then, Wosk, who always preferred to be called M.J. rather
than Mr. Wosk, has been known more for his generosity than his business
success.
No better salesperson
One of the first organizations Wosk involved himself in was one
to which he would end up dedicating a lot of his own personal time
for many years.
“I think Bonds was his prime organization of support,”
said State of Israel Bonds executive director Geoffrey Druker. “He
has worked with Israel Bonds since it first came to Vancouver 50
years ago.”
Wosk, who served as the national vice-president of State of Israel
Bonds until the day he died, had been honored several times by the
organization. He performed many “double mitzvot,” as the
organization likes to call them, by making donations to various
organizations with gifts of Israel Bonds.
According to Druker, no one was a better salesperson for Bonds than
Wosk.
“He promoted the million dollar notes like no one else,”
said Druker. “He was the champion of Bonds.”
Wosk was the honorary chairman for the State of Israel Bonds’
50th anniversary event last November.
Ran Bagg, the Israel emissary for the Jewish National Fund, Pacific
Region, who lived in the same building as Wosk, said the legendary
philanthropist was one of his organization’s biggest supporters
because he believed in the importance of contributing to Israel.
“First of all he was a very good friend who we went to from
time to time just to get ideas or suggestions,” Bagg explained
of his relationship with Wosk. “I know that every time I asked
to come see him he agreed immediately. He always wanted to know
how the JNF was doing and he was very worried about the situation
in Israel.”
Wosk’s enthusiasm for the JNF was carried forward by the second
generation within his family. Last Sunday, Wosk’s son, Rabbi
Yosef Wosk, was honored by the organization at their annual Negev
Dinner for his own contributions to the JNF.
He made people happy
Another institution, among the many with which Wosk had a deep-rooted
history, was Simon Fraser University.
He was a major contributor to the establishment of the school’s
Harbor Centre Campus and, more recently, donated more than three
million dollars for the construction of the Morris J. Wosk Centre
for Dialogue on Hastings Street.
Jack Blaney, who was Simon Fraser University’s president at
the time the Centre for Dialogue was built, called Wosk a genius
who had the capacity to think big and “dream the big dream.”
“He could see the big picture and make the connections better
than a lot of people,” Blaney explained. “He had an enormous
capacity to play with ideas. He was very childlike in many ways.”
Blaney said that in some cases, Wosk was impulsive when it came
to giving because he loved to make people happy that way.
“‘When he gave his first gift to the Centre for Dialogue
it was for $2.5 million dollars,” Blaney said, recounting one
of his memories of Wosk. “One evening, when we were having
a President’s Club dinner, he was sitting at my table and was
in a good, jolly mood. He approached me and said, ‘Dr. Blaney,
I think I’ve got something to tell you. We’re going to
give you an extra $500,000 for the Centre for Dialogue.’
"That was on the spur of the moment,” Blaney continued.
“That’s the kind of person he was. He had an enormous
gift to please people.”
It has been estimated that, in total, Wosk donated more than $50
million in his lifetime to charitable organizations.
As many of Wosk’s acquaintances will attest, he was a proud
member of the Jewish community. Jewish organizations in Greater
Vancouver and Israel were significant benefactors of Wosk’s
generosity. Among them were Vancouver Talmud Torah, the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, Boys Town Jerusalem, the Simon Weisenthal Centre,
the Museum of Tolerance, Ben-Gurion University and the United Israel
Appeal of Canada.
But Wosk also contributed to associations that were not directly
connected to the Jewish community, such as the University of British
Columbia, the Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver General Hospital,
the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the Variety Club of British Columbia,
UNICEF and the United Way. According to Blaney, there are a lot
of other individuals who Wosk helped when they were in need that
no one may ever know about.
“I would say the majority of his philanthropy was never recognized,”
Blaney said. “He just had that love of life.”
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