Rabbi Joseph Katz, a well-known educator through his time as a teacher and work on various Baltimore college campuses doing outreach and coordination with Jewish student groups, died on June 3. He was 93.

Katz was known for his many years of mentorship across the community and a warm disposition across many decades of teaching and collaborating with the next generations.

Katz was born on March 20, 1932, in Guxhagen, a community in Hesse, Germany, as the only child of a shoe salesman and homemaker, according to a Goucher College Library archive.

Katz was raised in an Orthodox Jewish environment with his parents and grandmother and spent much of his time during his early years alone due to the segregation of Jewish families in his neighborhood.

Katz’s house was destroyed by the Nazis during Kristallnacht and his father was taken to the concentration camp Buchenwald, where he was held for four months, according to the archive.

After his father’s release, the family relocated to Kassel, Germany, where Katz attended school while his father worked in a factory.

Katz’s mother and aunt eventually emigrated to the U.S. while Katz and his father stayed behind for a year and a half before taking a boat and arriving in Brooklyn, New York, on Labor Day in 1941.

Katz attended Brooklyn College and got a degree in psychology. He was then ordained as a rabbi and attended Columbia University for graduate school, the archive said.

Katz met his wife, Mashe Katz, in Queens, and they got married in November 1957 before moving to Kingston, Pennsylvania, where Katz spent 24 years as a teacher and principal, according to the archive.

After leaving Pennsylvania, the Katz family moved to Annapolis, where Katz took on a job as a principal for a year, the start of his time in the Baltimore area.

Katz then spent five years on the board of Jewish Education and 17 years at Jewish College Services working at several local campuses including Goucher, Towson University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, according to the archive.

Katz also worked at Sinai Hospital and the Hillel of Greater Baltimore.

The rabbi’s long-lasting impact on the local community prompted an outpouring of support upon news of his death reaching residents, former students and colleagues.

“I worked with him for over 11 years at Hillel of Greater Baltimore. Rabbi Katz was a kind and gentle man with a great sense of humor. I cared about him very much. I always enjoyed our conversations and especially valued the opportunities I had to learn Torah with him,” wrote Gerri Baum, a Baltimore area resident, on the website of the Sol Levinson funeral home.

Katz was also known for his continued engagement with his faith at Bnai Jacob Shaarei Zion Congregation.

“He so loved the shul, Bnai Jacob. And he so loved Rabbi Rose and Rabbi Hauer,” Zev Katz, Joesph Katz’s son, said at his funeral.

Zev Katz said that the family recognized the long time they got to spend with Joseph Katz and the multiple generations that got to meet him as a gift, and that the great-grandchildren don’t just know the memory of Joseph Katz, they know the person he was.

Rabbi Daniel Rose, the rabbi at Bnai Jacob, spoke at the funeral about the legacy that Katz left behind and the example for others to follow.

“All of us here can say about Rabbi Katz, we stood under his tallis. We saw a man from a different world, a world of the Mir Yeshiva, a world of Yiddish in America that was so different than so many of us here grew up with. But Rabbi Katz, we stood under your tallis. We saw what you did. We saw how you lived. We saw what was important. We saw what was not important. And we try and we will try to do what you did, to live like you lived, to value what you value,” said Rose.

Katz is survived by his wife of almost 68 years, Mashe Katz (nee Anemer); four children, Zev (Esther) Katz, Shany (Joel) Hecht, Chaim (Peshi) Katz and Mordechai (Chana Sorah) Katz; and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

bhamelin@midatlanticmedia.com