Joe Smukler '49

Joseph "Joe" Smukler '49, on July 13, 2012, of heart failure. The Philadelphia man was eighty-four.

Joe was an economics major. He played football and tennis and joined the Middle Kenyon Association. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1952 and from Oxford University in 1955. He served in the U.S. Army Air Forces as a lieutenant during World War II.

Joe became a senior partner at the Fox Rothschild law firm, where he was chairman of the personal injury group.

He was described as a "Philadelphia legend" by the Jewish Exponent. He was a community activist and philanthropist who, with his wife, Constance, devoted time, effort, and resources to free Jewish people from the U.S.S.R. "The entire Jewish world is grateful," said D. Walter Cohen at Joe's funeral. The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, called Joe "a gift and a blessing to the Jewish community of Philadelphia, in America, in Israel, and beyond."

Joe and his wife had visited Israel more than fifty times and on one visit,in 1973, met a Jewish family that had fled the Soviet Union and described the plight of other Jews who were not allowed to leave, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Joe was a co-chair of the Soviet Jewry Council of Philadelphia and vice chair of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. The couple staged rallies and vigils and lobbied lawmakers to find ways to prod the Soviet Union to open Jewish emigration. They befriended prominent Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, who had been imprisoned in the U.S.S.R. In a statement read at Joe's funeral, Sharansky described meeting the Smuklers in 1975 in Moscow. They were, he said, "the embodiment of exactly what we needed to see from American Jews." Joe was eventually called a spy by the Soviet press and was, for a time, banned from the country.

Joe was a past chairman of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, past vice president of the National Museum of American Jewish History, and founding board member of the Philadelphia Holocaust Remembrance Foundation. He had been the president of Family Service of the Main Line and of the Jewish Campus Activities Board (Hillel). He also served on the board of the United Way of Greater Philadelphia.

He wrote poetry, played tennis, and was, the Jewish Exponent said, an "all-around mensch." He was fond of quoting Shakespeare and Chaucer. Joseph was survived by his wife; sons Andrew and Kenneth Smukler; daughter, Cindy Dorani; and nine grandchildren. Gifts in his name may be sent to the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, 2100 Arch St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19103, or the National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 S. Independence Mall East, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19106.