Lewis Katz Remembered in Camden, Jersey

Businessman never forgot his roots.

His public memorial may be in Philadelphia today, but Lew Katz is being remembered as a son of Camden and New Jersey, the Courier-Post reports.

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“But Katz also was a man of distinction socially. He and his wife were once featured in a 1974 Courier-Post lifestyle story about how they spent their off hours entertaining, she in Anne Klein fashions, he in a safari-style leisure suit.” Photo: Courtesy the Courier-Post.

Katz’s legacy looms large in the city. He helped found the Boys & Girls Club in Parkside, just down the street from Camden High, where he graduated in 1959. It has a clubhouse named for Katz and his wife, Marjorie, who died in December.

“He’s the reason the Boys & Girls Club of Camden County exists,” said former judge M. Allen Vogelson, who knew Katz from the time they were in high school.

Also part of Katz’s legacy — and his birthright — were Jewish Community Centers in Cherry Hill and Margate named for his parents and the establishment of a Hebrew school in Voorhees.

 Read the whole thing for an account of Katz’s Jersey works, and some pretty amazing file photos of Katz in his youth.