Wolfe was ‘a powerful force for good’
TORONTO• Rose Wolfe, a former chancellor of the University of Toronto and a lifelong champion of humanitarian and Jewish causes, died Friday. She was 100 years old.
Wolfe was laid to rest Monday at the Beth Tzedec Memorial Park in Toronto, the city where she was born and spent the bulk of her life. She was remembered by friends, colleagues and her children as a tireless advocate for social justice issues, and a patron of the arts and of Jewish scholarship.
“(She) was a remarkable person and a powerful force for good,” Robert Prichard, the former president of the University of Toronto, said in an email.
“She lived a life that had people see her and her virtues as something to aspire and to emulate” added Shimon Fogel, the chief executive officer at the Centre for Israeli and Jewish Affairs. “So I think she really does represent a very significant loss.”
Wolfe was born Rose Senderowitz on Aug. 7, 1916. She was the daughter of Clara and Morris Senderowitz, Romanian immigrants who operated a bakery in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
The couple put all four of their daughters through the University of Toronto during the Great Depression. “We never knew how they did it,” Wolfe once told the University of Toronto’s in-house newsletter. For Wolfe, it was the beginning of a lifelong attachment to the school.
At one point, Wolfe dreamt of becoming a doctor. But she told the Toronto Star in 1996 that she didn’t think she had the grades for it. Instead, she studied sociology. She graduated in 1940, the same year she married a budding grocery supply mogul named Ray Wolfe.
After the Second World War, Wolfe worked for Jewish Family and Child Services placing war orphans in Canadian homes. It was perhaps the defining experience of her life, said her daughter, Elizabeth Wolfe. “She became intimately involved in their stories, and incredibly moved by their tragedies,” she said.
After the war, the Wolfes became passionate supporters of and frequent visitors to Israel. “Their first trip was in 1959,” said Elizabeth Wolfe. “And some of their closest friends and personal relationships were with people they met in Israel.
Wolfe had two children, Elizabeth, and a son, Jonathan. Her husband, who for years ran the lucrative Oshawa Group, died relatively young, in 1990. Afterward, Wolfe, always active in philanthropy, redoubled her efforts in that field.
“I had a couple of very personal conversations with her about her deciding to take on a much stronger role after Ray passed away,” said Bob Rae, the former Ontario premier and a longtime friend. “She just had a way of looking at you with a real sort of steely and sparkling look in her eyes.” She told him: “’I just decided I was going to play a stronger role myself.’ And she did.”
In 1991, Wolfe was appointed chancellor at the U of T. “She made the university better in multiple ways including inspiring the development and endowment of the Jewish Studies program,” said Prichard. Wolfe led the fundraising drive that enabled the creation of the Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair in Jewish Studies. Later, she created her own endowment, for the Rose and Ray Wolfe Chair in Holocaust Studies.
“She touched students, faculty, staff and graduates alike with her wonderfully generous character and her generosity of spirit,” Prichard said. When she stepped down, in 1997, Prichard described her as “the perfect chancellor.”
In her later years, Wolfe remained active in philanthropy and the arts, said Elizabeth Wolfe. She had a passion for opera and the ballet. Well into her 101st year, she was a member of four different book clubs. Just weeks ago, she told her daughter she was still hoping she’d have the chance to read the new novel by Michael Chabon.
Wolfe died last Friday of, among other things, pneumonia. “Her doctor said she outlived her body,” said Elizabeth.
“I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of emails and phone calls and comments from people of all ages and all walks of life who have just remarked on what a remarkable person she was,” Elizabeth Wolfe said.