From the time he attended his first Council for Jewish Elderly meeting until his retirement as its president three decades later, David S. Sher remained enchanted by the agency.
He was introduced to it in 1976, while serving as president of the young leadership board of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago. The federation supports the council along with several other agencies that serve the Jewish community in Chicago and suburbs. Federation board members’ responsibilities include serving as liaison to one of those agencies. Mr. Sher chose the council.
“He became fascinated with the agency,” said his wife, Linda. “He had a real compassion and knack to be able to sit down and relate to the elderly and they to him. He started out going to a meeting and became more and more involved. Even up to a few months ago, he was on conference calls discussing how the agency could meet its growing need.”
Mr. Sher, 61, former owner of a Chicago realty firm, died of lung cancer Monday, Dec. 15, in his Chicago home.
After graduating from Evanston High School, Mr. Sher received a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Roosevelt University in 1966.
Intrigued by the practice of trading stocks, he became a client in 1970 of a brokerage firm that included his future wife as a broker trainee.
“We went to lunch and dinner together for eight weeks,” his wife said. They then married and settled in Chicago.
At the time, Mr. Sher was working for his family’s residential realty firm. To expand his realty experience, he left the firm and worked for several commercial Realtors before opening David S. Sher and Co. in Chicago.
He also became a friend with Jim Klutznick, a real estate developer whose children attended the same elementary school as Mr. Sher’s children.
With a deep voice, generous laugh and tall, stocky frame, Mr. Sher was a “big, teddy bear of a man,” said Klutznick. “He would growl sometimes, but those of us that knew him were never concerned. We knew he was jesting and a big smile would follow.”
After serving for three years as president of the Council for Jewish Elderly, he stepped down in 1996.
“David embraced the staff as their coach,” said Ron Weismehl, retired founding chief executive officer. “He had great skills at developing properties and was a whiz in finances, but his greatest skill was coaching the staff on problem solving and the needs of the community.
“He also was very knowledgeable on the workings of the Jewish community and had a great understanding of politics,” said Weismehl. “He used all of that to guide the organization from being small to being a very big organization.”
During his tenure, the agency, whose programs serve about 20,000 seniors, purchased a 154-unit apartment building for the elderly in Skokie, converted one floor of its nursing home into an Alzheimer’s unit and launched a pilot program with the state of Illinois to deliver in-home services to indigent clients.
Besides his wife, survivors include a son, Adam; a daughter, Jamie; his mother, Betty; a sister, Judy Balter; and a brother, Richard. Services will be held at 1 p.m. Wednesday in Anshe Emet Synagogue, 3760 N. Pine Grove Ave., Chicago.
