Simcha Katz would rather be learning

Simcha Katz was planning on spending his twilight years immersed in the reedy commentaries of the Talmud when Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the Orthodox Union, called him. It was 2005, and Katz had retired from his position as a professor in the City University of New York.

Rabbi Genack wanted him to be the head of the Kashruth division of the OU, the arm of the organization primarily responsible for funding all of its activities. Katz asked what would happen to his learning. Rabbi Genack had an answer.

“He told me the Torah world will survive,” Katz said with a laugh.

After serving as the head of the Kashruth division for the past five years, Katz was elected as the president of the Orthodox Union on Jan. 16. He replaced Stephen Savitsky who completed his two-year term.

Katz was born in a Displaced Persons Camp in 1945 in Europe. His parents eventually made it to Boston where Katz’s father worked in a factory cutting and knitting coats. It was piece work so Katz was used to his father bringing work home over the weekends and going into the factory.

“I went on Sundays to help him,” Katz recalled. “It was a struggle but we never felt poor.”

Eventually, Katz’s parents saved up enough to be comfortable and invest in real-estate. Katz attended Maimonidies High School in Boston and then went to Yeshiva Univeristy where he received smicha and then a Ph.D. in business from City University. He met his wife, Pesh Flom, through a friend, Stephen Dworkin.

“She was smarter than I and decided to marry me right away,” Katz said.

After a brief stint at Bell Laboratories, Katz was offered a teaching position at the City University in 1972.

“I realized I didn’t want to work for a living,” Katz joked.

During the 30 years he taught, Katz was also involved in a number of successful business endeavors, including launching a construction company in Israel and a bio-technology company, Ortec, that he took public in 1996. He began volunteering three days a week developing business strategies at the Orthodox Union’s Kashruth Division.

“I leave the halacha to the rabbis, but the structure which makes for the most effective delivery is something I can be very helpful with,” he said.