by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

July 31, 2008

June Walker, chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and former national president of Hadassah, died Tuesday at the age of 74.

The Rockaway resident battled cancer for the past seven years.

As the second woman ever elected to head the Presidents’ Conference (Shoshana Cardin was the first), Walker was hailed by its executive vice chair, Malcolm Hoenlein, for “her integrity, her intelligence, and the sincerity of her advocacy.”

“Leaders of the United States and Israel held her in high regard and respected the person even more than the positions she held,” said Hoenlein. “They, as we, recognized immediately her integrity, her intelligence, and the sincerity of her advocacy. I am personally, as is the conference collectively, devastated by her passing.”

Prior to chairing the conference, Walker served for four years as national president of Hadassah and before that as the Zionist women’s organization’s treasurer.

During those years, Marsha Atkind of Roseland, manager of philanthropic initiatives at the Jewish Community Foundation of MetroWest NJ, was national president of National Council of Jewish Women.

“We worked and traveled to Israel together,” Atkind said. “I was so happy when she was elected to head the conference. She was wonderful in that position.”

“June personified values that Hadassah stands for: pride, dedication, and spirit enhanced by her own personal grit,” said Nancy Falchuk, the woman who succeeded Walker as the organization’s president.

Walker spoke to NJ Jewish News in April 2007 shortly after being nominated as conference chair.

“As a woman and lifetime activist, I bring to the table a pragmatic view of the world,” she said. “I look to the end product and the way to achieve it. Rather than look at what divides us, I look for what unites us.”

In addition to being a strong supporter of Israel, Walker was a firm advocate of women’s reproductive rights, federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and strict separation of church and state.

But as head of the Presidents’ Conference, which took no positions on domestic political issues, Walker committed herself to being a consensus builder among its 50 member organizations, which represent a broad political spectrum of Jewish and Zionist ideology.

Walker was an active congregant of Congregation Beth Hatikvah, the Reconstructionist synagogue in Summit.

She was remembered fondly by its president, Jay Weiner of Chatham.

“She was a valued member and almost like your grandmother,” he said. “You felt very comfortable talking to her and listening to her. She brought a good sense of the whole Jewish community — here and in Israel.”

“June loved the environment of our community. I have warm memories of a person with whom I could have an intelligent, rich conversation,” recalled her rabbi, Amy Small, who recently accompanied Walker when she was honored in Israel by the University of Haifa.

Bob Max, a Summit resident who helped found the congregation, remembers Walker “as the most unaffected person I ever met in Jewish leadership. She never seemed to see herself as something she really was — an outstanding leader.”

Jill Tekel, a West Orange Realtor and former associate of the Community Relations Council of the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ, was a friend of Walker’s for more than 30 years.

Tekel and Walker recently attended Hadassah’s national conference in Los Angeles, where Tekel was struck by her friend’s strength and perseverance.

“She got on a plane to LA. She was in a wheelchair. She told me the cancer was so bad she could not stand up. But she walked on that stage and walked off that stage, and she had like zero strength, I’ve never seen anything like it,” Tekel said.

Walker presided over a farewell reception for outgoing Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman on July 21. Two days later she chaired a meeting of the Presidents’ Conference.

By profession, Walker was a respiratory therapist who taught at Passaic County Community College.

She is survived by her husband, Barrett, three children, and six grandchildren.

Funeral services were to be held July 31 at Beth Hatikvah, followed by burial at Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge.

Donations in her honor may be made to the June Walker Education Building at Hadassah’s Meir Shfeyah Youth Village or Congregation Beth Hatikvah.

JTA contributed to this report.

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