‘Wisches Do Come True’

By Deb Silverthorn

As the storytellers of the community, the late Rene and Jimmy Wisch, Texas Jewish Post co-founders, and their progeny will be honored by the Dallas Jewish Historical Society at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 12, at Venue Forty|50. “Wisches Do Come True” is the theme of the event honoring the TJP and the family behind it.

“For nearly 78 years the Texas Jewish Post has told the stories of our lives, and we are all connected through its pages,” said Beri Schwitzer, DJHS’ executive director. “At the Dallas Jewish Historical Society we are the keepers of those connections, preserving our history, so this celebration is a perfect match.”

DJHS will turn the page on its own new chapter. The evening will launch the DJHS’ new branding, its website updates, strategizing engagement and more. “We are the digital docents of our community,” said Schwitzer, “always engaging and involving as many of our residents and entities as possible.”

Longtime family friends Neil Beckerman, Heidi Beckerman Kirby and Becca Bodzy are the evening’s co-chairs.

“When our family moved to Fort Worth, I was in high school, and I remember the Wisch family taking us under their wing,” said Beckerman. “We spent holidays at their home and introductions were made for us by these giants of the community who became our dear friends.

“Jimmy and Rene reported the news that became our history and it makes perfect sense to recognize the people behind it,” added Beckerman. “What they have all done, in creating and continuing the TJP, which is legendary, absolutely deserves our honor.”

Lauri Prengler is the event’s sponsor chair and Jeri Finkelstein is the dinner chair of the evening, which will be catered by Simcha Kosher Catering and Event Design. The Texas-themed evening will feature a raffle of items that include a George Tobolowsky original titled “Capturing a Moment in History,” a Texas Chic cocktail buffet, entertainer Sara Hickman and a video tribute to the people and history that are the TJP.

“It’s always been a big deal to be ‘in’ the TJP. I remember seeing our wedding engagement announcement. It was a thrill,” said Jeanette Pincus, DJHS board president. “From the days when the paper began in their apartment, through five generations of family dedication, the Wisches have made their paper everyone’s paper, reporting from every corner of our community.”

Their upbringings helped shaped the visionaries and community leaders they became. They were first-generation Americans, Rene from Boston and Jimmy from Brooklyn, New York. Both of their fathers passed away when they were young and they were raised by single mothers.

They met while Jimmy was serving in the Army at a Jewish Welfare Board party. They married in March 1946 and returned to Fort Worth, where Jimmy, his brother and mother moved in the 1930s.

Coming from small families, each with only one sibling, the Wisches felt compelled to start a large family, one that spanned almost 18 years between their oldest and youngest child: Linda, Steve, Judy, Susan and Sharon. The family has grown to include Linda’s children Amy Doty, Reuben (Suzy) Davidsohn, Jordana (Josh) Bernstein and Ethan (Liz) Davidsohn and Linda’s grandchildren Shea and Jessie Doty, Tessa, Josephine and Isabella Davidsohn, Rosie (Avi) Greenbaum, Zach, Micah and Shaya Bernstein and Fiona and Delilah Davidsohn; Steve Wisch (Fern Bryan) and his son Ari; Judy Wisch and her son Jacob; Susan Wisch; and Sharon Wisch-Ray (Alex) and their children Benjamin (Ashley), Sam and Jimmy.

The TJP was born of its founders’ respect for the plight that was the Holocaust and understanding that the Jewish community should support and care for one another. Jewish culture and life rich at home and their dedication as devout Zionists brought the vision that Rene and Jimmy Wisch believed the world needed.

Through wartime, trips covering Jews around the world, the pandemic, lifecycle events and  medical  crises, the TJP has never missed its deadline.

When Jimmy passed away unexpectedly early on Saturday, Jan. 26, 2002, and then Rene on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010, the paper’s deadline was made. There is no stopping the news.

“My parents started the paper as one of three businesses they were working on, but they believed that the TJP was the most important one. Through the years, we all worked at the paper from the time we were young; it wasn’t an option,” said Sharon, who has carried on the paper as its publisher and editor since her mother passed away.

“We all did a little bit of everything and, as different needs arose, they would be filled,” said Sharon, who had a career as a clinical social worker and social work adjunct professor at The University of Texas at Arlington. She pivoted to the paper full-time the week her father passed away.

Jimmy’s “Jess Jawin’” and Rene’s “Around the Town with Rene” were among their many handprints on tens of thousands of pages printed through the years. Columns, occasional articles, the perennial New Year’s greetings have all had the Wisch family touch.

“The job was always to get the next issue out,” Sharon said, “and since Oct. 7 that also means our daily ‘Israel at War’ and other updates by email. Our print product is local-focused. The daily email allows us to bring timely news of Israel and our Jewish world. For people who prefer to read the TJP on their device, they can receive the digital edition, an exact replica of the print edition, to their email every Thursday.

“There are still so many opportunities for growth and we appreciate the community as it grows with us,” said Sharon. “Every advertiser matters, every subscriber matters and we hope that our readers will order the paper for their family members. It’s a nice way for something Jewish to arrive in the home each week and that Mom and Dad’s legacy continues.

“It is an honor to be recognized by the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, with whom our mission is so aligned,” said Sharon. “The DJHS also houses a complete collection of the TJP from 1947 on in their vault.”

“The TJP was my parents’ firstborn and my bedtime ‘lullabies’ were of Mom’s fingers flying across the typewriter or the addressograph,” said Linda Wisch Davidsohn, who, after “Clare,” Mildred Moore, retired, was the pen behind “Dallas Doings” for decades. While in junior high, she was the “Lin” half of “Around the Town by linric,” written with the late Richard Slatkin.

“I was maybe 5 when my folks put me on the bus in Fort Worth and my Uncle Chet would meet me at the Dallas Greyhound station. The first stop was always lunch at Neiman’s or the Adolphus. I could already read and write, and I’d sit at a desk and make New Year greeting calls,” she said. “I rarely got turned down. It was wonderful through the years, meeting people at events that I’d spoken to on the phone, and I’d remember their address or part of whatever greeting they’d ordered.”

“Uncle Chet” was Jimmy’s brother Chester. He and Jimmy’s mother Betty, “Nana” to the children, are remembered as pinnacles of the TJP’s inner workings. They moved to Dallas and opened the TJP office there. Meals with Chet, Betty, Rene and Jimmy meant Yiddish filled the kitchen table when they talked business.

“‘This is Betty from the Texas Jewish Post. Top of the morning to you. How would it be if we ran the same as you did last time?’ we’d hear her saying, over and over again on the phone,” Linda recalls. “She and my uncle were such a significant part of the paper’s foundation. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Hard work, a theme that runs through the family’s memories, is something that started at the top.

“Mom would be up front where there was air-conditioning but my dad would be in the back where it was like 600 degrees. There was no ‘later’; it’s a business of deadlines,” said Linda, who later became a nurse. “He believed in second chances and among his employees were former felons. I don’t remember Dad ever firing anyone. A number of employees stayed on 20 and 30 years.”

The late Eli Davidsohn, Linda’s former husband, who worked on the layout and production of the paper and sold advertising worked at the TJP for many years. Ashley, Sharon’s daughter-in-law, is assistant vice-president of business development and marketing.

Founded four years before he was born, the TJP has been around for all of Steve Wisch’s life.

“I was licking stamps as a little one and sold subscriptions and ads, like we all did from a very young age,” said Steve. “I had my first tax return at 5 and the money went into a bank account.

“My dad would take the paper’s outlines to the printing plant each week. There was a time when they’d tell him to come back later. As he was leaving one time, he heard laughter and realized they were making antisemitic jokes at his expense,” he said. “He went home, spent a couple of thousand dollars and bought his own equipment. He wasn’t going to be laughed at.”

Steve, who later wrote for the Associated Press, the Austin American-Statesman, the Fort Worth Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Observer before becoming an attorney, indeed had a byline for the Texas Jewish Post. He chronicled a 16-day trip to Israel in 1974, during which he secured an interview with the late Menachem Begin three years before he was prime minister. In 1976, he covered the Republican National Convention and he wrote an article after Adlene Harrison became Dallas’ first Jewish, and female, mayor.

Jimmy Wisch had reason and purpose behind everything he did, explained his son.

“I never said ‘no’ to my parents. They had a method and it worked,” said Steve. “Now, my baby sister is running things while being a mother, a wife — all of it — and she’s doing a great job.”

Judy Wisch remembers her father handing her and her siblings the lists of contacts to make annual New Year’s greeting calls when the paper was still put together with a linotype machine, printing press and folding machine. After the paper was mailed on Thursday, Judy would sort the leads and slugs and it would begin again each Monday.

“The family work ethic is a real thing. My folks would always be late to pick us up but then it was always back to the office,” she said. “They never thought of it as work.

“I worked for the paper after college and in between career moves, doing layout, graphics and selling advertising. I’ve always been there to support the TJP and lend a hand whenever needed.”

If a “picture is worth a thousand words,” then Judy Wisch is responsible for so many through the years. The TJP published her photos of many including Golda Meir, Shimon Perez, Yitzhak Rabin, Dolph Briscoe and Ann Richards as well as former President Jimmy Carter.

From leads and slugs, the paper has moved to new technology as it heads into its 79th year.

“Dad was over the moon when we got our first fax machine and he’d be amazed at the technology that happens around the paper today,” said Judy. “Mom and Dad would be so proud of Sharon. It’s a lot and she carries it.”

Susan remembers putting billing statements together as a small child. With a career in wholesale and representing designer shoe lines, she has been on board selling advertising and supporting the circulation department since 2012.

“In reality, we all do a little bit of everything,” she said. “It’s how we were taught, it’s what we watched and it’s just how it’s always been. They were always engaged and involved in the community and whatever they did, they gave their all.

“My parents had dreams of bringing the Jewish community together, and the paper is an example of that,” she added. “That the community, through the Dallas Jewish Historical Society, is honoring them and their legacy, they would think was very special and they would be humbled by it.”

While all hands and all generations seemed to be on deck from the time each were nearly toddlers, the paper became three generations strong. After Jimmy passed away,  grandchildren Reuben Davidsohn and Amy Davidsohn Doty joined Sharon full-time.

Amy has been “on the job” at the paper since birth, because her mother Linda was writing on deadline when she went into labor. “By the time I was 7, I had my list and I earned $1 for each New Year’s greeting I brought in,” she said. “I learned what ‘going to press’ meant.”

Doty worked in corporate training, then medical recruiting before working for the paper from its Dallas office.

“My grandfather was the toughest, but best, boss I ever had and he drove me to understand what it meant to bring value to the table,” she said. “One of my customers offered me a job and he let me take it. When he passed away, I returned without question. It was more than a job — it was his legacy.”

Saying that working with her grandmother was “like nothing else ever,” Doty spent the next 22 years as dedicated and devoted as her mentors and, like Jimmy, served on the executive board — including as president — of the American Jewish Press Association. Growing her own businesses as an aesthetician and founder of Amy’s A-List, which provides activities for simchas and other events, she’s made those her full-time ventures while remaining a consultant to the TJP. “My heart has and is always with the paper, and I’ll always advocate for it.”

Reuben Davidsohn remembers helping his grandfather each week during the summers to get the newspaper delivered to the post office. He’d also deliver the newspaper to newsstands at delicatessens, stores and synagogues when it could be found around town and, like the others, sold New Year’s greetings and pitched in wherever he could.

Reuben recalls sitting with Jimmy, who’d read aloud accounting details, and Reuben would update the records into the paper’s accounting system. Within a week of Jimmy’s passing, Reuben quit his job and for the next five years worked alongside Rene, Sharon and Amy.

“I had the privilege of sitting side-by-side with my grandmother, who was so impressive and who had the same work ethic as my grandfather,” he said, also fondly remembering lunch dates with Rene. “I got the accounting and back-office systems automated and the newspaper on the web, always maintaining my grandfather’s legacy systems until they were no longer necessary, which helped to bring the paper into the 21st century. Still, his touch has always been there.

“The TJP is the heartbeat of our family and it’s never skipped a beat,” said Reuben, now chief operating officer for Irongate Group. “But my grandparents always had time for family, for holidays, for the important moments. Making time for those priorities is absolutely what drives me still, every day.”

Jordana Davidsohn Bernstein, who also has childhood memories of being at the office, later found herself a regular columnist as early childhood director at Akiba Yavneh Academy.

“Visiting Bubbe and Poppy was always fun, but the activities didn’t really begin until we had done our work for the paper. I’ve always felt proud to say that my grandparents started the Texas Jewish Post,” said Bernstein, who made aliyah with her family in 2023 and has continued to contribute to the paper. “They were always very proud Zionists. Now, living in Israel, I have a greater appreciation for the legacy that they created, knowing how important it is that the news about Israel and our Jewish world is reported accurately to our Jewish brothers and sisters in the DFW community.”

Throughout the years, Sharon’s children have pitched in in various capacities, as have Amy’s and Jordana’s.

“We rely on one another and everyone in the family knows that putting the paper to bed is paramount,” said Sharon. “We have a wonderful staff that is dedicated and hard-working and they also get the importance of meeting deadlines and working until the paper is done each week, regardless of illness, weather or lateness of the hour.”

Truth. Liberty. Justice. Three words of the millions the Texas Jewish Post and the Wisch family have published since 1947, but the three that are legacy and that encompass all the paper has been, remains and looks to hold in the future.

“Our family has always worked to build and support the community with integrity,” said Sharon. “It is said that the crown of a good name excels them all. We have spent almost 78 years building the good name of the TJP and we don’t take that for granted for even one second.”

For more information or to register for or sponsor the Sept. 12 event, visit tinyurl.com/DJHS-Honors-TJP-Family.