In 1946, Theodore “Ted” Comet, the 100-year-old Jewish communal leader who died on Wednesday, traveled to Versailles, France. It was the first leg of a lifelong journey of service to the Jewish community. 

Then 22 and pursuing chaplaincy at Yeshiva University in Manhattan, Comet volunteered through an American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee-funded program at a Jewish children’s orphanage, helping those who had lost their parents in the war, many of them Holocaust survivors. According to a story told at his funeral, shared with eJewishPhilanthropy by JDC’s CEO, Ariel Zwang, Comet brought with him a piece of paper — on it, the name of an acquaintance’s cousin who had survived. 

As it turned out, the cousin was Elie Wiesel, with whom Comet forged a deep bond with until Wiesel’s death in 2016. Comet was deeply impacted by the experience.

“It changed my life in two ways,” he said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on his 100th birthday last year. “One was that I didn’t know the horrors of the Holocaust [until then], on the downside. On the upside, I was stunned by the ability of these orphans to respond to love, to care and to concern. I realized you can make a difference.”

Comet was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a large family, though he spent most of his life in Manhattan.There, he pursued a degree in social work and married Shoshana Ungar, a Belgian Jew and Holocaust survivor. 

From when Comet first arrived in the city until his death this week, he remained involved in the Jewish organizational world, acting as an advisor to groups such as JPro — and according to American historian Jonathan Sarna, an unofficial advisor to many more. Sarna, who lives in the Boston area, recalled catching up with Comet whenever he visited his daughter in Massachusetts. The two would sit next to each other in synagogue, and talk “perhaps too much,” about the goings on of the Jewish communal world. 

“I’ve had the privilege of knowing some of the great Jewish leaders in the United States, and he’s one of them,” Sarna told eJP. “I especially will remember his active mind. He was someone for whom nothing Jewish was really alien to him, and who had a real love of the Jewish people broadly and a desire to strengthen the Jewish world.”

For over 70 years, Comet was deeply invested in the wellbeing of Jews in Manhattan, Israel and across the globe. As director of the American Zionist Youth Council from 1956 through 1968, Comet co-founded the Salute to Israel Parade, now known as “Israel Day on Fifth,” and an Israeli Folk Dance Festival. Then, American Jewry’s sense of connection with Israel was tenuous, something Comet hoped to shift. 

“I wanted to show support so we held an Israel Independence Day event in Central Park.” Comet told former New York Jewish Week editor, Gary Rosenblatt, another friend of his. “We were talking to ourselves.”

As Israel’s wars in the 1960s and 70s spurred engagement among American Jewry, the parade grew exponentially. It now attracts tens of thousands. For the past three years at Israel Day on Fifth, Comet was honored as the Jewish Community Relations Council’s honorary grand marshal for his continued contributions to the community. 

“Besides the Parade, Ted held leadership positions in many Jewish communal organizations such as the Joint Distribution Committee, American Zionist Youth Foundation and the Council of Jewish Federations for over 75 years.  He will be sorely missed. May his memory always be for a blessing,” JCRC-New York wrote in a statement on X. 

Comet also held a leadership role at the Council of Jewish Federations, which later became the Jewish Federations of North America, while also organizing some of the earliest demonstrations in support of Soviet Jewry. In 1990, Comet was appointed as associate executive vice president of JDC, holding the position in an honorary capacity until his death. 

Comet continued to pursue speaking engagements and found opportunities to connect with the Jewish community in Manhattan and beyond. In honor of his 100th birthday last year, UJA-Federation of New York hosted a celebration. 

“Ted was a Jewish communal giant who inspired literally generations of people to engage communally. Even in the most recent years I saw him speak with the same vigor and enthusiasm about Jewish communal life,” UJA’s CEO, Eric S. Goldstein said in a statement on X.  

Beyond communal leadership, Comet was also a devoted husband, before and after the death of his wife, Shoshana, in 2012. In her 40s, Shoshana, a psychotherapist, picked up weaving, creating a series of tapestries as a way of processing the grief and trauma of what she had lived through during the Holocaust. As he grappled with Shoshana’s deterioration due to Alzheimer’s disease and eventually, death, Comet processed his own grief by turning his home into a living museum, welcoming community members, especially students, to learn about Shoshana’s story and the Holocaust through her artwork in a collaboration with the nonprofit Dorot.  

“There’s no question about it. The idea of using your pain for some constructive purpose is actualized when you help someone else,” Comet wrote of supporting others who experienced a similar loss.

“Ted left an indelible mark on Jewish life — as he had so many accomplishments,” Mark L. Meridy, Dorot’s executive director, said in a statement. “And for the last 10 years, we were incredibly fortunate that even as he turned 100, this remarkable man devoted himself to serving as a Dorot volunteer.” 

Inspired by Shoshana’s work in both psychotherapy and creative expression, using grief and trauma as a means to create was a core value for Comet. Those who know him describe an unrelenting optimism, even when faced with hardship. According to Zwang this value was clear in a conversation she had with Comet in the wake of Oct. 7. 

“I expressed to Ted just how hard a time this is in the world and for the Jewish people. And he said to me, ‘Ariel, our people have lived through and survived and overcome so much worse,’” Zwang told eJP. 

“He wasn’t just speaking about history, he was speaking about his own professional life. Imagine what he saw in France in 1946 with Elie Wiesel and everyone else. Yet he found the strength to respond for the next 75 years, you know, because he never stopped, even in his 100th year. That was the human being that he was.”