Judah Jacobowitz, poet and mechanical engineer, died Dec. 23 of pneumonia and other complications.
By:Joseph Harvie
A loving husband, a caring father and a passionate man of the arts.
That is how Judah Jacobowitz’s family remembers the 81-year-old, engineer, poet and Kingston resident, who died Dec. 23 of pneumonia and other complications.
Celia Jacobowitz, of Kingston, said her husband was a man who preferred to do things his own way.
"I felt that he was very individualistic," she said. "He didn’t follow anyone’s patterns. He was strictly all his own."
Celia Jacobowitz said she could not have asked for a better husband.
"He was a great companion," she said of their 58 years together. "We had a very close relationship for those years."
Elliot Jacobowitz, of Andover, Mass., said his father taught him how to be strong, telling him to let go of his fears and take more chances. He also said he taught him how to be a better student.
"Going back to my earliest memories of him, as a little boy he was always there for me," he said. "He helped out in every aspect of my life. He helped me tremendously as a student, especially in his areas he was good at, like math and science and in literature, too."
Diane Jacobowitz, of Brooklyn, N.Y., said her father helped her and the family learn to stand up for the rights of the oppressed.
"He really taught us about social justice and that was something that was very important to him," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He thought it was something about being Jewish, to stand up for something right and to make sure the underdog’s rights were stood up for."
Diane Jacobowitz said her family grew up in Elmsford, in Westchester County, N.Y. During the 1950s, she said neighbors passed a petition to not allow a black family to move into the neighborhood.
"He refused to sign the petition," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He didn’t want any part of it."
Judah Jacobowitz was born in New York City, June 15, 1924. He grew up in the Bronx, N.Y., and attended Townsend Harris High School, and later, City College of New York, where he received a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering.
Mr. Jacobowitz served in the Army Air Corps toward the end of World War II. When he returned to civilian life, he worked as a mechanical engineer, first for the M.W. Kellogg Co., and later for Mobil Oil Corp. He was recognized for his work in the design of oil refineries, where some of his innovations are still used in the industry today.
One of the pieces of technology that is still being used in the oil refining business is a spiral shaped device that goes around the entire height of a refinery stack, making it less vulnerable to high winds.
"He really did live in two different worlds," Elliot Jacobowitz said. "He was real good at his job. He knew engineering. It came as second nature to him, and he always had a good job especially when he was with Mobile. But he was equally if not more adept as a poet."
Though he worked all his life as an engineer, his true passions were in the arts. He had a great love of classical music, and he was a published poet. Many of his works appeared in various poetry journals, and his book of poetry, "A Taste of Bonaparte," was published in 1990.
His honors include winning the 1985 New Jersey Statewide Poetry Competition, and selection as finalist for the 1984 "Discovery/The Nation" contest. Mr. Jacobowitz served for a period as president of the Delaware Valley Poets, and is listed by "Poets & Writers." He and his wife were members of Community Without Walls (CWW4).
He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Celia; his two children, Elliot of Andover, Mass., and Diane, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; two granddaughters, Eliana and Jessi; a daughter-in-law, Sara Martin; and a son-in-law, Richard Merle.
Judah Jacobowitz was a compassionate husband and father, Celia Jacobowitz said. She said some of his best works were about his family.
"He felt that the children brought him great pleasure," Celia Jacobowitz said. "His daughter, who is a dancer and choreographer, he wrote poetry for her. He wrote poetry for his son, who also loves music. And he wrote poetry for me. He was a dedicated man. He was dedicated to his feelings."
Celia Jacobowitz said her husband wrote for himself and would always use a pencil and paper to write out his works.
"He would take a pencil and the pencil would move and start to work by itself," Celia Jacobowitz said. "It’s a funny thing to think about, but that’s what he said about his writing. He shunned the computer. He felt he could only do it with a pencil and correct it on computer, he couldn’t do the original writing on the computer."
"I think he thought it was more flexible to take a pad of paper, usually a yellow pad and a pencil and he would make a million scratch outs," Elliot Jacobowitz said.
His poetry came from within, Celia Jacobowitz said. He would write about his family, friends and even his favorite composers.
"Much of his poetry would come from something happening inside of him," Celia Jacobowitz said. "It was always something that he could relate to. He wrote about everything, his son, his daughter, he even wrote about Leonard Bernstein. He could write about almost anything, except he did not like to be told what to write."
Diane said her father wrote some his best works at personal times in her life.
"He wrote some to me on different occasions," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He wrote one when I turned 16. That one is really very dear to my heart. And he wrote another one when I got married and when I had my daughter."
She said one of her favorite poems was, "For Ida Miriam," a poem about her grandmother.
"That was really a great poem, it was very personal and emotional," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He was very involved with the family."
Elliot Jacobowitz said that when his dad read him the poems he was working on, he would talk about what lead him to the topics he chose, and the thought process behind the words he chose.
"He loved language and found a medium to have to express himself with," Elliot Jacobowitz said. "That was one of best things. Whenever we would go visit my family, almost every occasion I would ask dad what his latest poems were. A lot of times he would have a work in progress and read it and sometimes ask for comment on it."
Judah Jacobowitz also was a "frustrated musician," Elliot Jacobowitz said. He learned to play violin as a child, and when his son was taking piano classes, he tried to shadow his son’s lessons, but was never able to master his passion for music. It wasn’t until he found poetry that he found his artistic medium.
"It was great that he could finally take all that passion, and it was a tremendous amount of passion, and found a way to express himself through the arts," Elliot Jacobowitz said.
Diane Jacobowitz, a dance instructor and choreographer, said her father encouraged her to pursue the arts. She said it was his love for music that turned her on to dancing.
"He always seemed to be an expert in anything and everything I needed to know," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He was very knowledgeable culturally, just so aware, he knew about all the arts and introduced me to the arts."
She said his passion for classical music went well beyond knowing the names of musical pieces.
"He is expert in classical music," Diane Jacobowitz said. "He knew the composers and knew their lives. He read their biographies. He knew the subtly of their music. And he knew about modern music and all the modern composers."
When not listening to music, and sometimes when he was, Diane Jacobowitz said her father would have a pencil and a piece of paper in his hand, working on his latest poem.
"You would always see him with pencil and paper," she said. "And he would be writing these poems. I was really glad he did start writing, because that made me see him as a creator rather than as someone just appreciating the arts."
Members of the Delaware Valley Poets also spoke highly of Judah Jacobowitz.
John Falk, a member of the Delaware Valley Poets said, he, like Judah Jacobowitz did not study literature in college. Mr. Falk is a professor of psychology at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. In an e-mail he wrote that Judah Jacobowitz was easy going and was able to help others out with their poetry because he was open and honest.
"Judah cared deeply about poetry and did not suffer incompetence or fools easily," Mr. Falk wrote. "So one could always ‘cut to the chase’ with him and get on with productive criticism. He permitted no one to lord it over the little group."
Beverly Levy Beer, a photojournalist for the Delaware Valley Poets, wrote in an e-mail that she remembers Judah Jacobowitz as a passionate writer.
"Judah Jacobowitz wrote with passion and pride of his bubble gum and Spalding ballgame boyhood days growing up in New York City," Ms. Beer said.
Pat Hardigree said in an e-mail that she met Judah Jacobowitz about 27 years ago when he was president of the Delaware Valley Poets. She said that she was a single mother at the time and Judah Jacobowitz helped to nurture her craft.
"Judah was a strong poet with a lively, and lovely spirit," Ms. Hardigree wrote.