Through his final days, Ira William Jaffee, the longtime chief executive officer of the Jewish Community Center in Indianapolis, kept helping other people.
He was still taking calls to help former American Basketball Association athletes who need jobs, housing, transportation ― clients of the Dropping Dimes Foundation, where he took a retirement job as executive director.He overheard his wife of nearly 47 years, Cherri, say that she kept losing her phone and reading glasses when she moved about the house; the next day, an Amazon package arrived with an over-the-shoulder leather pouch that can hold those items.
Since being involved in his local JCC where he grew up in Easton, Pennsylvania, it was his dream to lead his own,. He came to Indiana to earn degrees in secondary education and counseling at Butler University, then taught history and math at St. Thomas Aquinas School in Indianapolis. His first job at the Indianapolis JCC was as youth director in 1978; he ascended the ranks to CEO in 1984.
Behind the weighty legacy is a man who, though he might have come off as quiet or timid at first, had an unabashed and playful sense of humor.Hanging on the walls were comical paintings spinning off religious themes, such as Moses parting the water of a swimming pool lane so that an overweight Jewish man could race on foot to the finish and beat out competitive swimmers.
Sports, both watching and playing them, was a lifelong passion for the elder Jaffee. Since former JCC board president John Abrams met Jaffee in the 1970s, they played on basketball, racketball and tennis teams together through the JCC. In the early 1990s, their summer tennis team took second place at national championship in Tucson.
Retirement spawned another sporting passion: pickleball. The game became part of Jaffee's daily routine, in and around spending time at the pool, helping Dropping Dimes clients and watching"Jeopardy" or Mafia-type movies. He was the pickleball"guru," Kira Shemesh said ― he'd start a text chain of several dozen people and organize games. Family members would play with him, too.His passionate personality came out in other ways.
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