Photo by Perry Bindelglass
The Upper West Side lost one of its most esteemed residents this week.
Ted Comet, a pioneering leader of the Jewish community and founder of New York’s City’s Celebrate Israel parade, died at his UWS home on Wednesday at the age of 100.
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“It was an honor and pleasure knowing Ted,” said photographer Perry Bindelglass, who took photos for Ted and his family. “He was a special person. It’s a huge loss to the community.”
Comet’s more than 75-year career serving and leading the Jewish community left a lasting impact. The Cleveland native moved to NYC as a teenager to study at Yeshiva University. As a 22-year-old, Comet traveled to Versailles, France for volunteer work with Jewish children who had survived Auschwitz. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, which reported on Comet’s passing, states that this volunteer experience “changed the trajectory of his life.”
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Comet would return to the US and receive a master’s degree from Yeshiva before embarking on a career that included stints at the Brooklyn Zionist Youth Foundation, Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun on the Upper East Side, the American Zionist Youth Foundation, and the World Council of Jewish Communal Service, among other prominent organizations.
“Ted was a one-in-a-million kind of person,” Rabbi Yosie Levine of the Jewish Center at 131 West 86th Street, where Comet was a member since 1968, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “You could learn more about life in an hour with Ted than you could reading a hundred great books. Knowing him was one of the great blessings of my life.”
In 1965, Comet co-founded what’s now known as the Celebrate Israel Parade, an annual celebration along Fifth Avenue attracting thousands of participants. He also founded the Israel Folk Dance Festival and played a role in organizing some of the early demonstrations in support of Soviet Jewry.
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Comet is survived by two children, six grandchildren, 12 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. Comet’s wife, Shoshana–a Holocaust survivor–passed away in 2012. The two had been married since 1952.
“He continued to find meaning in life until the very end,” Comet’s daughter Diane Richler told New York Jewish Week. “He kept his sense of humor and his awareness and his ability to have meaningful conversations with people.”
The Humans of Judaism Instagram account with more than 430,000 followers memorialized Comet in a Wednesday post, honoring him as “a lifelong advocate for Jewish life.” Comet celebrated his 100th birthday in May 2024.
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