Irving Katz

   Professor Irving Katz, 75, passed away Thursday, January 24, 2008, in New York City of complications stemming from a hip injury. He was a professor of History and Jewish Studies at Indiana University for 38 years.
   When he retired in 2002, the Indiana Daily Student described Katz as a “living legend.” His introductory courses, “American History 1 and 2” were rites of passage for generations of IU freshmen and among the university’s most popular classes. He enlivened lectures with his own personal and family history, which spanned the twentieth century. The son of Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Poland, he grew up on New York City’s Lower East Side during the Depression. After graduating from City College he served in Korea. “I was very grateful to the United States Army for defeating the Nazis,” he explained. Many members of his extended family had been killed in the Holocaust. Experience as an infantry corporal made him a dedicated pedestrian; he eschewed cars and encouraged students to walk with him and to tell him about their own histories.
   He began teaching at an East Harlem high school in 1958, and after two years at New York University he came to IU in 1964. He had offers from Northwestern and the University of California Berkeley, but he chose Bloomington, he joked, “because the offices were bigger.” He authored two important books on U.S. business history, “August Belmont: A Political Biography,” and “Investment Banking in America: A History.”
   He received awards for teaching excellence from the History Department and the Borns Jewish Studies Program. He served as vice president of the Indiana Jewish Historical Society, and he received the Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion for distinguished contributions to Indiana University. He was a natural talker and gave innumerable lectures to community audiences throughout the Midwest on aspects of American Jewish history and, especially, Israel. President Myles Brand ranked him among “the very best” of Indiana’s faculty, noting that “this institution is a better place because of him.”
   He married Sara Katz, and fathered two children, a son, Jonathan, of Newport, Rhode Island, and a daughter, Naomi, a graduate of the IU School of Music. She and her husband, Gerhardt Koch, are musicians with the New York City Ballet, and Katz retired to Manhattan to be close to his children and his beloved granddaughter, Sarah Joyce. Professor Katz encouraged his students to learn about and appreciate music. For seventeen years, he dined weekly with students in Forest and Briscoe quads, leading them in discussions of politics, current events, and culture. He arranged to take groups of students to dress rehearsals and performances at the Musical Arts Center, giving many of them their first experience with opera. Opera, he explained, brought together all of the fine arts, visual design, drama, orchestral and vocal performance. “When it works,” he said, “it’s heaven.” In recognition, he was made an honorary member of the IU Residence Halls Alumni Association in 1987.
   He is survived by his children and grandchild, a brother, Murray Katz of New York City, and a cousin, Morris Borger, of Jerusalem. Donations may be made to Congregation Beth Shalom, P.O. Box 6835, Bloomington, IN 47407, or The Irving Katz Scholarship, Borns Jewish Studies Program, 1011 E. 3rd St., Goodbody Hall 326, Bloomington, In 47405.

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