A trailblazer. A man of vision. A pioneer.
At some point in time all of these terms have been used to describe Frank Buchweitz, a powerhouse of an individual whose attention to detail and willingness to tackle difficult social issues has made him a legend in his own time and has created positive productive venues in which the Jewish community can openly address topics that for years had been considered off limits.
Buchweitz, a resident of Monsey’s Wesley Hills community, comes by his meticulous nature honestly. The son of German Jews, he grew up on the outskirts of Washington Heights and even as a counselor in Camp Deal in the early 1960’s his leadership skills were readily apparent.
“I first met Frank when we both worked in Camp Deal,” said Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, executive vice president emeritus of the Orthodox Union, who has known Buchweitz for over 50 years. “I was the head counselor and he was a great counselor and a friend. Frank was tremendously dedicated and hard working, and even then you could see he was good with programming and project management.”
Buchweitz, who earned a bachelor’s in business administration from City College, lived in Toronto for several years where he worked as a vice principal and spent his spare time doing outreach work with the Bnai Brith Youth Organization. After returning to New York and earning a master’s degree from New York University in educational administration, he served as English principal at Yeshiva of South Shore and then at Bais Yaakov of Brooklyn. To this day he still recognizes many of his students.
“So many of them come over to me and I ask them to tell me their last names and then I tell them their first names,” said Buchweitz. “Baruch Hashem I have had thousands of students over the years and I remember them all.”
Even during his early days as an educator, Buchweitz often took an out-of-the-box approach to his work.
“There was one girl who used to talk back to teachers, defending other students,” recalled Buchweitz. “She would get sent to my office to be disciplined and I usually put her to work helping me in the office. Years later I ran into her when I was running a program on shidduchim and she recognized me right away. When I asked her what she does she told me she became a defense attorney.”
After devoting 22 years of his life to being an educator, Buchweitz moved on to working as a consultant, first with the Mishkon division of the Jewish Board of Family Services before being hired by the Orthodox Union as its National Director of Communication Services and Special Projects.
“What that meant exactly, I don’t know,” joked Buchweitz.
Buchweitz and his wife Susan, a social worker, would often discuss problems facing families and other social issues and through those discussions Buchweitz realized his true calling.
“Ideas began to germinate in Frank and we came up with a list of topics which he expanded on,” said Susan Buchweitz. “Frank has always had a healthy respect for women and we realized that men were the ones focused on in shuls. Frank felt that the shul should be a bayit for everyone and things evolved from there. Frank spoke about the need for the shul to be the center of family life for men and women and the OU gave him one shot, one program.”
Buchweitz arranged a parenting conference to be held at the Ramaz School in 2000.
“He did a lot of publicity and he arranged every detail, running day care and providing box lunches,” recalled Susan Buchweitz. “Over 750 men and women attended; everyone was astonished by its success. After that, they let Frank do his own thing.”