Bill Kahn had so many amazing accomplishments as the paradigmatic Jewish professional leader that it required a major Page One story, an editorial and an opinion piece in last week’s Jewish Light to tell even part of his story. Kahn, who directed the Jewish Community Center of St. Louis for 20 years, and later the Jewish Federation of St. Louis for five eventful years, died Thursday, June 27, only days short of what would have been his 88^th birthday.

Kahn’s accomplishments comprise a staggering list that assures his place in local, national and world Jewish history. They include:

• Starting his Jewish professional career at Council House, a Jewish Settlement Home, following the example of his father Ziggy Kahn, who had organized an effort to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.

• Becoming the first executive director of the JCCA after its name change from the old Young Men’s/Women’s Hebrew Association and its move to what is now the Millstone Jewish Community Campus.

• Working with the visionary leader Isadore E. Millstone, then JCC president to help raise funds and oversee the construction of the original Carlyn H. Wohl Building of the JCC, which later became the Staenberg Family Complex Harlene and Marvin Wool Arts & Education Building.

• Guiding, with the help of lay leaders, the construction and completion of housing for the Jewish elderly, including the Covenant House Apartments and the Parkview Towers Seltzer Building in University City.

In addition, after entering Jewish Federation work, first in his native Pittsburgh and later in New York City, he steered both of those communities to new heights in fundraising and interagency cooperation. He single-handedly brought about the mega-merger between New York’s Federation of Jewish Philanthropies and the separate United Jewish Appeal, overcoming strong opposition throughout the challenging process.

Once back in St. Louis as executive vice president of the Jewish Federation here, Kahn, working with former JCC and Federation President Harris J. Frank and the generous Kopolow family, helped bring about the completion of the Jewish Federation Kopolow Building, which houses Federation and several of its major agencies.

And so with all of those accomplishments and many more under his belt, what was the one “magnificent obsession” that Kahn was most determined to accomplish? He was bound and determined to keep his many promises to the St. Louis Holocaust survivor community to build a world-class St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, not only to pay tribute to the six million Jewish victims of the Nazi genocide, but to provide learning experiences at multiple levels to help reduce the chances that another Shoah would occur.

Kahn was extremely frustrated when the considerable square footage set aside in the Kopolow Building for the Holocaust Museum sat empty. “This is just not right. We promised those who lived through the hell of the Holocaust that we would honor them and their fallen loved ones and create a learning center to illustrate the dangers of hate speech and actions which could lead to genocide,” Kahn told me in a 1994 conversation in his office.

In order to transform the museum from a long-held and unfulfilled promise and dream into a living reality, Kahn jump-started the St. Louis Holocaust Museum Campaign. Kahn enlisted the help of attorney and former Jewish Federation leader Thomas Green, along with Leo Wolf, a local Holocaust survivor and businessman, who chaired the St. Louis Holocaust Museum Commission, then under the aegis of the Jewish Community Relations Council. The late Donn Lipton, a builder and community volunteer, was co-chair with Wolf of the Holocaust Museum Implementation Committee. Honorary chairs were the late Isadore E. Millstone and the late Sam Goldstein.

Under Kahn’s “determined and forceful leadership,” Tom Green recalls, “every step of the way he was right there, saying just the right thing to major donors and organizing phone-a-thons and broadly based fundraising efforts. There is no question that the Holocaust Museum exists primarily as a result of Bill Kahn’s vision and determination.”

Over $2.2 million was raised under Kahn’s leadership, along with the fundraising committee. Sam Goldstein’s major gift led to the official name of the facility: the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center in Memory of Gloria M. Goldstein, Sam’s late wife.

The St. Louis Holocaust Museum formally opened its doors in 1995 with Rabbi Robert Sternberg as its director. Under Sternberg’s leadership, the museum was designed as a major educational facility, which although smaller in size than Yad Vashem in Jerusalem and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Washington, is comparable in scope and comprehensiveness. The museum is currently under the professional direction of Jean Cavender. Dan Reich serves as curator and director of education, and Kent Hirschfelder is chair of the Holocaust Museum Council. The Museum is now under the aegis of the Jewish Federation.

Kahn believed that the museum would be worth the effort if just one potential Timothy McVeigh, neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan member could be shown, through the museum’s graphic exhibits, the wages of the sin of genocide. Each year over 30,000 high school and college students and adults visit the museum. Yellow school buses are lined up in front of the Holocaust Museum six days of the week with visitors to the facility. Docents, including members of the survivor community are on hand to show visitors through the exhibits with detailed explanations of each display.

Bill Kahn never sought personal recognition for his signal role in bringing about the completion of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center. In 2006, the Museum, named in Bill Kahn’s honor a pathway and  courtyard through the Garden of Remembrance just outside the museum. Kahn told me that he would often attain a peaceful and serene state of mind by walking through that path and sitting on one of the benches just to reflect on the meaning of the realty of the museum.

It is fitting that Bill Kahn, called “Big Bill” because of his huge physical frame and booming voice, could find a place of calm in the garden outside the museum that was built through his unique combination of dynamic leadership and compassion. May his memory always be for a blessing.