Oral Histories
Benjamin (Ben) Zox
Interviewer: Benjamin Zox is the topic and the focus of our interview today for the Columbus Jewish Historical Society. The date is July 8, 2025, and I’m Bill Cohen, and Ben, maybe we can start with when were you born? Who were your parents?
Zox: Okay. I was born on May 18th, 1937, in Des Moines, Iowa, and my parents were Joe Zox and Leah Zox. I was born in Des Moines, Iowa because that’s where my dad worked. He was one of five children. My dad and his older sister was Ethel Schiff was her married name, Schiff, and the Schiff family started the Schiff Shoe Company and my dad, I think, at the age of fourteen started working for the Schiff Shoe Company. He, I think, he was in charge of an area of the country that included Des Moines, Iowa and that’s why he was headquartered there when I was born and he had a younger brother, Oscar Zox, who also worked for the Schiff Shoe Company and lived in Des Moines, Iowa. Oscar was married to Mildred and Oscar had three children. One of his children we called Lorney, was Lawrence Zox, Lorney, and he and I were born two weeks apart in May of 1937, and basically, for the first ten years of my life, I mean, I was as much a part of Oscar and Mildred’s family as I was of my own family because the two families were very close and lived in a reasonable distance apart. So, Lorney and I were like brothers, more than first cousins and this is, this is interesting. I’m, going a little bit beyond, Columbus, Ohio Historical Society but Lorney went to Roosevelt High School in Des Moines. I was gone by then. I left at 10 and we moved to Columbus. But, Lorney went to Roosevelt High School and he was large in size, taking after his mother’s family, and he was the center on the Roosevelt High School football team, and the quarterback on that team the year ahead of him was a guy named Randy Duncan who was very good friends with Lorney for years. In fact, I knew Randy Duncan when I was still in Des Moines, at age ten, and as a center on the football team, Lorney got a scholarship to attend Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma to play football. Well, when he got to the University of Oklahoma, he discovered that he liked art, art more than football and he became, literally, this is true to this day, a world famous artist. He had, he created modern, modern art that is, he’s in every museum, major museum throughout the world, literally. He’s known as Larry Zox and he passed away at a young age. I think he, I’m not even sure he made 70, maybe 69, but he was a famous artist, Larry Zox, so, that’s a diversion but he’s, he’s probably the most famous member of our family, not probably, definitely, he is.
Interviewer: Let me ask you this.
Zox: Yes.
Interviewer: You say you left Des Moines and came to Columbus, Ohio?
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: Was that because your dad was still working for Schiffs and Schiffs was here?
Zox: Exactly. Their home office was Columbus, Ohio, and, and, he was, he was moved to the home office, and they were located at 35 North Fourth Street in Columbus, Ohio, and my Uncle Oscar is the one who drove us to Columbus. I was at a YMCA camp at the time and I was there for two weeks in Boone, Iowa, and my mom picked me up after one week because we were leaving to move to Columbus, Ohio, and, and I remember I was on the stage and there was a screen behind me and they were singing, the whole camp was singing to me, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” because they knew I was leaving after one week, and it was a two week session, but anyway…
Interviewer: What a nice memory.
Zox: Yeah, yeah, and this is totally random, but it so happened they had a Junior Olympics at the Y. It was a YMCA camp, by the way, and they had a Junior Olympics, and my division was Ten and Under, and there was a whole series of events in the Junior Olympics. The first one was, what do you call it…
Interviewer: Chin-ups?
Zox: Yeah, on a bar, on a vertical bar, chin-ups and I wasn’t great on that, but I moved from that to running the bases and I was good on that, but, anyway, I ended up winning the Junior Olympics at the YMCA camp, and it turned out, years later, in Columbus, Ohio, I became president of the local YMCA in Columbus, Ohio.
Interviewer: Full circle.
Zox: Full circle, and it so happened that after me, my good friend Bob Weiler became Chairman of the Board of the YMCA in Columbus and he nominated me to be on the National Board of the YMCA in the country and they sent me a letter and in the letter, they said, “As a member of the board, national board of the YMCA would you be more likely to contribute annually $1000 or $25.000.?” I wrote back and I said, “ You know,” I said, “I’m involved in a number of organizations and if I had to, I can’t afford to do $25,000 for each one of them, so, I’d be more likely to do $1000,” but anyway, after that letter I did not make the cut. But, interestingly, out of the blue after that, I got a letter from my counselor at the YMCA camp in Des Moines,[he corrected himself] in Boone, Iowa. This is, you know, 50 years later, I get a letter from him out of the blue. I had never, his name was Ray Pugh, P-u-g-h, and his career really was the YMCA. He became totally devoted to it. and he sent me a book he had written and I gue[ss], I think he re-initiated the contact because he saw that I had been nominated, you know to be on the national board, but anyway, as I said, I tend to, I have a lot of memories.
Interviewer: Well, that’s good. Let me, before we get to your life in Columbus, Ohio, let me ask you…
Zox: Sure.
Interviewer: …did you, were you given a Hebrew or Yiddish name when you were born?
Zox: Yeah, and I get confused between the Hebrew and the Yiddish but one is Benyamin, and one is Beryl Eliezer. My middle name is Louis and Beryl is Benjamin. Now I don’t know which is the Yiddish and which is the Hebrew.
Interviewer: But you got both.
Zox: I got both and one thing I can tell you – this again is an aside – but some years ago, I started meeting with a rabbi at Kollel on Main Street here in Columbus. I had a classmate, Irv Baker, whose father was a rabbi, and he suggested that I meet with this rabbi which I did for several years until he moved to Providence, Rhode Island, which was where his wife’s family was from. She had a big family there, but anyway, he called, when I started meeting with him, he called me Reb Benyamin, Reb Benyamin. He was a rabbi.
Interviewer: Term of endearment.
Zox: Right. Right.
Interviewer: You got to Columbus, Ohio, at age 10. Where were you living? Where did your family live?
Zox: We lived, we bought my aunt’s home. Her name was Ethel Schiff. That was my dad’s older sister. She lived, they lived at Bryden and Dawson in Bexley, the southeast corner of Bryden and Dawson, 2389 Bryden Road, and I, we lived there at a very important time during my life because that was the fifth grade through the twelfth grade we lived in that house and it was like a gathering place for, for all my friends and my sisters’ friends. I was one of five children, and we left the doors open, literally open, unlocked, and people, friends came at all times of day or night. It was a gathering place.
Interviewer: You went, did you go to Cassingham Elementary?
Zox: Yes. Yes, I did. My older sister somehow knew that she wanted to go to the private school, the girls’ school so she went to CSG which at that time was located on Bryden Road near the old Temple Israel.
Interviewer: The old, what we would call the “old neighborhood.”
Zox: Right, and, but I, I went to Cassingham. That’s where I wanted to be.
Interviewer: Now, I don’t know if you know the answer to this, but a Jewish girl in the late 40s or early 50s going to CSG? That was, was that unusual or was that commonplace?
Zox: There were, she had at least one good Jewish friend in her class but most of her friends were not Jewish. I think it was unusual then to have, you’re right. I think it was unusual, yeah.
Interviewer: So, you started in fifth grade Cassingham and for several years you were there and then junior high and then high school.
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: Tell me, what was it, did you have mostly Jewish friends or non-Jewish friends? What was that like?
Zox: Well, I had both and you know, you mentioned the Hebrew School thing, and my mom used to come and grab me off the football field, you know, to take me to Hebrew School.
Interviewer: That would be after regular school?
Zox: Yes, and I’m trying to think whether it was two or three times a week and I did not like it.
Interviewer: Where was, where was the Hebrew School?
Zox: At Tifereth, Tifereth Israel and, and in those days I went to Sunday School at Temple Israel. So, I went to Hebrew School at Tifereth Israel, bar mitzvahed at Tifereth Israel and then continued on and was confirmed at Temple Israel, so then after that we remained, my wife and I remained members of Tifereth Israel and the reason we joined, I mean, we, after we married was because a classmate of hers and a good friend of mine – she was a freshman when I was a senior at Bexley High School – and in her class was a fellow named David Zissenwine who became the rabbi at Tifereth Israel, so, I was very close to David. We worked together one summer at the Shoe Corporation of America warehouse on Agler Road, so we became very good friends and remained so forever, but he made aliyah to Israel shortly after we joined Tifereth Israel, and so, our first child was bat mitzvahed there but after that it was Rabbi Berman and so on.
Interviewer: So, again, in terms of school…
Zox: Yes, school.
Interviewer: …and Jews and non-Jews, how did that work? How did people get along or not?
Zox: Right. Okay. I must admit to you that I don’t think I experienced anti-Semitism, I mean, and maybe I was naïve, I don’t know, but I had good friends who were not Jewish and good friends who were Jewish. My best Jewish friend, I think, in my class, was Alfred Kass who was, we had some, the same interests. We were active at the Jewish Center in basketball and he became a star basketball player for Bexley and I played, he and I, I think, were the, probably the best Jewish athletes in our class but he was far better than I was. Anyway, but I also had non-Jewish friends and I came there in the fifth grade, and in the seventh grade there was an election for officers of the Junior High which would take place in eighth grade, but the election, we were in seventh grade when they had the election. There was a Gold ticket and a Blue ticket and I was the vice-presidential candidate on the Gold ticket and the presidential candidate on that ticket was a fellow named Peter Halliday who is, was captain of the football team and was a best friend of mine to this day. I just talked to him, but anyway…
Interviewer: Non-Jewish. Halliday.
Zox: Non- Jewish, Peter Halliday, yeah, and we ran against Ted Schwartz who’s also a very good friend of mine – I played basketball with him – but anyway, and Betsy Neida was the vice-presidential candidate on the Blue ticket. Well, Peter and I won, so he was President and I was Vice-President and it, this is, this is how history repeats itself. Our, we have five grandchildren. Our youngest grandchild is a boy, Will, and I, somehow, I got interested in the Day School in New Albany.
Interviewer: The Jewish Day School.
Zox: The Jewish Day School, and a very good friend of my son, Bill, sent his sons there and his step-father was a doctor and I was playing golf with him at Winding Hollow and he was raving about the Day School, and our grandson Will, they were trying to decide where to send him. He was just starting school, and so I decided to stop at the Day School on the way home from golf because this doctor, who was the stepfather of my son’s good friend, Brad Glick, had raved about it, with respect to Brad’s children who went there. So, I went there and I got totally, you know, sold on the place and I came home and told my daughter and son-in-law that I had been there and I thought it was great and they went and did their due diligence and decided to send my grandson there and he, he went there, I think, through fourth grade. They only had it at that time through fifth grade. He went through fourth grade and then, then he transferred to Maryland Avenue School and the reason I’m getting into this aside is that when he transferred to Maryland Avenue School, he was in the fifth grade and he was popular, like I was, I guess. Anyway, he became, I think, by the sixth grade, one year he was vice-president of the class and then automatically moved up to president in the seventh grade. So, history repeated itself but it turned out he did not, he wasn’t interested. I was, like, president of my class in high school two out of four years. He wasn’t interested in that when he got to high school. He was interested in other things, but he got nice honors there.
Interviewer: Now when you were in Junior High at Bexley and High School…
Zox: Yeah. Yeah.
Interviewer: …were you involved in any Jewish activities?
Zox: Yes.
Interviewer: There were fraternities and AZA.
Zox: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: Tell us.
Zox: Right. We had a Jewish fraternity. It was called KTZ and so I, you know, all my friends were joining it so I joined it, and I think I became vice-president or something, and the only meaningful thing that I recall from that is that we were deciding who to make membership offers to when I was a senior, and there was a fellow whose father – this was in the 1950’s whose father was alleged to be a Communist, and so, there was opposition us offering him, the son, a membership. So, I, thought that was wrong and the meeting where this was going to be decided was at my home, so I took it upon myself to invite Rabbi Folkman to be our guest at that meeting and we raised the issue with him. He said, which I knew he would, he said, “You, you know, whether or not he is a Communist isn’t even relevant because the sins of the father should not be, you know…”
Interviewer: …put on to the son.
Zox: Exactly, and so we made an offer of membership to the boy and he joined which I was happy about, but that’s really my only meaningful memory of the Jewish fraternity.
Interviewer: But that’s very interesting because it symbolizes – this was 1955 or so…
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: and we were smack dab in the McCarthy Era…
Zox: Exactly.
Interviewer: …and Jews perhaps were disproportionately accused…
Zox: Yup. Yup.
Interviewer: …of being sympathetic to Communism…
Zox: Exactly.
Interviewer: …so your story has much relevance.
Zox: Yes.
Interviewer: KTZ, did you meet, was that a Jewish Center based kind of group or where did you have your meeting? Do you remember?
Zox: I think we had the meetings in the homes of the members and the president, when I was vice-president, was Harlan Pollack who was a Jewish friend of mine and a classmate, and he ended up becoming a skin doctor in Dallas, Texas, and he was at the hospital when Kennedy was taken there in ’63. He was at that hospital and took part in the treatment of Kennedy.
Interviewer: Wow. That’s an interesting connection. Another connection you have is with one of the most well-known Jews in Columbus and Ohio…
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: Les Wexner.
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: He was in your class at Bexley.
Zox: Right, and you’re going to ask me if he was in KTZ and I don’t remember whether he was or not, and to me, it’s not even, it doesn’t matter. I mean…
Interviewer: Do you have any memories of him at all?
Zox: Yeah.
Interviewer: Did you know he was going to become a successful billionaire businessman?
Zox: Didn’t have a clue, but I knew shortly thereafter, I have a history with him that goes beyond that, but as I said, he was manager of the baseball team. That was his claim to fame in high school. He was not, you know, not well-known at all, and he lived in a small home in Berwick, but it happened to be on the Berwick Golf Course. There was a golf course there. It was like, off of Roosevelt Avenue south of Livington in Berwick, and we used to park in his driveway with his permission and go and sneak on the Berwick Golf Course and play golf. But, anyway, Leslie went to Ohio State and I went to Williams College in Massachusetts with two gentile fellows from my class who I was best friends with. One was Jack Betts he was first in our class and he, he and I were best friends, and the other was Chubby Jeffrey who was captain of the basketball team, and he was the 13th member of his family to go to Williams College, so Jack and I knew he was going to Williams and Jack and I, and a Jewish fellow, Marvin Stone, he became a doctor. We took a trip to, you know, the East, to visit colleges in junior year and we liked Williams, and that’s where Jack and Chubby and I went, and, but anyway, I got sidetracked again, but Leslie went to Ohio State and was a Sammy at Ohio State.
Interviewer: That was the fraternity?
Zox: The fraternity. There was ZBT and Sammy were, I think, supposedly, you know, the best Jewish fraternities, and Leslie was in Sammy, and Leslie, I think, and then Leslie went to law school at Ohio State. I went to law school at Ohio State, because I got into Michigan too. Those are the two I applied to. I couldn’t afford to go to Michigan because I was getting married and we had no visible means of support, so I couldn’t be a non-resident at the University of Michigan, so I went to Ohio State. Leslie was my classmate and Leslie, they made Leslie – this was interesting – the Federation made him the Chairman of the Campus Campaign at Ohio State, and I remember thinking, ‘Why would they select him instead of me?’ you know, but they were…
Interviewer: Maybe they knew something.
Zox: They knew something that I didn’t, but anyway, he, we were classmates in law school, and he was clearly, it was clear to me that he was plenty smart enough to become a lawyer and a good one, but he wasn’t doing well in law school and he told me this later on but that the dean called him in and said, “ You’re clearly smart enough to,” you know, “to graduate from this law school and become a good lawyer but I don’t think your heart’s in it.” and Leslie’s dad, mom and dad had a women’s store called Leslie’s and they had two stores in downtown Columbus and he decided, you know, that he was going to drop out of law school and go into business with them, and he did that, and then he opened his flagship store in Kingsdale Shopping Center in Arlington.
Interviewer: The Limited.
Zox: The Limited, and that was at the time when women were starting to work, you know, and he saw that coming and he focused on work attire for women, and coincidentally, my second daughter went to Northwestern and I got her a job, I was a lawyer at the time and I got her a job at the American Bar Association in Chicago, headquartered in Chicago, and they offered her a job after graduation. She decided that she wanted to go to work for the Limited and see what it was like and so she was hired and she worked at the, what they called the flagship store at Kingsdale and she went through a Christmas season working, literally, around the clock and wasn’t crazy about it and they offered her a managership of a store in Charleston, West Virginia, and she said, “Eh, I think I’ll go to law school instead.” She went to Ohio State Law School and became a lawyer, but she was also part of Leslie’s group of, I forget what it was called, but, of young Jewish kids who got schooled in Jewish philanthropy in the Wexner program.
Interviewer: Before we move on to your adult life especially as a husband and a father and attorney…
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: …let me ask you, do you have any other Jewish institutions that you might remember from when you were in junior high or high school? I’m thinking about the Jewish Center or specific synagogues or Martin’s Kosher Foods or whatever?
Zox: Right. Sure. All those things. I grew up at the Jewish Center, literally. I mean, I was there every day, except Saturday, you know. I was there all the time. I think, the Jewish Center on College Avenue was built by Leo Yassenoff, in 1952, I think, and I was there all the time.
Interviewer: What were you doing there?
Zox: I was playing basketball and racket ball and baseball, everything, that they had. I loved it. I was there all the time, and coincidentally, Leo Yassenoff was a major client of our law firm and ultimately, I became a trustee of his foundation. When he passed away, he left everything to a foundation and it was significant, I mean, but anyway. The Jewish Center was big in my life and…
Interviewer: That was the old Jewish Center with the bowling alley.
Zox: Exactly. I set pins there before they had automatic pin-setting. I set pins manually in the bowling alley. That was my job.
Interviewer: What do you remember about that?
Zox: I don’t know. I mean, it was sort-of scary but I enjoyed it. I mean, it was like, I think it was the first job I had maybe and I was paid for it, and I enjoyed it. It was fun.
Interviewer: Now, how did it work? You had to be where all, in back of where all the pins were.
Zox: Exactly.
Interviewer: You couldn’t want to, you didn’t want to get hit. How did that work?
Zox: Exactly. Well, you stayed out of the way and then after the pins were knocked down, you picked them up and put them back in the slot and then the slot would come up and they would roll it again and, it was, the resetting of the pins was manual in those days.
Interviewer: Did you ever see your friends play, bowling, and they were bowling, and in your lane, and you picked up their pins?
Zox: I think it was more my friends’ parents, you know not my friends. Yeah, although I think we did do some bowling, too, but we weren’t into the bowling that much, and then let’s see, what else? I don’t think I was involved in AZA , but I did – this is interesting- when my wife and I got married within two weeks after I graduated from college, we moved into the Virgina Lee Apartments on Maryland Avenue, and I got a phone call from Bernie Yenkin, Bernie Yenkin, and he and Alan Weiler wanted to come over and talk to me about B’nai B’rith, on a Sunday morning. I was just about starting law school and they came over on a Sunday morning at 11:00 and they asked me if I would be interested in joining B’nai B’rith Zion Lodge and I said, “Absolutely.” You know, I was interested in any Jewish connection and I also admired those two fellows and knew their families and so on. Alan grew up on Bexley Park, Alan and Bob, a block away from me on Bryden and Dawson and so I said, “Absolutely,” and I joined Zion Lodge, and we had our meetings at the Jewish Center. That’s where I met A. Strip and a lot of other people, in Zion Lodge of B’nai B’rith and I went on to become president of Zion Lodge and the, I remember the first nice trip my wife and I took, I was president of Zion Lodge and we went to the Annual Convention and it was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That was a big deal for us then.
Interviewer: Before we go on, you’ve talked about your father. Tell us about your mother especially when you were a child. Was she a homemaker or did she work outside the home? Remind us of her name again?
Zox: Leah. Her name was Leah Keifer Zox and she was one of four children and she was born and grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and I forget exactly how she met my dad. She was fixed up with him and I forget who the person was who fixed them up, but he was a little bit older than her, maybe, seven years older, I think, and he was, he was traveling for Schiff Shoe Company then and he was making $15,000 a year and he was considered for that reason and other reasons, a good catch. You know, that’s the way she referred and she liked him, and they married I think, in 1933, and they had my older sister in 1935, and she’s still alive, Nancy. She’s 90. She just turned 90 and then I was next, and then my sister Sally, who I was very close to, was best friends with my wife, Julie. They were best friends in school. She, they were three years behind me, and Sally tragically passed away from lung cancer at age 59, just before her 60th birthday, and she was, she was a doll. She was homecoming queen at Bexley High School, and…
Interviewer: Sally Zox.
Zox: Um-hmm. Her boyfriend was the captain of the football team, Wendell Kessler, not Jewish, and, and then, after her, and eight years younger than me was Ellen, my sister Ellen, and she also passed away prematurely at age 72, and she had, it was a blood disease. I think it turned into sepsis, and it was totally sort-of, like, unexpected. It happened quickly, and then, so that was four children, me and three girls, and then my mom decided – we didn’t know this, I didn’t find this out until she told me two weeks before she passed away – she decided that she wanted to have another boy. She had three girls and me, and she decided she wanted to have another boy. She was 43 years old. My dad was 50, and my dad didn’t know this – but she decided that she wanted to have another boy, and she knew, she thought she knew how to have a boy, and she did. She had a boy, my brother David. My mom was 43. My dad was 50, and this was around the time of the Viet Nam War, and I think, you know, they were, and my brother was sort-of a – I don’t know what you would say – but he was, you know, sort-of a modern guy. In other words, he was, they lived on Gould Road at the time on the Bexley side and he had his bedroom down in the basement and he was sort-of a non-traditional type of guy, not, not drugs or anything but he was into music and, you know…
Interviewer: He was living with your parents…
Zox: Yes, he was living…
Interviewer: …in the basement. This would have been the late 60s.
Zox: That’s right.
Interviewer: Okay.
Zox: That’s right and I don’t think they were prepared for the Viet Nam generation child, and he was, he was terrific, a terrific person. He still is but, you know, he was not, he didn’t have the same ambitions. You know, when I grew up, it was a given that I was going to be either a doctor or a lawyer, but in his case, no way. I mean, they were like, not equipped to handle his…
Interviewer: Your parents…
Zox: …were not equipped to handle
Interviewer: …to handle the rebellious…
Zox: Exactly. Right.
Interviewer: Was there a specific thing with him and the Viet Nam War or just the era you’re talking about?
Zox: Both, I think, both. I mean, he became a Buddhist, okay? He was bar mitzvahed and he was a good Jew but he, he became, he met a girl that he fell in love with. She was a Buddhist. He became a Buddhist and he, we went to his wedding and there were people there that looked just like us but they were doing this when we walked in. My dad…
Interviewer: They were bowing.
Zox: They were bowing from their seats like this, and, and my dad was gone at that ti[me]. He passed away in 1982. He was dead and gone and my mom had remarried a guy, a lawyer by the name of Al Goldman who they knew from Florida, and we all walked in, and I whispered to my wife, “I’m glad Dad’s not here to see this show,” but anyway, and my brother David had two daughters and he divorced the wife and I think she remarried another Jewish guy. But, anyway, my brother had a big Buddha statue in his apartment and my second daughter was visiting colleges and she was visiting Tufts and so she went to see my brother in his apartment and she walks down the hallwway and there’s this big – she didn’t even know he was a Buddhist, you know – there’s a big Buddha statue in the hallway.
Interviewer: A big Buddha statue.
Zox: She was shocked, you know? She was shocked but anyway, that’s the story of David and he was their fifth child, and it was very unusual in those days for a fifty-year-old-man and a forty-three-year-old woman to have a child, you know,
Interviewer: Yes.
Zox: …so he was, he was the…
Interviewer: So, your mother, so, your mother was a housewife. She was taking care…
Zox: She was in, and my older sister knew this, I didn’t even know it. When she was pregnant, I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I mean, I was, like, totally out to lunch. I had no idea, and when we lived on Bryden Road, the washing machine and the dryer were down in the basement, so she was up and down the stairs, and the basement and just doing, and in my dad’s mind, the home and the children were the wife’s responsibility in those days. He was, you know, the working guy, and he traveled a lot for business and so on, so, the home was her responsibility and she was a great mother. I mean, she was wonderful. My wife loves her like a real mother, loved her like a real mother. She was wonderful in every respect, but I never knew, I never even knew she was pregnant. My older sister told me that she had very difficult pregnancies, very difficult, but we never knew it. That’s how great she was. She was wonderful.
Interviewer: Before we talk about your marriage, what can you tell me about what your parents told you when you were in high school about dating Jews or non-Jews? Was that an issue?
Zox: It was not an issue. I mean, it was a non-issue. There was no question about it in my time, no question about it. I mean, it was and I…
Interviewer: Explain what you mean that there was no question.
Zox: Well, it was going to be a Jewish girl, I mean, and I dated all Jewish girls except for one and they didn’t know about this one and that was in my junior year in high school, there was a sort-of a growing tradition that when you were a junior, if you were up to it, you dated a senior girl, so I dated a senior girl who was a cheerleader, and, and she lived on Ruhl Avenue near Maryland Avenue School and I think both her parents worked. They were never home so I was over there all the time, and I mean, it was, we had a hot and heavy relationship and…
Interviewer: …but a secret one.
Zox: A secret one, yeah, but there was no question that I was going to marry a Jewish girl. I mean, that was, that was a given. There was no question about that.
Interviewer: Was that because they told you strongly and firmly that that was going to be the case or was it just understood?
Zox: It was, it was really more, more of the latter. It was understood. I mean, in those days there wasn’t the intermarriage that, you know, that there is today.
Interviewer: So, you did marry a Jewish girl…
Zox: Absolutely.
Interviewer: …and tell us about her and how you met.
Zox: Right. Okay. This is interesting. She was three years behind me, and she was my sister Sally’s best friend, and there were three of them that were together. There was Sally, Julie and Diana who was my Uncle Morris’ stepdaughter. He married Florence whose husband died. He was in the Second World War and he died after he came home, had, like, a heart attack on the doorstep or something in, where they lived. I think it was in Denver or something and then she met Morris, and they married, and she had two children. Diana was one of them, so Diana and Sally and Julie were best friends. Julie was over at our house all the time and I admired her from the beginning because number one, she was beautiful, very, gorgeous, but more importantly, she was smart and she was beneath the radar, you know, not flashy or not, not outspoken or anything. She was quiet and smart and beautiful.
Zox: Pailet. She was a Pailet. Her dad…
Interviewer: Spell that for us.
Zox: P-a-i-l-e-t, and her dad was one of 13 children, okay? and, Ed Pailet, and they lived on a farm that ultimately became the airport, the Columbus Airport, but, unfortunately, a lot of the, particularly the male children of that family, passed away at young ages. He passed away, Ed Pailet passed away at age 66 and he had both heart and cancer, and she, she adored him with good reason. He was a wonderful fellow and he had a dairy. It was called Pailet Milk Company, and it became Harmony Farms. They merged with another dairy and became Harmony Farms. They were located where Kroger is on Main Street now in Bexley.
Interviewer: So, you were married to Julie. What year?
Zox: In, we were married within two years after I mean, two weeks after I graduated from college which was 1959. That’s when we were married. We’ve been married for 66 years, and, happily, and as I mentioned, we lived at the beginning at the Virginia Lee Apartments on Maryland Avenue, and between Gould Road and James Road on Maryland Avenue.
Interviewer: Just outside of Bexley.
Zox: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: In the Eastmoor area.
Zox: Exactly.
Interviewer: And you had how many children?
Zox: We had three children. Our oldest is Holly and she is a professor in, she never married, she’s a professor of ecology in Seattle, Washington. She lives outside, in Monroe, Washington, outside of Seattle, and she started out at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, and we were visiting her one day in January of her sophomore year and she was having an art show. She was an artist, too. It’s sort-of in our family and she was having her own art show there and I remember it was in January, and it was, like, four o’clock in the afternoon and we had seen the art show, all her pieces, and I looked outside. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, pitch black, pitch black. It was in January, and I said to Julie, I said, “Let’s go back, since we’ve seen all the artwork and we’ve got a little time here before dinner, let’s go back to the motel and call the kids, and make sure they’re doing okay.” They were staying with my mom in Columbus, so we called home, and our second daughter Missy, answered the phone and she said, “Guess what? I had…” she had retaken the college boards in English. She was great in math but English, she needed to do better, so she retook the college boards in math, and she said, “ Good news. I increased my score by 200 points in English,” you know, so, then she put our son Bill on the phone and he was playing basketball at the time on the freshmen basketball team and I had been to every game and this was the only game I missed and he said, “Dad you won’t believe it. I had 21 points today,” so I said, “The only game I miss and you have 21 points,” and so I’ve said ever since then, that was the best day of my life, you know, the art show, college boards, 21 points, all three kids…
Interviewer: All three kids, great, launched or being launched.
Zox: All three kids, great. Right..
Interviewer: Let’s talk now. You graduate Law School at OSU and tell us about your legal career. Let’s start from the beginning.
Zox: Sure. When I was in law school, I clerked in the summertime. You weren’t allowed to work freshman year, but after my freshman year, I clerked in a Gentile firm, a small Gentile firm. It was a nice firm and the second name in the firm was a Williams College graduate and that may be how I got the job. I don’t know, but, anyway, and then my third year, err, no, after my second year I needed a clerk-ship and my uncle was friendly with a guy named Sam Gurvitz who was a partner in the law firm Schwartz Gurvitz and Schwartz. The Schwartzes were Stanley Schwartz, Senior and Stanley Schwartz, Junior, and they had a nice practice, and Sam Gurvitz was a very lovely guy and he and his wife and my parents were very good friends. My uncle was actually the one who got me the job at that law firm so I clerked with them and they, they offered me a full-time job after graduation, and they paid me $5400 a year, which was considered a good job at that time.
Interviewer: About what year was that?
Zox: That was 1962, so, I was working there, and they had a nice practice and I liked the people there, except for Stanley Schwartz, Junior who was the boss. I didn’t care for his manner. He was very abrupt and very cold and you know, he wasn’t my cup o’ tea, but he was a good lawyer, and one day, in communicating with me, he was not clear when he would give me directions and I was not forceful enough to ask him, you know, for clarity, and so, I remember one time he was, asked me to prepare some corporate minutes based on the information that he gave me and I misinterpreted the information and made a mistake in the corporate minutes and he read them and he crumpled them up and, and threw ‘em in the waste basket and I said to myself, “I don’t think this is going to work out because he’s not my type.” In the meantime, I had met a lawyer by the name of Mel Schottenstein at a wedding of a common friend of ours, a fellow named Sig Muenster who passed away in the last year nor so. We were good friends, and I met Mel for the first time at his wedding which, I think, was in Toledo, Toledo or Akron, one of the two, and on Saturday night of that wedding, Mel introduced himself and he asked me and Julie to have breakfast with he and Lenny the following morning and…
Interviewer: Lenny was his wife.
Zox: Lenny was his wife, yes, so, we had breakfast, and we got along great, and Mel was warm and engaging and lovely and stood for all the things that I admired and, and the, that was a Sunday. The next day, Monday, you know, we were back home, and he called me and offered me a job and I said, “ Mel,” I said, “I’ve only been with Stanley since September,” and this was like, January, you know, I said, “I’ve got to give it more time.” Well, after the incident with the corporate minutes that were crumbled up, I had been there for almost a year at that time and I really, made up my mind as I walked out that night that I was going to, what I wanted to do was set up my own practice and I thought I could do that, you know, by sharing space with Mel. He had a small office at the time at 8 East Broad Street on the ninth floor, and so, I called him that evening when I got home and I told him that I’d like to talk to him and he said, “ Well, let’s get together,” and I said, “When do you want to get together?” and it was like, ten o’clock at night. He said, “Well, why don’t you come over right now.” Well, you know, I usually was in bed by ten o’clock but I got in my car and I drove over to Mel’s house at, on Caroline, you know, and, at ten o’clock that night, and we, you know, we talked and he set up a meeting in his office for, the next day or so, and he offered me, Stanley had increased me from $5400 to $6000 and Mel offered me $7500, and all he had in the way of an office was a small, little office next to the Xerox room, you know, machine, and that was fine, and…
Interviewer: So, in other words, for a while you said I just mainly want to share a space…
Zox: Exactly.
Interviewer: …but this was more. Mel was offering you a job.
Zox: Right. Exactly and he insisted on that, and he wanted to, I think, he saw in me something that wasn’t present in the other two fellows which was an ability to attract business and to attract other lawyers, which turned out to be my strength and anyway, so I joined as an associate. Then, I think, it was several years, no more than a couple years after that we formed a partnership and it was Schottenstein Garel Swedlow and Zox, and, but Garel and Swedlow ultimately left and I, Garel wanted me to join him. Mel was not, in good mental health at the time and I didn’t feel like it was, I felt it was wrong to leave him and I also believed in him and what he stood for and I thought we had a practice that could, could become successful.
Interviewer: So, you stayed with Mel Schottenstein.
Zox: I stayed. I stayed. Yes, and…
Interviewer: So, then what was the name of the firm?
Zox: It was, well, Gerry Swedlow left first and when he left it became Schottenstein Garel and Zox, and then, when Jules Garel left two years after Gerry left, it was sort of up in the air and it really, what Mel and I wanted was for it to be Schottenstein and Zox, and ‘cause we were two of a kind, basically. I mean we were totally compatible in every way, and, but the first or maybe the second lawyer we hired was a fellow named Harvey Dunn who was a tax lawyer and one of the younger partners came to us after several months. We had not made a decision, and he said, “ You guys are known as community people and you know, not just practicing lawyers. You’re involved in the community and so on, whereas Harvey Dunn is known as a pure lawyer, a tax lawyer, so a bunch of us young partners here think you should put Harvey in the name,” and we discussed it and we decided to do it so it became Schottenstein Zox and Dunn.
Interviewer: And that is the name that is most the well-known…
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: …over several decades…
Zox: Right. Right.
Interviewer: …in Columbus.
Zox: Right. Yes.
Interviewer: So, what kind of lawyers were you? I don’t mean temperament-wise.
Zox: Yes.
Interviewer: I mean, topic-wise. Were you corporate lawyers or were you civil rights lawyers or were you labor lawyers? What was your meat and potatoes?
Zox: No, in the beginning, I think we were primarily real estate lawyers and because the Schottenstein family, you know, was, they were clients because of Mel.
Interviewer: The other, the other Schottensteins.
Zox: Right. I remember you mentioned that. I remember, one time shortly after I joined Mel, Leo Yassenoff was also a major client and his office on Town Street was being taken by eminent domain by the City of Columbus, and we weren’t happy, he wasn’t happy with the price they were offering him so we went to court and Mel and I were trying the case and Mel stood up on the opening statement and said that he was a Schottenstein but he was not the Columbus Schottenstein. He was, he was the Bellefontaine Schottenstein. He was raised in Bellefontaine, Ohio, and his dad’s business was he owned a bar in Bellefontaine, Ohio, and Mel wanted the jury to understand that he was not a Columbus Schottenstein. He was a Bellefontaine Schottenstein and the lawyer for the City stood up and objected to this and the judge sustained the objection so that was the end of that discussion but we ended up settling the case for a number that Leo Yassenoff was happy with and we ended up hiring the City’s trial lawyer who, he was fellow named Clyde Collins who handled the case for the City. We liked the way he handled it and we hired him. He was our first litigation lawyer.
Interviewer: So, you hired away the opposition attorney.
Zox: Exactly. Yeah.
Interviewer: So, you say you did real estate law.
Zox: That was mainly what we did but it branched into, when we got Harvey on board, we started doing a lot of tax work, and we brought in, we brought in three different labor lawyers at three different times, all of whom had experience with the National Labor Relations Board and we developed a very substantial labor and employment practice and then…
Interviewer: Now, on that front, would you be representing the allegedly injured worker or…
Zox: No, other side.
Interviewer: … would you be representing the company?
Zox: We would represent, we were on the employer’s side. We represented the company and we did a lot of, you know, defense work in Workers’ Compensation, not representing the employee but representing the employer and there were, literally, during that period of time, every one of our corporate clients was sued at one time or another by an employee for discrimination or wrongful termination or, that became a big part of our practice. Then another area that we got into, and we brought in lawyers to, to handle it, was health care. Health care became big and I was instrumental in that because I, one of my tennis friends invited me to be on the board of St. Ann’s Hospital and I ended up not only being on the board, but representing them as a lawyer and becoming Chairman of the Board of all their different corporations and so, health care became a big part of our practice, and another area that became big was construction law and litigation related to that, and litigation itself was a big, big area.
Interviewer: So, how many decades then were you a lawyer?
Zox: I was, for like, 45 years I was a lawyer for forty…Mel and I were partners for 30 years and Mel passed away prematurely at age 61. He called me. This was in 1993. He called me and he had been having tests at University Hospital, and he said, “They found a cancer but we’re relieved because it’s not in a vital organ. It’s in my esophagus,” So, he was relieved in the sense that it wasn’t in an, organ that.. but it turned out three months later – that was Memorial Day. Three months later, Labor Day, he was gone. That was, and I have in here an article in the Dispatch, there was a news article on the front page of the Dispatch that was announcing that I was taking over but, in reality, I was already the president of the firm at that time, because Mel was not well, and, but anyway, at that time, I think, we had 59 lawyers, but…
Interviewer: Would that make your firm one of the largest?
Zox: Yeah, we were, we were the fourth largest in Columbus and we were top ten in the State of Ohio, but that was, I grew it from the 59 to, we ended up we had a 125 lawyers and we had offices in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, and that was under my leadership, but with help, you know, obviously from plenty of people.
Interviewer: You grew, your firm grew into more than one hundred lawyers.
Zox: A hundred and twenty-five. Yeah.
Interviewer: Now is there still the remnants of that law firm today and what’s it called?
Zox: Well, what happened was, I retired in, well, first, we moved from the Huntington Center to the Arena District. That was, that was a big move. We were the first law firm to move to the Arena District, and, and, from that, not necessarily that it’s related but we went to Friday Casual. We went from Friday Casual to Everyday Casual, and I did something. I was the first law firm, I think, maybe in the country to do this. When we remodeled our space at 250 West Town Street in the Arena District, every office was the same size, from mine all the way down to the beginning lawyers’. The accounting firms had begun to do it but were the first law firm, I think, in the country to do lawyers’ offices. Every lawyer’s office was the same size and the same furnishings. They were, like, built-in furnishings, and every, it was like, you know, it was sort-of, unusual. It was…
Interviewer: What was your thinking?
Zox: My thinking was, you know, the obvious thing that to be more relatable to the beginning lawyer, and to show that we were that way as a firm.
Interviewer: Respectful.
Zox: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Interviewer: You weren’t so hierarchical.
Zox: Exactly. It was major and, you know, it’s still that way. I mean…
Interviewer: Now, I’m a little confused by something you just said. You said were, you moved to the Arena District…
Zox: Right.
Interviewer: …but you mentioned 250 West Town Street. Is that in the Arena District?
Zox: Yeah. I think that’s the address.
Interviewer: Okay.
Zox: Have I got it right? I think that’s, yeah.
Interviewer: Okay. Okay but you were near, in the Arena District you were near Nationwide Arena?
Zox: Exactly. Exactly.
Interviewer: Okay. As a lawyer, you’ve been so well known in the Columbus community and beyond, and you, community groups have been delighted to have you serve as, as a leader of their groups on their boards and so forth. You mentioned St. Ann’s Hospital, being on the board there. What other groups have you been active with, Jewish and non-Jewish?
Zox: Right. Well, I was Chairman of the Columbus Jewish Federation, twice. First time, it was a two year term, but I, the Executive Director at the time was Alan Gil and the Philadelphia Federation offered him a job, and he said, “If you’ll agree to serve a third year, I’ll turn down the Philadelphia offer,” so, I did, and shortly, thereafter, he decided to go with the, I think, it was called the American Jewish Committee or something and made aliyah to Israel, so I served three years and without Alan Gil for most of the third year but I was happy for him and his family. Then, some years after that, my brother-in-law, Gordon Zacks, was Chairman of the Federation and he served his first year and then, it was, just before he was to start his second year, I get a call from him and he said, “I’d like to come over and talk to you Sunday morning at around 11:00” and I said, “What’s it about?” and he said, “ It’s about the Jewish people.” So, it’s about 11:15 on Sunday morning and I said to my wife, she wanted to go shopping or something, “It doesn’t look like he’s going to come so I think we can go,” and I look out the window and coming up the driveway is a cavalcade of luxury cars, not just Gordon Zacks, but there’s like, you know, five or six luxury cars pulling into my driveway and in the door comes Leslie Wexner, Gordon Zacks, Irving Schottenstein, Bob Schottenstein, Jay Schottenstein and the current Director of the Federation, whoever it was, and they, they sit down and Gordy says, “ Well, the reason I called this meeting together is we’d like you to take over the second year of my term because I need to devote my total energy and time to my business,” and I said, I said, “You know,” I said, “I’m honored and you couldn’t have a better delegation. I’m honored and I respect everybody here, but I’ve already served for three years which is longer than any prior Federation Chairman,” and Irving says, he says “Ben, I was Chairman of the Foundation for seven years.” I said, “ Irving, and you were great, but being President of the Foundation and being President of the Federation are two completely different things and it takes much more dedication and time with the Federation,” but anyway, I didn’t say “Yes” there and Leslie, to Leslie I said, “You know, when I served before for three years, every single time I called Leslie Wexner wherever he was, and he was all over the world, he would always call me back within twenty-four hours,” and I said, “I’m indebted to him and to all of you, and, but let me give it some thought,” and then the next day I said, “Okay. I’ll do it,” but I said, “Don’t count on me for a bunch of innovation.” I said, “I’m a gatekeeper, basically, for the year and…”
Interviewer: A caretaker.
Zox: Exactly, a caretaker, and I explained it to the Board and that was that. What other, oh, I was President of Winding Hollow Country Club, whatever that means and I was President of the Temple Israel Brotherhood. That was while I was still a member of Temple Israel.
Interviewer: And the YMCA.
Zox: Oh, I was just, limiting to the Jewish and then in the non-Jewish community I was the President of Pilot Dogs. I was the President of Legal Aid Society. I was a President of the Columbus Bar Association, President of the Columbus Bar Foundation, President of the Legal Aid Society. I was a board member and officer of the Chamber of Commerce, board member and officer of United Way, on and on. I’ve got a, you know, resume, in here that’s got all that stuff in it which I can leave with you.
Interviewer: Wow. Wow. How did you find the time to run a full-scale huge law firm and do these basically volunteer gigs helping all these groups?
Zox: Well, it, you know, basically, what it amounted to is most of the meetings, other than the Federation, were at lunchtime, you know, so it really wasn’t that onerous time-wise, and, somehow, I joined the boards, and I would get enthusiastic and wanting to move into leadership and, invariably, that’s what happened, and one change I made out of deference to my family, is I, in particular the Federation they would meet in the evening and I changed them to noon meetings, luncheon meetings, so that I could be home with my family for dinner and the evening, but it was doable. I mean, for me I considered it, it was very much related to my law practice because it helped me meet other lawyers. I was able to attract a lot of lawyers with different specialties to the law firm because I met them through the various civic activities that I was involved in, and the Bar Association activities. I met a lot of lawyers that ended up being, lawyers in the firm.
Interviewer: You’ve been way out there. You’ve been out front in the community, and anti-Semitism, has never been…
Zox: No.
Interviewer: …something you have faced?
Zox: No, and it could be that I didn’t recognize it, but I don’t think so. I mean, even when I was in college, Williams College, was, when I was there, it was only eight percent Jewish, and there, we had a thousand students and 80 were Jewish and I was the first Jewish member of my fraternity ever, and I went on to get, I got at least one Jewish person every year, you know.
Interviewer: An extra Jew.
Zox: Right. Right and also, we had a compulsory Chapel requirement at Williams College. You had to go to Chapel every Sunday morning and, but we got it changed. I was an officer of the Jewish Association there and we got it changed so that you could, if you went to Friday evening services, Jewish services, that would satisfy the Chapel requirement, so I started leading the Friday evening service and it would be about a half an hour on a Friday evening instead of, like, two hours on a Sunday morning, and I would fill up. We would meet in a, like, a classroom and, on Friday at the Friday Shabbos service and there’d be a bunch of Jewish guys there, you know a lot of the [? ] were there but also a bunch of non-Jewish guys, to satisfy the Chapel requirement for a half hour on a Friday night instead of…Anyway, so, you know, there may have been, but I don’t know. It just wasn’t apparent to me. Maybe it was there and I was ignoring it. I don’t know.
Interviewer: But never felt constricted or limited because you, you were Jewish.
Zox: Not at all. Coincidentally, maybe, let’s see, I think it was after I graduated, Williams College went up from eight percent to, like, twenty percent Jewish, and they had five Jewish presidents in a row.
Interviewer: That’s pretty good seeing as how Jews only make up two percent maybe three precent of the American population.
Zox: That’s right. That’s right.
Interviewer: Even eight percent was disproportionate.
Zox: That’s right. I think they recognized that Jews value education, number one, and number two, a lot of them can afford to pay the freight, you know.
Interviewer: We haven’t really talked about this aspect. Do you consider yourself a Jew religiously? How important is the religious part of Judaism or is it mostly more cultural, historic? What about it, what role does it play in your life?
Zox: Okay. That’s a, I’m glad you asked that. I think it’s a complicated answer, but I always respected my dad. When we would go to temple on the holidays, which was really the only time we went. I would always sit with my dad and I was always impressed by how knowledgeable he was, and we, on top of that, we honored the Sabbath and made it holy. We had Shabbos dinner every Friday night throughout the years. This is another great thing about my mom. She would have Shabbos dinner every Friday night, and after I was married, we would come over every Friday night to my mom and dad’s house for Shabbos dinner, and my mom was the one that…my mom’s brother, Mort Keiffer, was the father of Connie Robins, who’s Gary Robins’ wife, and he, my mom fixed them up. Well, after they were married, they were there at my mom and dad’s house every Friday night for Shabbos dinner, but, anyway, Shabbos dinner was, was a big thing, and, but anyway.
Then, one of my best friends who was first in our class at Bexley and who I went to Williams with and who went from Williams on scholarship to Oxford in economics and then to Harvard Law School and then went with a, became a partner in a Jewish law firm in Washington, DC, and then after so many years, when he was in his mid-fifties, he decided to give up the Law. He had been divorced and he had met a woman who was the decorator for his law office and he fell in love with her and married her and her father was Jewish and her first husband was Jewish so, I think through her, he got more familiar with the Jewish religion and we used to get together, a group of us from high school and college in Florida, every winter, and the, one winter it was at our condo in Boca Raton and he came and he brought me, as a house gift the Book of Psalms. I said, after everybody left, I was talking to him and I said, “ I love this. I’m going to value it. I’m going to study it,” and, but I said, “The only one I’m familiar with is the 23rd,, you know. There’s 150 of them and I’m only familiar with the 23rd,” and I said, “ You gotta’ bring me up to speed on this,” and by that time, I don’t think I said this, by that time he had become a Lutheran minister. In his mid 50s, he went to Seminary in Indiana where Notre Dame is. whatever the city is Where Notre Dame is in Indiana. He went to, became a Lutheran minister and he had a congregation. His first one was in Southern Alabama. No, it was in Baltimore, inner city Baltimore, and then a small church there and then he moved to southern Alabama on the Florida border and had a congregation there and, so he said, “ Look, Ben. We’ll study them together.” He was brilliant and so, it turned out, we would have a phone call, like, every two weeks, and I said, “ You gotta’ give me a context. Who wrote the Psalms and why were they written and how were they used?” He said, “ Well here’s what I’ll do. I’ll make up a program for.us.” Within two weeks I get, like, a syllabus. Honest to God, it was like a syllabus for a graduate course on Judaism. You wouldn’t believe it and with outside reading. He would assign a Psalm or Psalms and then outside reading to go with it, and there were dates when we would have these phone conversations for two hours like, every couple weeks. So, that was important to me to get sort of better grounding in Judaism because, frankly, my bar mitzvah training, it was a non-starter because I wanted the bar mitzvah, but I was sort of negative on, and I loved the religion. I was proud of being a Jew, but I didn’t like the training and I didn’t really know much about Judaism, but anyway, I went through that, and in my apartment building, was a classmate of mine by the name of Irving Baker. Irving Baker’s father was a rabbi, so I mentioned to Irving how I had been studying with Jack Betz who was a fellow classmate of ours. He said, “Ben, Jack’s great,” he said, “but you should be meeting with a rabbi.” He said, “ My dad was a rabbi. I’m meeting with a rabbi, the head rabbi at Kollel.” He said, “I’m going to set a meeting for you with the head rabbi of Kollel.” So, I met with the head rabbi over at Kollel and he spent a half hour or so with me, and he determined that I should be meeting with the most junior rabbi at Kollel so introduced me to the most junior rabbi at Kollel, who I loved. He was great, and I can’t remember his name right now, but, anyway, and I had on a yellow sheet a list of topics that I wanted to cover with this rabbi. I was only here, at that time, I was retired, and I was only here in the summertime, so we would meet every two weeks in the summertime and we would go through the items on my yellow pad, and we’d, you know, it was just remarkable. I mean, I loved it, and…
Interviewer: So, in your, your retirement years, you’ve had a blossoming of love for Judaism.
Zox: Right. Right, and I’m not done with it either. I’m, let me finish this, he was the one that told me about Modeh Ani. I don’t know if you know that prayer. That’s a prayer that rabbis say every morning when they wake up, and he taught me Modeh Ani and I say it every morning when I wake up and it’s basically, you know, thanking God for returning my soul and…
Interviewer: …coming alive again.
Zox: Exactly, for living another day and then I say the Shema on top of that and then I say, you know, Baruch sheym k’vod malchuso l’olam va-ed. Blessed be the Name of His glorious kingdom forever, those three prayers every morning and then I, in addition to that, I have my grandson who’s tech-savvy, ten years ago, printed out for me. I said, “Get a morning service for me offline that I can do every morning,” and he printed one out for me which is fabulous with English and Hebrew and explanation and it’s, like, 54 pages long. Well, I don’t do the 54 pages every morning but I do a couple pages every morning and I go through it and I go through the whole thing in maybe a couple weeks and then I start over again and every morning I do, a couple pages, so, I mean, I feel like more connected that way and I’ve always had pride in, in my Judaism. I’ve never hidden it. I’ve always been proud of it, you know, when I was the only Jew in the fraternity and maybe the first one ever in that fraternity. They had all branches in colleges all over the country. I think there were Jews in other branches but in my branch, I think, I was the first one, and I figured it out that we would be going through the names of who we were going to offerpledge-ships to, and you know, it would be, I would wait ‘til, like, the end of the evening when everybody’s exhausted and I would bring up and they would say “Oh, here goes Zox with another Jewish candidate” and I would bring up a Jewish name and they would always get in so obviously, I was not ashamed of it or tried to hide it. I was proud of it.
Interviewer: Let’s wrap up our interview now…
Zox: Sorry.
Interviewer: …but let me give you one last chance just to, is there something, in particular you want to leave us with in terms of Ben Zox and his life in Columbus, his life as a Jew?
Zox: I don’t know. I guess I should have thought about this more, but I think I’ve sort-of said it already. I mean, I love Columbus. I’m the only one of five children to come back to Columbus, and my brother settled in Cambridge and has been there ever since after college, and my three sisters all settled in New York, so, I’m the only one that came back to Columbus and I’m glad that I did. I never regretted it, and I always loved Columbus, and I wanted, I wanted to be where my parents were. I knew that I wasn’t going to be with them forever but I, while they were here, I wanted to be with them. Hopefully, I’ve passed that along to my children. Two out of three of my children are here and as I say, I’m proud of my Judaism and I’m also proud of my involvement in the general community, and hopefully I’ve helped lessen anti-Semitism by being involved with non-Jews, too. I know my good friend who became a Lutheran minister, he, through his relationship with me, came to admire Judaism and he told me that. I mean he admired the emphasis on education and the emphasis on family. Those two traits of Judaism he was very aware of and respected and so, I don’t know. I mean, I honestly don’t know. I guess maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t, I’m a very happy person, always have been and I don’t regret anything. I feel like I’ve made good choices, and you know. This is something that I think, maybe and I’m not, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I think the non-Jewish organizations that I’ve been involved in are better at honoring the people that serve than the Jewish organizations are. I think, and I don’t want to overestimate that because we, all, all the charitable organizations have to be concerned with giving. But, I think the Gentile organizations have been, I mean, I’ve been honored a million times and I get honored for doing a lot less for non-Jewish organizations than I get honored for doing a lot more for Jewish organizations. Like those guys had no reluctance to ask me to serve for another year as Federation Chairman when I had already served for three which was more than anybody else. But I understand that all of them have to be interested in how much you give and so on. I’ve tried to do my best at that, too, and, but anyway, I appreciate you and what you’re doing, and I appreciate this opportunity. You know, I was surprised at how long the list of people, how long it took them to get around to me, you know, after all I’ve done, but, a lot of those people are gone already on that list and there’s not that many and I made a short list which I’ll leave with you of people that I think you haven’t talked to that you ought to. Those are, those are the ones. I don’t know if you know some of those people. I don’t know.
Interviewer: These names look familiar, and we’ll take these as good suggestions for future oral history interviews.
Zox: Yes. Yes.
Interviewer: So, thank you very much, Ben Zox, for sharing your comments and memories about your life, your general life and your Jewish life here, in Columbus, Ohio.
Zox: Thank you.
Transcribed by Linda Kalette Schottenstein July 30, 2025