Former Swampscott couple leaves JCC $1M

MARBLEHEAD – They lived modestly, but with the community of the JCC, a Swampscott couple lived well. And now the couple has left the community center $1 million so that others can enjoy the camaraderie and fellowship that they experienced.”Their lifestyle was modest,” Deborah Cohen, a niece of Phil and Rosalie Tanzer, said in an announcement of the gift. “They still had the same rotary phone, refrigerator, and stove that were in the house when they first bought it at least 30 years prior. It was drafty. Phil did things his way and kept their lives very simple. I imagine he understood the value of giving money to organizations which did good.”Phil Tanzer passed away in 2012, just shy of his 97th birthday. His wife, Rosalie, passed away a year later at age 88. Their gift will be officially announced at the JCC’s 103rd Annual Meeting June 14. The gift will be dedicated to the institution’s endowment.Phil Tanzer was born in Peabody and served in the Army in World War II where he was stationed in Guam, and then spent a career in civil service. He married Rosalie Lewis, and the couple made their home in Brookline before moving to Swampscott for the last 35 years of their lives, according to his obituary. Both volunteered at the Jewish Rehabilitation Center in Swampscott, he as an ombudsman and she as a bingo lady, Cohen told Leigh Blander, a spokeswoman for the JCC.Both Rosalie and Phil were active members of the JCC. Cohen recalled that the Tanzers visited the community center several times a week to use the gym and to meet with friends in the Golden Age and Friendship clubs. Phil would use the treadmill when he was well into his 90s and also lifted weights, Cohen recalled. Cohen also recalled the Tanzers taking her to the Golden Age club where she listened to everyone speaking Yiddish.”Since I only accompanied them to the JCC occasionally, I am not certain whether it was the camaraderie or exercise which drew them. It sounds like it was both,” Cohen told Blander. “I imagine the friendships and the exercise, the good clean fun, available at the JCC was important to (Phil). He and Rosalie had no children, and they didn’t take particular pleasure in spending money.”But the Tanzers valued philanthropy, with their names memorialized throughout the North Shore on health care facilities, at the Swampscott Public Library and at Ahabat Sholom synagogue.”I know their gift was kind and generous, and quite remarkable when one considers the lifestyle they led,” Cohen said. “Phil and Rosalie were a benevolent couple who valued doing good over fancy living and having things.”