North High School lost an icon and good friend recently, and when I read all the many comments on Northside related FaceBook pages, I knew he needed to be the topic of this month’s column.
Jack Walter Moskowitz passed away on December 13, 2023 at the age of 83. He grew up in North Minneapolis and attended Lincoln Junior High and graduated from North High School in 1958. While a student at North High he was on the student council and was the sports reporter for North’s student newspaper. After attending college he became a teacher, which turned out to be the perfect profession for him. He was a teacher for 34 years, first at Lincoln Junior High and then at North High School. Because he taught both social studies and driver’s education at North High, and was also the school’s sports equipment manager for many years, he was in contact with many students each year. He was passionate about teaching and at the same time had a great sense of humor.
My husband, our son Jeremiah, and I first met Mr. Moskowitz during the 1991-92 school year. Our son was a freshman at North High and had had a rocky start the first quarter. Moskowitz was his social studies teacher during the second quarter that year and Jeremiah really took a liking to him. When Moskowitz found out our son had failed a few classes the first quarter, he was determined to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. It soon became apparent that our son would listen to Moskowitz, even when he didn’t want to listen to us.
I had gone to conferences one evening during our son’s sophomore year and found his grades in a couple of his classes were not stellar. Conferences happened to be on the evening of a Jewish holiday so Moskowitz wasn’t in attendance, but had left a notebook out for parents to leave notes and set up a time to meet with him. I left a note explaining that while my son wasn’t his student at that time, would he give him a pep talk if he saw him at school. My son came home the next day and asked, “Did you talk to Mr. Moskowitz last night?” I answered that I had left a note. My son then said that Mr. Moskowitz had met him at the front door of the school first thing that morning to have a talk!
North High had begun a program called “Encore” which was like a combination of homeroom and study hall. A student would be randomly assigned to a teacher’s classroom but could get passes to work in the media center, or go meet with another teacher or counselor. The first day of our son’s junior year at North he came home saying, “So much for random!” Moskowitz had made sure Jeremiah was assigned to his room for Encore. He also had chosen Jeremiah to be his student aide. My husband and I were always grateful for the extra attention and mentoring he had given our son.
Over the years since, I’ve come to realize that Moskowitz had shown this “extra” attention and mentoring to many, many students. He always went the extra mile for his students. He was known for things like bringing in a Holocaust survivor to talk with students when teaching about WWII so they would get a better understanding of it. When the school did fundraisers, he would tell his homeroom class that he’d match whatever they did. He would also tell students that they could get one free collect call to him when they went to college because they may have a time when they needed to talk to someone and they didn’t want it to be their parents.
Mr. Jack Moskowitz was through and through a Northsider, a Polar and a wonderful teacher. He touched the lives hundreds of students and their families, and he will be greatly missed by all.