He Held the Secrets to Success

Look up Dr. Yosef Walder a”h, who was niftar on 16 Adar II at 73, and you’ll find phrases like, “brilliant scientist,” “innovative entrepreneur,” and “distinguished philanthropist.” Dr. Walder’s sons give us deeper insight into who this man was, what made him so unique, and what it is that the world lost when he passed.

Joseph Walder was born in 1951 in Philadelphia; his father was a furniture salesman, and a child of immigrants.

The family moved to suburban Chicago, where Joe grew up. Joe had a passion for science from the very beginning, and his father built him a basement chemistry lab for homemade experiments. He went on to earn both an MD and a PhD from Northwestern, eventually becoming a professor of biochemistry at the University of Iowa College of Medicine.

In 1987, he established Integrated DNA Technology (IDT — not to be confused with Howard Jonas’s communications company), which would grow over the years to become the leading provider of synthetic RNA and DNA for life-sciences research. IDT’s products and services are now used in virtually all aspects of biomedical research around the globe. An inspiring encounter with Torah Judaism in Skokie on Purim 1994 set him on a course of increased observance. He immediately moved to an apartment near the Skokie Kollel and Chabad, while still making the three-hour-plus commute back to his other home in Iowa City, near the company, as needed. About a year later, Dr. Yosef met his future wife Shira Malka, and in 1998, the family moved to a house in Chicago, where they identified some of the most important needs of the Jewish community that they set out to fill.