{"id":77535,"date":"2025-07-20T08:19:23","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T08:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77535\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T08:19:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T08:19:23","slug":"harry-pure-97-year-old-jewish-philadelphian-stays-active","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77535\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Pure: 97-Year-old Jewish Philadelphian Stays Active"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Harry Pure. (Photos by Jon Marks)<\/p>\n

Harry Pure didn\u2019t start painting until after he\u2019d retired from his longtime job as athletic director of what was originally Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences, now Thomas Jefferson University. After all, the man who once served as president of what is now Tiferet Bet Israel in Blue Bell and was co-founder of Camp Comet in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, needed something to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d moved to Florida, where I became an avid tennis player,\u201d said Pure, 97, whose Audobon home is filled with his artwork. \u201cAs a result of an injury I began to paint because I couldn\u2019t do anything else. During the day, I\u2019d paint for like four hours. I had an aptitude for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up in South Philadelphia, where four synagogues were within walking distance of his family home, young Harry was too busy playing basketball and softball to worry about anything artistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole area had to be 99% Jewish,\u201d said Pure, whose father, Morris, owned a clothing store after coming over from Poland. \u201cI played in the streets and at Starr Garden Playground at 6th and Lombard. Then I played in the Jewish League at the Broadwood. I was high scorer of the league and they gave me the Eddie Gottlieb award for most likely to succeed. That led me to Gettysburg.\u201d<\/p>\n

There, he discovered that he was in for a rude awakening while playing four injury-plagued seasons for the Bullets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suddenly went from an all-Jewish environment to a totally gentile environment with only three Jews in the whole school,\u201d said Pure, who majored in physical education and history. \u201cThat took an adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upon his 1950 graduation, Pure went into the service, joining the U.S. Coast Guard during the Korean War. Years prior to that, while attending Camp Council in Phoenixville, he met Harriet, who became his wife in 1952.<\/p>\n

They first settled down in Waynesboro, not far from Gettysburg, where Pure got a job coaching basketball and teaching history at Waynesboro High. While in Waynesboro, he got involved in a venture that would have a lasting effect on his life as well as on many others.<\/p>\n

\"\"Harry Pure\u2019s artwork. (Photos by Jon Marks)<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when I met Morgan Levy, who became my partner in the creation of a new camp with innovations in a Space Age world,\u201d recalled Pure about Camp Comet in Waynesboro, a boys\u2019 camp where all the cabins were built in geodesic domes. \u201cThe camp\u2019s emphasis was on science, nature and sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Religion, too, had an impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I speak to campers at many of the reunions we\u2019ve had over the years and ask, \u2018What\u2019s the most important thing that you liked about camp?\u2019 invariably they say \u2018services,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I think back, they were nondenominational, but they had Jewish overtones.\u201d<\/p>\n

After three years in Waynesboro, the Pures moved back closer to home in Plymouth Meeting, while Harry taught history at Upper Merion Area High School. By then, they were raising daughter Jamie and son David, with daughter Shara soon to follow.<\/p>\n

Seeking a different challenge is what brought him to the College of Textiles and Sciences in 1960.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a big move to me,\u201d said Pure, who also ran the physical education department. \u201cWe had to create a department, and I was the only one with credentials, so they made me athletic director.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Harry Pure, center, with his son David Pure, left, and his daughter Jamie Stanton, right. (Photos by Jon Marks)<\/p>\n

A decade later, Herb Magee, who played there shortly after Pure\u2019s arrival, coached the 29-2 Rams to the NCAA 1970 Division II crown, beating Tennessee State 76-65 in the final in Evansville, Indiana. According to Magee, Pure, who was inducted into the school\u2019s Hall of Fame in 1996, always had what it took to get the job done.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarry always had your back,\u201d said Magee, who coached at the school from 1967 to 2022. \u201cWhatever was going on, he was always there to help. Those jobs are tough because he had to combine it with basketball and the phys-ed program, which he started. The way I describe someone like that is he\u2019s a good man. I\u2019m just pleased to know that he\u2019s still with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the life of an athletic director is hectic enough, Pure added to it by becoming more involved with his shul.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had joined Norristown Jewish Community Center and became very active as a board member and eventually became president,\u201d said Pure, whose synagogue merged with Congregation Beth Israel in Lansdale to become TBI in 1989. \u201cLast year during the High Holidays, they put me up on the bimah for a special honor as the oldest president still alive. It was a great honor, and on behalf of all the presidents that had passed, they asked if I would speak for them. When I got up there, I only said one thing: \u2018You\u2019re all so very young.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

While he may be 97, Pure is hardly slowing down. In addition to the painting, he\u2019s involved in several of his building\u2019s activities, writing in its monthly magazine, working with the nature club and the Jewish interest group and studying current events.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really is an icon for so many people,\u201d said his son, David, who comes in from Boulder, Colorado, every six weeks or so to see his dad. \u201cWhether it was at Philadelphia Textile or the camp, which spanned 30 years. Everybody still wants to know how he\u2019s doing because he\u2019s affected so many people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The whole family, which includes eight grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren, will gather on Aug. 15 to celebrate the patriarch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate the simple things more than ever before,\u201d said Pure. \u201cI like to stay active.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jon Marks is a Philadelphia-area freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harry Pure. (Photos by Jon Marks) Harry Pure didn\u2019t start painting until after he\u2019d retired from his longtime…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,53632,53633,53634,1448,2830,1311,53635,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-77535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-blue-bell","10":"tag-camp-comet","11":"tag-harry-pure","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-tiferet-bet-israel","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114884586482776191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}