Joseph Parmet

Joe oversaw the center’s massive reconstruction project in the 1990s and strove to make the JCC a home away from home much like the Cheers bar. He wanted to create a place where people would want to congregate for classes, coffee, and community.

Joe passed away in his sleep at Saddleback Hospital in Laguna Hills from metastatic lung cancer at age 83.

Joe was born on Oct. 2, 1942. He always liked to say that he grew up six blocks from Yankee Stadium. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx with his parents and younger twin brothers. When he was 12, his family moved to Asheville, NC, where his father had accepted the position of Jewish Community Center director. At age 15, Joe met his wife Phyllis (who was 10 hours older) at a state conference of the B’nai Brith Youth Organization.

They were high school sweethearts who then went on to become charter graduates of the University of South Florida in Tampa in 1964, and married a month later. Joe received a Master of Social Work degree at Case Western Reserve University.

He landed the position of youth director at the New Orleans JCC–a job that was interrupted by a four-month active duty stint in the Army Reserve during the Vietnam War. Joe then became program director at the JCC in Cherry Hill, NJ.

He took the job as director of the Long Beach JCC in 1973. He was known as a strong leader and innovator, as well as being exceptionally well read–so much so that a common slogan among the center community was, “If you don’t know, ask Joe!”

He retired at age 55 and spent the next nearly three decades traveling the world with Phyllis and always reading books. He was an avid consumer of information who believed in lifelong learning through books and other media.

Joe is survived by Phyllis; his daughter, Sherry Saavedra; his granddaughter, Hailey Saavedra, 16 (of whom he was immensely proud); his brother Howard Parmet; and seven nieces and nephews.

Donations in his memory can be made to the Reform Temple of Laguna Woods, the City of Hope, Hadassah, or the Alpert Jewish Community Center in Long Beach.