By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Peter H. Wells, who served as executive vice president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton from 1978 until his retirement in 2005, died June 3 in Indiana. He was 86. He and his wife, Joan, had recently moved from Sarasota, Fla. to Fishers, Ind. to live near their daughter, Jennifer Ramos, and her family.

Wells led the Jewish Federation and its agencies during a golden age for Dayton’s Jewish community, when more than 7,000 Jews were affiliated with Jewish congregations and programs.

He expanded the Jewish Federation’s offerings to its peak, navigated adjustments that resulted from Jewish population shifts from the suburbs northwest of Dayton to the suburbs in the south, and ultimately oversaw difficult cuts to programs and services when Jewish affiliation numbers declined, a trend seen across the United States.

He was at the helm when Dayton’s Jewish Federation absorbed nearly 200 Jews from the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 1992 as part of United Jewish Appeal’s Operation Exodus.

“He went out of his way to take care of the people who needed to be helped,” said Bernie Rabinowitz, a past Jewish Federation president. “He was a true mensch. He tried to treat everybody as fairly as possible and give everybody the benefit of the doubt.”

Wells’ activism was ingrained in his upbringing. His parents fled Nazi-occupied Vienna shortly after Kristallnacht. Wells was born in a refugee camp in Trinidad. As a child, he grew up in Queens, N.Y. and attended Temple Emanuel.

A Hunter College graduate, Wells enrolled in Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s rabbinic program in Cincinnati in 1962. Two years later, his father died of a heart attack. Wells returned to New York to support his mother and sister and run the family’s insurance business.

He also became the principal and youth director of the Greenwich Village Temple. This led to his work in regional director positions with B’nai B’rith Youth Organization in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.

It was a friend’s father — the director of Youngstown’s Jewish Federation — who convinced Wells to apply for an assistant director job opening with Dayton’s Jewish Federation. Wells and his wife, Joan, arrived here in 1973.

When his predecessor, Robert Fitterman, retired as executive vice president in 1978, Wells became responsible for the Dayton Jewish Federation and its newly completed Jewish Community Center and 5-year-old Jewish nursing facility on a 75-acre campus in Trotwood with nearly 200 employees.

His needs assessments in partnership with layleaders and staff brought about a low-income housing apartment complex on the campus, transportation and kosher lunch site/delivery programs for seniors, the Jewish Foundation of Greater Dayton, The Dayton Jewish Observer, and the Boonshoft Center for Jewish Culture and Education in Centerville.

“We need to be driven by the heart in our efforts,” Wells told The Observer in 2005. “My greatest joy on the job is helping people in need. This community has historically taken risks on all kinds of projects in relation to services. We have to continue to reach out and take risks so that people are truly serviced.”

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m., Sunday, June 7 at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation with interment to follow at IHC North Cemetery. The funeral will be livestreamed. A celebration of Wells’ life will be held in Dayton in the coming weeks.