Joy Silverman

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Joy Silverman, born Joy Fererh on April 8, 1947, is an American socialite and Republican fundraiser. Her parents, Jeanette Rothenberg Fererh and Ben Fererh, divorced when she was young. She moved to Great Neck, New York, with her mother and her mother’s new husband, Marc Germont. Germont died of leukemia when Joy was 12, and her mother later married Alvin Bibbs Wolosoff, a wealthy real estate developer; Joy worked as his secretary at times. She attended the Howard School for Girls in 1964 and studied liberal arts at the University of Maryland from 1965 to 1968, but she did not graduate. After college she worked as a receptionist at MGM in New York City.

In the 1980s, Joy became active in Republican politics. She served on New York City Mayor Ed Koch’s Protocol Commission in 1986 and chaired the Advisory Council of New York State’s Bicentennial Commission. In 1988 she helped raise over $600,000 for George H. W. Bush’s presidential campaign and donated money to him and other Republicans.

Her fundraising led to a 1989 nomination to be United States Ambassador to Barbados, with responsibility for several Caribbean nations. The nomination was controversial because she was a political donor rather than a career diplomat, and it expired without a Senate vote. After that, President Bush appointed her as a trustee of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

A major chapter in her life involved her relationship with judge Sol Wachtler. They dated from 1988 to 1991. Wachtler was later arrested and convicted after trying to extort and harass her, and he resigned from the bench. The case drew heavy press attention, and Silverman spoke publicly about the experience and about helping victims.

Joy has been married three times. She married Richard “Dick” Simons in 1969; they had a son, Evan Marc Simons, born in 1970, and divorced in 1972. She briefly married David L. Paul in 1972; that marriage ended after two months. In 1977 she married Jeffrey Silverman. Jeffrey adopted Evan, and they also adopted a daughter, Jessica. The couple divorced in 1995 after Joy’s affair with Wachtler. Jeffrey Silverman later remarried and died by suicide.