Class Correspondent

The excitement of our 50th Reunion is palpable — with the accompanying energy just emanating from our computers! Enthusiastic emails with great ideas, suggestions and warm reminiscences have been flying fast and furiously since our committee of more than 25 classmates had its first conference call back in the fall. Chaired by Steve Reiner and Bruce Litwer, the planning committee is separated into the following subcommittees: class gift, programming, outreach, yearbook and memorial service. In addition to those already engaged, all of you are invited to join in the planning and preparations for what promises to be a remarkable Reunion. Please contact me (adrienneandjoel@gmail.com) and I will put you in touch with the individual chair(s) of the committee(s) on which you wish to serve. But most of all, plan to attend the Reunion and participate in another truly memorable Brandeis experience!

Judith Cutler Meunier recently retired after serving as catalog librarian for the Plaistow Public Library in New Hampshire.

After retiring from academia in 2002, Baila Milner Miller now paints, does art photography, travels and enjoys her four grandchildren.

Leo Spitzer, the Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor of History emeritus at Dartmouth College, co-authored a new book, “Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory.”

Elinor Christian Mirza
received the German Order of Merit for her work for the German government. Now retired, she helps the Salesian Sisters in their charitable endeavors.

Susan Avrin Spear writes, “We recently relocated to the Connecticut countryside. My husband and I are enjoying retirement — fun and games!”

Lorraine Schweer does environmental and climate protection work for the Food Chain, a consumer initiative.

John and Elaine Frank dropped a line to say, “We’re enjoying our lives and trying to fathom being 50 years older than when we left Brandeis.”

After many years teaching English and film at Mercer University in Georgia, Steve Bluestone has returned to Brooklyn, where he now lives in Park Slope. Steve won the Taran Family Memorial Prize, given by the Georgia Writers Association, for “The Flagrant Dead,” his latest volume of poetry. A setting of his new version of Psalm 104 (“I Sing of Light”), by composer Curtis Bryant, was performed in 2010 as part of the Atlanta Faith Partners Residency, sponsored by the American Composers Forum. The world premiere of a musical setting of his “West End Blues” (from “The Flagrant Dead”) will take place this year at the Greenwich House Music School in Manhattan.

Marc Lubin is a professor at Argosy University in California, where he teaches doctoral students in clinical psychology. He also has a private practice in psychotherapy.

Arthur Glasgow
practices weight-loss surgery with his son, Adam. Arthur and his wife, Marian ’63, recently took their 16-year-old grandsons to Costa Rica for their birthdays.

Leslie Neiman Kingsley
is semiretired after a long career in human resources management. She volunteers in a literacy program for immigrants in Boston. Leslie also enjoys playing golf and tennis. She traveled to Italy last spring.

Bengt Ahlberg retired from SEB Group in 2000. He is a board member at the Swedish Institute.

Judith Frank continues to practice medicine in the area of subacute geriatric rehabilitation. She has been married for 48 years and has two daughters and five grandchildren.

Jordan Goodman is active in the Nevada Republican Party and enjoys playing the cello.

Devra Marcus spends time with her children and grandchildren, paints and draws, travels, studies Spanish, and sees old friends.

Susan Biberfeld Candell and Stephen Candell enjoy traveling, being with their six grandchildren, spending time in Florida and, they report, “improving at golf.”

Geraldine Myers McNulty has retired and is a volunteer tax preparer for seniors.

Heather Holiber Gerson stays busy with her grandchildren, golf, garden, friends, bridge lessons, exercise, books and lots of films.

Stanley Davis is an active member of the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement. After publishing 13 professional books, he now writes on social issues (immigration, aging), composes poetry and short stories, and is working on his memoir.

Sandra Cutler Bernstein has retired, but stays active in social action causes, her synagogue, the BOLLI lifelong learning program at Brandeis, traveling and writing (she co-authored “Leah’s Blessing”).

Jeffrey Golland, P’96, writes, “I’m enjoying my seven grandchildren, teaching at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, practicing psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, participating in community organizations, jogging, and enjoying an active life with my wife, Marcia.”

After 31 years in Lexington, Ky., Audrey (Melman) Noble and her husband, Bob, moved to Youngstown, Ohio, to help care for their daughter Lisa’s three children. Lisa is a family physician. Their other daughter, Amy, is an architect in Los Angeles. Both Audrey and Bob are retired — she from teaching, he from medicine. Audrey is a docent for the Butler Institute of American Art and the Fellows Riverside Gardens, sings in a community chorus, and takes classes at Youngstown State University. In her “spare time,” she has edited her husband’s three novels, which can be found at robertcnoble.com.

Since retiring after 36 years as rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom in Oak Park, Mich., David Nelson is active with the Jewish Chaplaincy and Hospice Network, counsels Jewish prisoners, works with congregations in small Michigan communities, and serves as rabbi once a month in Benton Harbor. He writes, “I keep telling my friends that I failed Retirement 101, but I’m enjoying life.”

Susan Finesilver Packel sent a note saying that she and husband Len happily downsized from their home of 37 years and are enjoying condo living nearby. Officially retired, she volunteers at her old job at the public library, while Len, also retired, retains an office at Villanova Law School and teaches one course a year as an adjunct. They spend January at Siesta Key on the west coast of Florida, not yet ready to make a longer move away from grandkids and friends. Susan writes, “We are enjoying easy living and spending time with our grandchildren.”

Arthur Weiner operates an antiques business with a presence in Chicago, New York and Miami.

Morris Blachman
is an assistant dean in the Office of Continuous Professional Development and Strategic Affairs at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine and Palmetto Health. He also works as a management consultant.

Susan Nemser Sekuler
writes that she retired from practicing law and spends time being a docent at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, Mass., taking art courses and playing bridge. Spouse Robert ’60 still teaches and conducts research at Brandeis as the Louis and Frances Salvage Professor of Psychology/Neuroscience Psychology at the Volen Center. They enjoy the advantages of New England’s mountains and lakes; frequently visit kids and grandchildren in Los Angeles, Canada and New Jersey; and make frequent trips to various crafts fairs in Massachusetts and New Hampshire to add to their collections of pottery and glass. 
Submit a Class Note