Brandeis Magazine

Ten women, representing a significant percentage of our class, remain in close cyberspace contact through an online book club. But in true garrulous Brandeis fashion, the emails are more about our lives (the good and the bad); an inordinate number of Internet comedy spoofs on aging, nostalgia and politics; and a bimonthly conversation about our book of the month. Yes, we all still remember how to talk about books. And we usually shun e-books, preferring the hands-on experience. The 10 women, most of whom inhabited Hamilton C or the Castle, are Arnalee Haberman Cohen; Jeanne Goldberg Bodin; Riva Kline Edelman; Lenore Edelman Sack, P’87; Mimi Michaels Goldman; Arline Schwartz Rotman; Elise Isaacs Weisbach, G’13; Margot Strauss Parke; Lois Libien Lowsky; and me. In addition to providing wonderful peer support to one another, we joyfully send birthday greetings. Periodically, we have mini-reunions in such places as Chicago; Portland, Maine; Hartford, Conn.; and Norwich, Vt. We had a timely communal 70th birthday celebration in New York City, where I led us on an architecture tour of the Upper East Side.

Henry Grossman spent five days in Tokyo as guest of honor at an art exhibition, “Charisma,” featuring 10 of his photographs. While in Paris, Judith Bennahum, P’92, discovered that a street had been named after René Blum, Leon Blum’s brother, to recognize his contributions to ballet and theater. It turns out that Blum family members were so excited about Judith’s book about René, “René Blum and the Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life,” that they wrote the mayor of Paris to request that he be honored. David White, PhD’65, lives in Bloomington, Ind., where he is busy with volunteer work. He sees Paula Gordon once a week at a meditation meeting with friends. David is involved with Safety-Net (safety-net-newspaper.com), a free publication that focuses on local agencies serving people. Annette Miller, MFA’76, performed in Shakespeare and Company’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in summer 2014 at the Tina Packer Playhouse in Lenox, Mass. She is conducting research as a scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center at Brandeis that will culminate in a performance of a new theatrical collage, “Women of a Certain Age.” At the invitation of local officials, Peter Ranis, P’91, spent several days in Darmstadt, Germany, in November 2013 with daughter Maria and son Paul ’91 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Peter; late brother Gus ’52, P’89, H’82; and their mother and grandfather were one of the last German Jewish families to leave the city during the Holocaust. In June, Peter traveled to Israel with members of his family. “It was my first encounter with Israel,” he writes. “Much to digest — amazing accomplishments with accompanying triumphs and sadness.”