Brandeis Magazine

Stephen Berger is chair of Odyssey Investment Partners, the private equity firm he founded. He is active with the United Hospital Fund, New York State Medicaid Redesign Team and the Metropolitan Opera (53 years after he bought his first ticket, for an “obstructed view” seat, the only one he could afford). Shepard Forman and his wife, Leona, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary before 60-plus friends in Brazil, where they live half the year. They spend the other half of the year at their farmhouse in Ashfield, Massachusetts. In September, the couple traveled to Latvia and Lithuania in search of Shepard’s father’s roots. Joan Gelch writes, “Morris Weintraub and I are just winding up our annual ‘fantasy’ month in NYC, where we’ve been enjoying theater, music, museum fare, family and meeting up with friends. Morris and I are very lucky to have found each other after our spouses died. We’ve been enjoying life together for almost 12 years. We spend our time divided between Providence, Rhode Island, and Palm Beach Gardens, Florida — except for our October spree in the Big Apple.” Gabrielle Rossmer Gropman and her daughter, Sonya, published “The German-Jewish Cookbook: Recipes and History of a Cuisine” with Brandeis University Press and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute on Jewish Women. The first printing of the book, released on Sept. 5, sold out by the end of that month. Gaby and Sonya hope to revitalize a nearly forgotten food and cultural tradition while publishing great recipes. (Don’t miss the story about the book in this issue.) Chuck Israels writes he is still alive and kicking in Portland, Oregon — writing music, playing the bass and releasing CDs (“Concerto Peligroso,” on Dot Time Records, is the latest). Gloria Orenstein is the focus of a short documentary film in which she talks about meeting female artists in the surrealist movement in the 1970s. Her older daughter, Nadine, is head of the drawing and prints department at the Metropolitan Museum. Younger daughter Claudia is a theater professor at Hunter College. Carol Rabinovitz, G’18, and her husband, Mickey, G’18, have moved from Plymouth, Massachusetts, to Chestnut Hill, where they plan to spend six months each year. They will be in Florida for the other six months. Their twin granddaughters, who are almost 8, live in Vermont. Their son’s older son, Louis ’18, graduates from Brandeis in June.