Brandeis Magazine

Peter Alter was named one of America’s Top 100 High-Stakes Litigators. He is a partner in the Southfield, Michigan, office of Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss. He and his wife, Barbra, spend as much time as possible with their eight grandchildren. After several years of off-and-on training, Jerry Green competed in the 2017 Iditarod and managed to cross the finish line, thanks to Olaf and Freja, two of his Alaskan malamutes. He reports they “saved my life more than once.” Jerry’s new line of heavy-duty outerwear, under the Shale & Slate brand, is being distributed by Hattim Leisure, a small startup with shops in Michigan and Wisconsin. Jo Holz recently retired from a television-industry career in market and audience research. Her book about the history of children’s television, “Kids’ TV Grows Up,” was published in August. After living in Brooklyn for 35 years, she and her husband have moved to Philadelphia. Their son, Michael, is in Boston. Judith Lasker, P’01, is completing her final year as a sociology professor at Lehigh University. She says she is grateful to her Brandeis professors, especially Gordie Fellman, who encouraged her toward a career she came to love. She plans to advocate for changes around the topic of her most recent book, “Hoping to Help: The Promises and Pitfalls of Global Health Volunteering.” And she’ll be paying more visits to Tel Aviv now that her daughters, Shira ’01 and Ariella, live there. The latest film written and directed by Mickey Lemle, “The Last Dalai Lama?” has played in dozens of cities since its theatrical release in July. It won the Audience Choice Award at the Mill Valley and Maui film festivals. Rich Liroff has retired from a 45-year career in environmental protection. After 25 years at the World Wildlife Fund, he founded the Investor Environmental Health Network, which encourages companies to avoid using chemicals associated with health and learning problems. He recently received the Socially Responsible Investment Service Award at the group’s conference. (Alisa Gravitz ’77 has also received the award.) Rich and his wife, Sylvia, live in Arlington, Virginia. Marty Ostrow has completed “Larry Rosenberg: Long Path Home,” a 38-minute documentary about the former Brandeis sociology professor. Marty writes, “The film tells the story of Larry’s remarkable journey of self-discovery, which eventually gave rise to the Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, one of the nation’s most vibrant centers for meditation practice and learning.” Nick Racheotes has been elected board chair of the National Braille Press, a nonprofit supplier of educational, recreational and how-to materials for Braille readers of all ages, now in its 90th year of operation. Richard Sarason is in his third year as director of the Pines School of Graduate Studies at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, where he has been a faculty member for 39 years. In December, he published a new book, “Divrei Mishkan T’filah: Delving into the Siddur,” a historical and thematic commentary on the newest Reform prayer book. In February, Richard celebrated his 70th birthday and, on the same day, his 35th wedding anniversary with Anne Arenstein, with whom he has two sons.