Brandeis Magazine

Judith Lowitz Adler, P’99, reports she and husband Josh, P’99, are now both retired, he happily, she less so. Her remedy: undertaking pro bono legal work, including work for disabled veterans, as well as serving on the lawyers committee for the local ACLU branch. Judith and Josh recently traveled to Peru, an adventure that culminated in a one-day trek to Machu Picchu, a bucket-list item for her. “The view from the Sun Gate was worth every arthritic step,” she writes. They enjoy frequent trips to their place in Manhattan, where they visit with daughter Esther ’99, son-in-law Gary, and grandchildren Mason, 5, and Lily, 2 1/2. Esther is an associate curator at MoMA, and younger daughter Rachel is a preservationist with the National Park Service in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Janet Fishman loves her life in West Philadelphia. She recently launched a website to showcase her work in theater, including a dialogue sample from her first play, “At Home in the World,” set in and around Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the late 1960s. Paul Fleisher’s new book, “A Friend in Need Is a Man’s Best Dog,” includes humorous pieces, essays on politics and education, and even a few poems. “Tanglers,” his book of cooperative problem-solving puzzles for elementary- and middle-school students, has been re-issued. Bruce Horowitz co-founded the Paz Horowitz Law Firm in Quito, Ecuador, 26 years ago. Three years ago, working with several young attorneys and professionals under the auspices of the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, he created the Center for the Study of Bribery, Extortion and Coercion Situations, which trains people to successfully, ethically and safely get what is rightfully theirs. Michael Lederman, who lives in Cleveland, reports his family now includes a wife, two daughters and two grandchildren. His career in academia, he writes, “involves running a research unit and immunology laboratory, allowing me to take credit for the work of others so long as I feed my dean well.” Lawrence Schiffman, MA’70, PhD’74, is the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and director of the Global Network for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies at New York University, where he has taught for more than 40 years. His primary research interest is the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has edited the journal Dead Sea Discoveries for 10 years and served on the international editorial team for the scrolls’ publication. In addition to his academic work, he is a representative of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultation. His wife, Marlene Abeles Schiffman ’71, has been a Judaica cataloger at Yeshiva University since 1990. She recently co-authored an annotated bibliography, “Creating a Collection: A Basic Booklist for Judaic Libraries.” She and Lawrence have been married 47 years. Two of their children live in Israel; the other two live in the U.S. Deborah Spitalnik, who heads the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities at the Rutgers University Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, returned to Brandeis in October to speak at the Heller School. The program she participated in, presented by the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy, was titled “JFK and Another Civil Rights Movement: People With Intellectual Disabilities.”