Brandeis Magazine

Alan Braverman is senior executive vice president, general counsel and secretary of the Walt Disney Company. In this position, Alan is the company’s chief legal officer, overseeing the team of attorneys responsible for all aspects of Disney’s legal affairs around the world. Earlier in his career, Alan was a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. Suzanne Pochter Bronheim retired last July and loves it. She is taking an intensive introductory Hebrew class at Georgetown University and went to an ulpan in Israel. She also has been learning to play the bass guitar and volunteering for a nonprofit that helps young people of limited means make the transition from high school to career. Suzanne and husband Ben live in Bethesda, Maryland, and are happy that both kids, for now, live in the area, too. Joan Dassin is professor of international education and development, and director of the MA program in sustainable international development at Brandeis’ Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she received the 2017 Heller School Teaching Award. Joan is co-editor of the book “International Scholarships in Higher Education: Pathways to Social Change.” Her son, Andre, completed his master’s in architecture at Southern California Institute of Architecture in December. Philip Grossman has practiced medicine in Miami for 40 years. After he retires from active practice this year, he will teach at the University of Miami and continue his business consulting as president of Erlan Medical Management. Marc Hoffman organized and led a campaign among his Hillhouse High School classmates to fund an endowed scholarship for graduates of the New Haven, Connecticut, school who want to pursue postsecondary education. Other New Haven/Brandeis classmates got involved, too, including Stephanie Brand, Allan Kipperman and Barbara Norwitz. Neil Kauffman and Barbara Drebingare welcomed their first grandson, Henry Dylan, son of Brian Kauffman and Stacey Kallem, on Feb. 13. All are doing well. When the Metropolitan Opera announced Yannick Nézet-Séguin will become music director of the Met in September, it also announced new funding for that position: a $15 million gift from the Neubauer Family Foundation, led by Philadelphians Joseph and Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer. The position will be known as the Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director. Jeanette is a member of the Met board’s executive committee. Decades ago, Larry Miller, PhD’80, P’03, and former Brandeis sociology professor Maury Stein wrote “Blueprint for Counter Education,” published by Doubleday in 1970. This year, the Rose Art Museum organized an exhibition around this work, which was reissued by Inventory Press two years ago. The exhibit made use of archival materials that Larry and Maury donated to Brandeis. In March, Walter Mossberg served on a panel at the University of Pittsburgh Honors College to discuss “Social Media and the Crisis in Social Discourse.” The former technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal told his audience that, in his opinion, social-network executives don’t believe in privacy or security for users. Walt also helped secure a gift of $250,000 from Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and owner of The Washington Post, to the News Literacy Project (NLP), a Bethesda, Maryland, initiative that trains students to be savvy media consumers. The NLP reached out to Bezos through Walt, a member of its board. Nick Rabkin has been doing research and consulting in the arts and arts education for several years, most recently leading a team that developed an arts plan for Cornell University. Both of Nick’s kids are engaged with the arts themselves: one is a playwright in Connecticut; the other is an MFA candidate in Oakland, California. Rabbi Dennis Sasso and his wife, Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, were named Interfaith Ambassadors of the Year by the Center for Interfaith Cooperation for their work in civic and interfaith relations in Indiana over four decades. Ellen Schwartz retired from Eastern Michigan University in April. She will continue to edit “The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture” and teach t’ai chi ch’uan. She and her Ganaraskan dog have been certified as a therapy team. Linda Leonard Zimmerman and Walter Zimmerman, P’95, celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on Aug. 24. Linda, a retired software-company owner, and Walter, a retired university reference librarian, live in London, Ontario, and enjoy visits with their three grandchildren. Their daughter, Rachel Zimmerman Brachman ’95, works at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she was part of the Cassini program that explored Saturn and its moons. Son Gary, a New York City resident, is CEO of Six Trees Capital and founder of MaxMyInterest.