Class Correspondent

We had a wonderful 40th Reunion in June, in spite of the new Alumni Weekend format, which confused everyone at first, especially those of us celebrating a milestone year. But there were multiple events exclusively for our class, which were lots of fun, as well as the traditional activities. We missed those of you who could not come. I hope we will all be together again soon — think Destination 45th Reunion in 2023!

Daniel Berk wrote and directed a feature film, “Damascus Cover,” released in theaters in July and now available on all digital platforms. A spy thriller set in Syria and Israel, it stars Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Olivia Thirlby and John Hurt, and won Best Film at the Boston and Manchester (England) Film Festivals. Mark S. Cohen, P’17, completed a three-week program at Jerusalem’s Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, where he took courses with Martin Lockshin, PhD’84, and Michael Feuer, Heller MA’02, learning alongside current Brandeis students. He attended the Jerusalem reception for President Ron and Jessica Liebowitz, which took place during his visit. Robin Roth Faigin has retired from a 39-year career, stepping down from her post as director of special education in the Ventura (California) Unified School District. She serves as cantorial soloist at Temple Beth Torah and is mulling options for the next phase of her life. A large solo exhibition of Philip Gerstein’s abstract paintings was mounted at Boston’s Galatea Fine Art Gallery in October. Jonathan Hirst retired from Consolidated Edison as the head of energy risk management, overseeing the firm’s derivative portfolio. He is now a full-time student pursuing a JD at New York Law School, with graduation anticipated in 2021. Marta Kauffman, producer and co-creator of the popular TV shows “Friends” and “Grace and Frankie,” is producing a U.S. version of “Shtisel,” an Israeli TV drama about an ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem. Marta’s adaptation, known as “Emmis,” will be set in Brooklyn. The show will be available on Amazon Prime. Marta is featured on a new podcast called “The TV Campfire.” Lauren Levenson Langevin and her husband, Richard, purchased a Home Instead Senior Care franchise in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts. She writes, “We’ve been there just over a year, and it’s been very rewarding helping seniors age safely and comfortably in their own homes. It also makes it easier to deal with the fact that our daughter, Marissa, after graduating from American University in May, has decided to stay in Washington, D.C., to work and earn a master’s degree.” Robin Goldman Leikin has worked at Northwestern University’s Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center since 1985. She integrates prostate cancer research, and mentors graduate students and postdoctoral fellows as well as underserved undergraduate students through a summer research program. Her husband, Jerrold, is a medical toxicologist and professor affiliated with the University of Chicago. Son Scott is a critical-care fellow in a New York City hospital. Daughter Eryn is an assistant teacher in the Chicago suburbs. Dave Lubin says he missed the 40th Reunion because he had pre- and postpartum depression over the Aug. 1 sale of his Center City Philadelphia residence, which he purchased in 1984, and because Steve Mainzer professed to have better things to do than play poker in Waltham. Fruma Markowitz is slowly pivoting away from her successful 30-year career as a user-experience designer for digital ad agencies (her latest mobile app, for Girl Scout leaders ordering and managing the sales of cookies, won an Appy award in June). Now she is moving toward her first passion, photography, exhibiting her work at galleries and arts centers. Last January, she journeyed to Australia and New Zealand with Brandeis Travelers, took thousands of photographs, and has been busy choosing the “keepers” for future shows. This spring, she led a photography workshop with Project Return, a Connecticut organization that provides a safe home and vocational training for women in crisis. This fall, she joins the docent staff at the Aldrich Museum, in Ridgefield, Connecticut. And she is using photography to teach Jewish values, with a focus on social action, in a class at her synagogue’s Hebrew High School. John O’Connell sends greetings to all his classmates, especially his teammates on the Brandeis lacrosse and soccer teams. He and his wife of 30 years, Kathleen, attended four graduations last spring. John graduated from New York University with a degree in computer science. Maggie graduated from Braintree High School and is now majoring in chemistry at Boston College. Thomas graduated from West Point and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, 101st Airborne Division, U.S. Army. And Mary graduated from Northeastern University with degrees in finance and marketing. Neil Pickett recently welcomed his second grandchild, Julia Claire Solberg, who joined her 15-month-old brother, Jesse. “My daughter and son-in-law have their hands quite full,” Neil writes. His son is in law school at the University of Virginia. Faye Rachlin and her husband, Gary Richards, live in Belmont, Massachusetts. A legal-aid lawyer specializing in housing and homelessness issues, Faye is now deputy director of Community Legal Aid, which serves low-income and elderly residents in central and western Massachusetts. Valerie Sonnenthal opened a Vineyard Haven location of her Peaked Hill Studio to bring Kaiut Yoga, a yoga of biomechanics, to Martha’s Vineyard. She continues to offer healing sound at the local nursing and rehab center, and at Camp Jabberwocky. She is a regular contributor to the Martha’s Vineyard Times with her “Chilmark Town Column” and “Gardens of Love” and “Collections” columns, along with other historical stories of interest. She lives with her husband, photographer Ed Grazda, year-round on the Vineyard. Trina Walzer Yerlick and her husband are celebrating 36 years of marriage. They have run a bed-and-breakfast in Hawaii, the Lilikoi Inn, for 11 years (“the beginning of a slow retirement,” Tina writes). Both of their kids got married last year; one lives in Berkeley, California, and the other has settled in Portland, Oregon.

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