Brandeis Magazine

As always, it is wonderful hearing from many of you and catching up with your interesting lives. Our daughter

Tracy, 27, continues to practice law in California, and in August she moved into her first apartment after living in university housing for nine years as an undergraduate and graduate student. Our daughter Laura, 24, finally returned from a nine-month sojourn to Australia, where she traveled on her own, depending on the kindness of countless strangers. My husband, Irwin, and l spent two wonderful weeks in Colorado in July avoiding the New York heat. Please keep sending in your Class Notes. We love hearing from you.

Marian Bass writes, “I ‘retired’ from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the end of 2009, but continue to work there as a consultant. Dale Morse and her husband spent a weekend with me and my husband, Jeffrey Albert, in July, and we enjoyed overlapping vacations at Truro and Wellfleet (Cape Cod) in late August and early September. In December 2010, Jeffrey and I attended our nephew’s wedding (Avi Bass ’08 married Nechama Horwitz ’08). It was fun to be surrounded by so many Brandeis graduates from a different generation.” Lawrence Beck went on a three-week sightseeing trip to Europe in July with his wife, Anna, and 15-year-old twins, Zachary and Christina. He still heads the trusts and estates department of his law firm, Haas & Najarian, in San Francisco, and was recently named a Super Lawyer by San Francisco Magazine. The second edition of David Bloomfield’s popular “American Public Education Law” textbook has been issued. He is chair of the Department of Elementary, Bilingual and Special Education at Brooklyn College and professor of education leadership, law and policy at the CUNY Graduate Center. In addition to having made presentations at July’s Save Our Schools March in Washington, D.C., and November’s Education Law Association conference in Chicago, David blogs at huffingtonpost.com/education and gothamschools.org. He is also a frequent media commentator on education issues. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Vicky Vossen, and two dogs. David and Vicky’s youngest child, Caleb, has decamped for Loyola University in New Orleans, and their eldest, Jacob, is completing his final year at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Mark Gershenson continues to practice family law in Palm Springs, Calif., where he lives with his wife, Elaine, who teaches high school English. He writes that they are dealing with the trials and tribulations of their two teenage daughters, who seem to think “that’s not fair” and “I hate you” are appropriate responses to parental requests to do such horrible things as homework, chores and getting home at a specific time. During a vacation in Hawaii over the summer, Mark and Elaine enjoyed having dinner with Robin Wurtzel ’75 and her family, who live on Oahu. Mark has regained his color and a bit of the weight he lost following a major health challenge in 2008 and is very thankful for his current good health. 

Canyon Ranch appointed Christie Hefner as executive chair of Canyon Ranch Enterprises, a new division of the renowned wellness lifestyle company. In her leadership role, she will head up the division’s strategies and activities, bringing the venerable Canyon Ranch brand into innovative areas via media and business partnerships. Kathryn Hellerstein is spending the academic year on leave from the University of Pennsylvania. She is a visiting research fellow at Harvard’s Center for Jewish Studies. Her husband, David Stern, is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute. Cantor Ellen Jaffe-Gill left in October with her husband, Spencer Gill, for a year of study at Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. She’s completed two years of “rabbinic formation” at Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, Pa., with plans to graduate in 2014. Ellen did a yearlong chaplaincy internship at the Abramson Center for Senior Living in Horsham, Pa. Before heading to Israel, she wrote that she was selling her third book, “The Jewish Woman’s Book of Wisdom,” out of her living room, picking up tutoring, cantorial and editorial work where she could, and “learning new stuff every day.” Joette Katz, the commissioner of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Connecticut, was named chair of the editorial board of the Connecticut Law Tribune. She is the first woman to serve in the role. Joette, a retired associate justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court, was a member of the editorial board prior to becoming a judge. Dan Kazzaz, M.A.’11, would like to thank Ruth Charney ’72, M.A.’72, a math professor at Brandeis, for helping him earn a master’s in math this year. Since leaving Brandeis, Dan has worked in computer software. An entrepreneur in the field of electronic commerce, he is currently CEO of Secure Exchange Solutions, a company that is focused on reducing the cost of health care though automation. Dan Klein writes, “I am still working at HP, right now as a marketing manager for our enterprise services health-care business. I add comic relief to the local golf courses, and I am still feeding my theater habit, performing in our synagogue’s annual Purim spiel. Winter finds us in Port Charlotte, Fla., where we recently built a house. My wife, Shelley, convinced me that the life of a snowbird is the way to go. We celebrated our 34th anniversary in August. Our older daughter, Lauren, is studying for her M.S.W. at the University of Michigan with a focus on international disaster relief and community organization. She spent time in Haiti on a grant to evaluate the effectiveness of international aid in the nation’s earthquake recovery. Our younger daughter, Ariel, just graduated from the Courtauld Institute in London with a master’s degree in art history. She specializes in medieval French ivories (go figure!). Her goal is to become a curator and return to academia. When I think about our girls, I recall the dreams we had for them when they were infants, and it is wonderful to see many of those dreams are now coming true.” Lenny Krilov writes, “Life since Brandeis has been an interesting journey. Upon graduation in 1974, I attended medical school at Columbia University. I am presently chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and vice chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Winthrop University Hospital on Long Island, N.Y. I have two grown children. My son, Joseph, works in IT and is a communications specialist with the U.S. Marine Corps. He is serving in Afghanistan. My older daughter, Erica, will be graduating from college in December with a degree in English literature and a minor in art. She is looking to write and illustrate as a career. In 2008, I married Barbara Rudner, and on Feb. 1, 2010, Jordan Leigh Krilov was born. She is an absolute delight. Joseph has a 2-year-old daughter, so the aunt is younger than the niece, or, as Joseph puts it, ‘My daughter is older than my sister.’ Regardless, it works, and we’re having a great time. That being said, this pretty much assures that I will still be working at the time of our 50th Reunion in 2024!” Nancy Nudell Kupperman is a pediatrician in Santa Barbara, Calif. She and her husband, Jeffrey, have three children. On Aug. 5, they became grandparents to twins, Abie and Ruthie, who were born in New York to their daughter, Shira, and her husband, Adam. Nancy and Jeffrey’s son Asher is an orthopedic surgery resident at the University of California, Los Angeles, and their youngest, Eli, is a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. Former Brandeis catcher John Lynch has served as assistant baseball coach to Norm Walsh at Boston College High for 18 years. The longtime friends, who first met on a baseball field as BC High freshmen in 1966, have coached the Eagles to three state Division I titles. John, a math teacher at the school, was named the 2009 National High School Baseball Coaches Association’s Assistant Coach of the Year. Tom Phillips composed the score for “Jesse Owens,” an American Experience (PBS) documentary film produced by Laurens Grant and Stanley Nelson of Firelight Media in New York. The film chronicles the life of Jesse Owens, a black runner once known as the “world’s fastest man.” Owens’ four Olympic gold medals in the 1936 Berlin Games were especially noteworthy given the political and racial environment of the times. Unfortunately, Owens was unable to capitalize on his fame due to the racial attitudes of the day, and he struggled for years, resorting even to running races against horses to support his family. Tom and Stanley have worked together on several award-winning films for American Experience, including “The Murder of Emmett Till,” “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” and “Freedom Riders.”

Sandra Lee Pinel is an assistant professor in the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho, where she has worked in the Department of Conservation Social Sciences since 2007. Stanley Reed has lived in the Washington, D.C., area since graduating from the University of Michigan Law School in 1977 and lives with his wife and family in Takoma Park, Md. He is chair of the litigation department of Lerch, Early and Brewer, where he has practiced since 1984. He specializes in white-collar criminal defense work, complex commercial litigation and professional responsibility matters. His wife, Joyce Branda (Tufts ’72), is an attorney and the director of the commercial litigation branch of the civil division of the U.S. Department of Justice. They have three children: Ben, 27, is a graduate of Haverford College and is about to begin his third year at the University of Michigan Law School; Alex, 24, is a graduate of Kenyon College and is gainfully employed in Washington, D.C.; and Genna, 20, attends Davidson College and is spending the first semester of her junior year at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Stanley reports that he is still a very close friend to Russell Arkin ’73, who resides in Arlington, Va. Karen Reynolds has worked at Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology for more than seven years. She coordinates the department’s teaching efforts for first- and second-year medical students. She earned a master’s in public health from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1990 and worked in clinical and outcomes research for many years in Boston and Maine. She had her right knee replaced in June but plans to resume dog training and volunteer work at the local animal shelter by the end of the year. “Meanwhile,” she writes, “I just try to keep up with my Dalmatian!” Neil Rosenberg and his wife, Tamar, have been married for 29 years and have four sons. Tal, the oldest, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in creative writing at Northwestern University. Their second son, Ben, received an M.B.A. from Notre Dame University in June and now works for Epic, a large electronic medical record health-care company based in Madison, Wis. Ron, their third son, is a senior at the University of Wisconsin and is thinking about a career in medicine. Their youngest son, Deen, is a freshman at Syracuse University and wants to be a sports radio talk-show host. Neil is now in his 27th year in private practice. A pulmonary and critical care physician in a 10-member group in Chicago, he is the medical director of an eICU that conducts telemetric monitoring of more than 100 intensive-care-unit patients in six hospitals. He and Tamar live in downtown Chicago and are building a house in Beit Hashita, Israel — the kibbutz where they met in 1975. Tom Rosensweet and his wife, Barbara Hines, celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary on June 15. On June 20, their daughter, Vanessa, graduated from middle school and celebrated her 14th birthday. A few days later, the family left for a week in San Francisco, where Tom was outvoted in his effort to revisit the Grateful Dead House. In 2003, Tom established Newport Metals, an importer and exporter of metal and chemical products. He reports that he uses his Brandeis education every day in his dealings with China and when washing the dishes! He’s been studying jazz piano and still hacks away at the guitar. Steven Ruby was named chairman of the Department of Surgery at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, Conn. He will continue his clinical practice as a peripheral vascular surgeon. Betsy Sarason Pfau and Dan Pfau ’73 enjoyed their summer on Martha’s Vineyard, where they spent a lot of time with Roger ’73 and Francine Ladd Sohn. They were visited by Alan Klein. In August, Betsy had a wonderful time at a meet-and-greet luncheon with President Fred Lawrence and his wife, Kathy, at the home of Jules Bernstein ’57 and his wife, Linda Lipsett. Francine, Don Friedman and Ilene Miller were also in attendance. Betsy writes, “Our kids continue on their academic paths. Our older son, David, continues pursuing his Ph.D. in theoretical neuroscience at Columbia. Jeffrey had his third good summer internship in Silicon Valley, this year with Apple, and is on track to graduate from Brown in December with a B.S. in computer science.” Betsy recently joined the national executive council of the Brandeis National Committee (formerly BUNWC) and remains actively involved at the Rose Art Museum, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Dan is an executive in residence at Brandeis’ International Business School. Laurie Strawgate Kanefsky and her husband, E. Paul Kanefsky, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary in August. In May, they moved back to the Upper West Side of Manhattan after raising their two sons (Jeremy, 27, and Jesse, 24) in Tenafly, N.J. She writes, “Happily for us, they both came back to New York to live and work after graduating from Northwestern University. I received my Ph.D. from NYU’s Silver School of Social Work in 2000 and have been an adjunct professor there since. I continue to work in Englewood, N.J., where I have had a practice for more than 20 years specializing in couples and sexuality. My interest in sexuality is directly related to the training I received at Brandeis when I volunteered for SSIS (Student Sexuality Information Service).” Judith Tolnick Champa is an independent contemporary art curator and art writer. She serves on the board of the New England Museum Association and participates in Leadership Rhode Island, a prestigious leadership-development organization. She is co-curating the first-ever Providence Biennial for Contemporary Art, a major nonprofit, multisited international exhibition that will take place in summer 2014. For more information, email Judith. Stanley Wakshlag reports that he and his wife, Marti, are empty nesters now that their daughter, Carly, is a freshman at Grinnell College in Iowa. Stanley is an attorney at Kenny Nachwalter in Miami, where he practices complex business litigation. He has handled cases for the Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers and Florida Marlins sports teams. He is also actively involved in supporting Legal Services and mentoring minority law students. The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) held an investiture in October for Roger Weissberg, who was appointed to the NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning. Roger is the LAS Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UIC and president and CEO of the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, an international organization committed to establishing evidence-based social and emotional learning, an essential part of preschool through high school education.