Brandeis Magazine

Robert Baker, P’95, an ophthalmologist, is an attending physician at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, and Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital. He was elected president of the Westchester County Board of Health. He was also elected to the board of directors of Beth El Synagogue Center, in New Rochelle. Neil Dash lives in Miami’s Coconut Grove, where he is a licensed real estate adviser with Compass, working with commercial and residential clients. A former Time Warner NYC television executive, Neil relocated to the Sunshine State six years ago. Elizabeth Kanter Groskind lives in Tucson, after living in Brookline, Massachusetts, and then Detroit for 15 years. She is a management consultant; a busy volunteer; and the incoming board chair of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, a national anti-hunger organization. Her daughter is a college senior, and her son is a college sophomore. Gale Kaufman does affordable-housing development work, and is a founder and board member of Indivisible Nation BK, an activist group formed in response to the 2016 presidential election. Gale lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband, Michael, and two sons, Josh and Alex. Josh is a rising junior at Yale, where he is a film and media studies major, and Alex enters Vassar in the fall. Thanks to Facebook, Iris Kliman Lavine realized she and her family were vacationing in Hawaii at the same time Becky Hall Fortner and Mike Fortner were there. The two families got together, and, although the Brandeis friends hadn’t seen one another in decades, they instantly reconnected. David Lewis is vice president of Manchester Trade, an international business advisory firm in Washington, D.C. He has 25 years of experience in international trade and investment advising, working with governments, businesses and international organizations in the Caribbean and Latin America. David has served as assistant secretary of state of Puerto Rico and deputy executive director of Caribbean/Latin American Action. He earned a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and has an honorary degree from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Rosemary Rodriguez is directing and executive producing the CBS/MGM pilot of “Cagney & Lacey,” starring Sarah Drew, Michelle Hurd and Ving Rhames. Beth Ross founded Mending Fences Institute, which works to make divorce less stressful for families and children. Her son, Jeremy, who is finishing his second year at Harvard Law School, will marry Brooke Rutstein in October. Her daughter Becca is working at AIPEC in Washington, D.C. Younger daughter Ilana is in college in California. Steven Sterman writes, “We have truly enjoyed the West Coast over the past five years, and now our two boys have made the move as well. One is working in San Diego, the other in San Francisco. It is a nice feeling 35 years post-Brandeis to have two college grads making their own way in the world.”