Class Correspondent

Hello, Class of 1999! As your new class correspondent, I am looking forward to hearing from each of you over the coming years. After moving back and forth from the East Coast to the West Coast a total of six times, I think I have settled — maybe, probably — in Sonoma County, California, with my hubs, Neil, and our 5-year-old daughter, Kora. As a reminder, our 20th Reunion will happen on May 31-June 2, so start making travel plans now.

David Benforado mounted his seventh solo exhibition, at the Kourd Gallery, in Athens, Greece. The show, titled “Goats and the Abstract Truth,” featured portraits of individual goats painted against bright Pop Art-style backgrounds. The idea was inspired by the animals David saw during his many visits to the Cyclades, in the Aegean Sea. Sarah (Glickstein) DeWoskin is starting LEV (Learn Engage Venture) Children’s Museum, a hands-on experience that introduces south Florida families to the heart of Jewish culture. She is also enrolled in Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion’s executive master’s in Jewish education program. She lives in Davie, Florida, with her husband, Rabbi Frank DeWoskin, and their three kids: Elijah (11), Mia (9) and Livia (9). Glenn Ettman is the senior rabbi at Congregation Or Ami, in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania. He reports he lives with his two loves: his daughter, Shoshana; and his “feyonce,” Ellie Litcofsky, whom he will marry on Dec. 22. Melissa Bank Stepno, Ellen Lipstein and Keith Berman ’98 will take part in the wedding. Eli Levine, SaraBeth Levine ’98, Stephanie Wethington, Rabbi Eliana Yolkut and Bill Folman ’98 will attend. Allison Rapp and Jeff Pollack are Glenn’s next-door neighbors. Alex Fisher was named a partner at Gartner + Bloom, a law firm with offices in New York and New Jersey. For the most part, Alex concentrates his practice on litigation, including complex construction defect, construction accident and personal injury claims. He and his wife, Sara (David) ’01, live with their two sons in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Marieka Kaye, a rare-book, paper and papyrus conservator at the University of Michigan, was appointed head of conservation and book repair in February. Marieka and husband Darrell Jackson (who attended Brandeis from 1995-97) are kept on their toes by their daughter, Aya, who turns 7 in November and has a flair for the arts, just like her parents. An opera written by composer-librettist Rachel Peters was presented at the Fort Worth Opera’s Frontiers festival in May. “Companionship,” based on a short story by Arthur Phillips, is about a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown who begins to bake obsessively, making more than 207,000 baguettes in a quest to create the perfect one. Rachel studied voice and composition at Brandeis. Educational psychologist Emily (Shaw) Santiago has founded the Center for Cognitive Diversity, which provides a trauma-informed program for educators. She moved to Ashland, Oregon, with her family after working 15 years in Bay Area schools. Samara Taher and her husband, Ajay David, lost their beloved baby daughter Dessa to a condition known as necrotizing enterocolitis. Dessa was born prematurely on Jan. 13 via an emergency C-section after Samara developed severe preeclampsia; the baby died four weeks later. To remember Dessa’s resilience and the huge footprints she made with her tiny feet, Samara and Ajay have created the Dessa Taher David Preeclampsia Research Fund. To send a tax-deductible gift or for more information about the fund and the research conducted by the Northwestern University Department of Maternal Fetal Medicine, please contact Jordan Sund at 312.503.2706 or jordan.sund@northwestern.edu, or Samara at 708.466.0127 or Treo_me@yahoo.com. Daniel Yunger is a managing director and member of the executive committee at Kekst, a leading strategic communications consultancy. He writes that he lives in Englewood, New Jersey, with his wife, Jessica, and their “four very cute but demanding children”: Murray (7), Phoebe (5), George (5) and Juliette (3).

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