Brandeis Magazine

Sid Boorstein, P’89, married Caryn Mofenson on Aug. 4 in an intimate ceremony attended by family. The couple moved to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, a year ago and travels often. Daughter Robin ’89 is deputy director of operations at the Children’s Trust, in Boston, and daughter Michelle is a religion reporter at The Washington Post. Martin Quitt visited Cuba in January 2019, 60 years after Fidel Castro came to power. “Our once-romanticized image of Cuba dissipated in three days,” he reports. “The famous vintage pre-Castro American automobiles are owned by a few privileged folk in Havana. Most people are without cars, televisions or internet access. They have universal health care and education but only restricted opportunity for personal advancement. Our lovely guide, who had graduated from university a year earlier, owed the state three years of service in a job of its choosing. She could work only one day a month at the job she preferred. The meat we tourists ate was a rarity in her diet. She literally screamed in exasperation when we passed a bus stop because of the unreliability of public transportation. Even a horse and carriage is not widely affordable.” In 2019, Richard Smith received the inaugural Sean M. Healey International Prize for Innovation in ALS, a research award from Massachusetts General Hospital. Judith Glatzer Wechsler’s film “Isaiah Berlin: Philosopher of Freedom” has had screenings at Princeton, the University of Oxford, Harvard, Yale and Hebrew University, among other locations.