Brandeis Magazine

In May, Robert Brown, IBS MA’89, was given the Leadership Award at the annual gala of the Read Alliance, a literacy nonprofit. Robert, Read Alliance’s longest-serving board member, is founding partner at Atlas Impact Partners, a long-short absolute return hedge fund. Aimee Close is director of synagogue leadership and innovation at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, where she has worked for 11 years. She is co-author of the book “Stepping Forward Together: Synagogue Visioning and Planning” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), which guides congregational leaders through the strategic-planning process. Rebecca Goldfader has donated Brandeis memorabilia collected by her dad Sid Goldfader ’54, P’88, to the university’s archives. Ari Kiirikki says son Ari was accepted at several colleges last year, including Brandeis. “Sadly,” he writes, “little Ari chose another Massachusetts college on a hill, Holy Cross. On the bright side, he already has a fake ID and a bookie.” Arianna Licet Ariza is in her second year as an assistant teacher at a Miami Beach private elementary school after spending 25 years in film and television publicity and production. She says she loves teaching literacy skills to young children. Tom Linfield has been drawing a new series he calls COVID Characters: confined figures struggling to get out of their predicament. Each drawing gets snail-mailed to friends, he reports, “hopefully bringing a little color and joy to those wearily making their way through the pandemic.” Amy Memis-Foler is senior rabbi at Adath Emanu-El, in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Pratyoush Onta is the co-editor of two books published in 2021: “The Relay Race for Equality,” which documents public action for gender equality in Nepal over the past five decades, and “School Education in Nepal.”