1960s
65th Reunion: Oct. 24-26
Sylvia Aranow writes, “Now living in Solstice, a senior residence in Guilford, Connecticut. All is well.”
In addition to her many books, Susan Kahn produces two blog posts per week on the topics of phonics, grammar and vocabulary — more than 900 so far. She also creates animated instructional videos for her Sue’s Strategies YouTube channel; more than 150,000 people worldwide watch them every year.
Esther Geil is teaching a beginner’s sign-language class at Arcadia, the retirement facility where she lives in Honolulu.
Art Weiner and his husband, who live in Chicago, recently celebrated their 60th anniversary.
Phyllis Cohen co-founded Lifelong Learners (LLAIC.org), which offers many courses on Zoom and in person. “Not bad for 84,” she writes. “A Brandeis-trained mind cannot be idle.”
Eleanor Rubin makes prints and paints watercolors at her studio in Canton, Massachusetts.
Donna Robinson Divine, P’01, pens a tribute to her Brandeis roommate Naomi Hordes, who died in Jerusalem on Oct. 24, 2024. Donna writes, “I am grateful to the university not only for my education, but also for giving me a friend unlike any I had ever known, someone who showed me how to navigate a world and a culture that was entirely different from anything I had experienced before I came to campus.”
Rita Brickman Effros, who was a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UCLA for more than 40 years, lives in a retirement community close to the Portland, Oregon, cultural scene. She lectures on the aging immune system, writes articles, serves as a volunteer usher at concerts and travels extensively. Over the past year, she has spent time with Lucy Gold Landesberg and Lesley Lerner Solomon.
Steven Kazan celebrated the 50th anniversary of the law firm he founded, Kazan McClain Satterley & Greenwood, which has represented thousands of people who have mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. After decades of trying cases one by one, he turned his focus to reorganizing bankrupt asbestos companies, helping to put $60 billion of their assets into trust funds for their victims, then advising the funds as they compensate the injured.
Marc Sapir is celebrating the publication of his 2024 memoir, “Déjà Vu With Quixotic Delusions of Grandeur,” and a 2025 book of essays, “I’ll Fly Away,” about his work with disabled elders.
For the 40th year, Peter Berkowsky co-directed the morning minyan before the start of the New York City Marathon on Nov. 3, 2024. Held in a tent at a Staten Island staging area, the minyan attracted more than 300 participants. Instituted in 1983, the marathon’s minyan is believed to be the longest-established religious service at any major sporting event anywhere in the world.
Arnie Kanter; his wife, Carol; and Janis Mendelsohn are the founders of Innovation 80, a fund that has raised more than $2 million over the past five years to support small arts organizations in underserved areas, particularly organizations in which younger and older generations work together. Arnie and Carol serve as co-executive directors of the fund, and Janis is an active participant and adviser.
60th Reunion: Oct. 24-26
Helen Alpert Goldenberg lives in a senior condominium community in Tamarac, Florida, where she is an officer of its Hadassah chapter. She regularly visits New York and Georgia to see the daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren she has in each of those places.
Robert Lerman earned a 2024 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education for his work on apprenticeships. He is the co-founder of Apprenticeships for America, an initiative that creates new pathways to economic opportunity and helps employers close persistent talent gaps.
The artwork of Mary Lucier was featured in solo exhibitions at the Catskill Art Space and Manhattan’s Cristin Tierney Gallery last year.
Michael Seltz says he is still involved in affordable-housing work as a board member at Communities Together Inc. He recently traveled to London, India and Kenya, where he was hosted by graduate school friends.
Richard Weisberg’s book “Law, Literature and History: A Fateful Rendezvous With the Shoah” was published by deGruyter/Brill this year. Richard and wife Cheryl ’68 celebrated the bar mitzvah of their oldest grandchild in Pittsburgh last November.
Paul Bloom writes that, in retirement, he stays busy “doing what feels important and fun,” including working as the abbot of the New Haven (Connecticut) Zen Center.
Victoria Hilkevitch is a violinist in the Bloomington (Indiana) Symphony. She reports her synagogue’s new rabbi, Noach, is the son of former Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence.
Alexander Nacht is an anesthesiologist at NYU/Bellevue.
Robert Rein writes, “Still practicing law at 80. Got married to Laurie Rosenthal two years ago. Best decision ever.”
Sociologist Carole Joffe is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UC San Francisco. She is the co-author of “After Dobbs: How the Supreme Court Ended Roe but Not Abortion” (Beacon Press, 2025) and the co-editor of “Reproduction and Society: Interdisciplinary Readings,” Second Edition (Routledge, 2025).
In July 2024, Deborah Dash Moore became the Jonathan Freedman Distinguished University Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan.
Steve Abelman and Judith Sachs serendipitously met each other in Portugal during a Backroads hiking trip. After a chance comment on the fourth day, they realized they were both members of the Class of 1968 and have mutual acquaintances.
Alan Fox was awarded a pin honoring his 50-year membership in Actors Equity during a Broadway Salutes reception at Sardi’s restaurant.
Ellen Gilmore, GSAS MA’69, an active choral singer who lives on the Maine island where she grew up, retired in 2009 after serving as a public school librarian in Southwest Harbor for 34 years. She became a grandmother in 2022.
During a trip to Greece, Samuel Heilman and Ellin Kaufman Heilman ’69, both P’98, P’02, discovered Ellin comes from Romaniote Jewish roots through her maternal grandfather. Sam is celebrating the September 2024 publication of his co-authored book “Following Similar Paths: What American Jews and Muslims Can Learn From One Another” (University of California Press).
Ronald Kronish, P’99, who has lived in Jerusalem for 45 years, writes a blog for The Times of Israel, and book reviews and viewpoint articles for The Jerusalem Report.
Joseph Matalon invites fellow Brandeisians to visit Jamaica, where he lives. He can be reached at jamatalon@gmail.com.
Judith Sachs works with families living with Parkinson’s disease through her Close Contact for Couples program, and is designing a fall and fall-recovery project for elders.
Last November, Roger Smith gave a presentation to the Winchester (Massachusetts) Historical Society on Harvard sociologist Pitirim A. Sorokin. A week later, Roger spoke in Boston on the topic “Academic Contributions of Russian Émigré Scholars to American Universities in the 1920s-1970s.” He writes, “My Russian 1 course with Professor Charles Gribble has stood me in good stead.”
Eric Uslaner retired as a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is currently working on a book about immigration policies and voter attitudes in 10 countries.
Pat Gordon Lamanna is president of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Poughkeepsie, New York. In addition to presenting musical worship services, she performs at folk concerts.
Nicholas Racheotes writes, “The 55th Reunion of the Class of 1969 was as ripe with mixed emotion, as inspirational, and as complex as was our undergraduate era. As then, we are reminded that the arts of winning and the arts of loss aren’t really hard to master.”
Nancy Sherman Shapiro writes she was thrilled to see so many of her friends at the 55th Reunion in September 2024.