Brandeis Magazine

Lewis Lorton lives near Palm Desert, California, and has three children and six grandchildren. He writes he recently traveled to Cuba, Canada, Vietnam, the Mediterranean and New Mexico, and calls this time in his life “an inadvertent gift from Fate.”

Stephen Bluestone is a poet who has won the Thomas Merton Prize and the Greensboro Review Prize. His recent work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, The Hudson Review and Plume. Stephen is co-editor and co-translator of “From Neza York to New York,” a bilingual anthology of poetry.

Esther Paran Geil writes, “I am (sad to say) a widow now, living in a retirement residence in Honolulu, wondering about my roommates and friends.”

After 50 years of living in Arcata, California, Phyllis Zweig Chinn and her husband have moved to Brooklyn to be near their children and grandchildren. Phyllis co-presented a paper on the mathematics of Lewis Carroll at a conference at the National Museum of Mathematics in August 2025 and, as a longtime volunteer at U.S. Servas, in October attended the Servas International Conference and General Assembly in Dijon, France.

A dozen woodcut prints by Eleanor Rubin have been acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She created the prints, which celebrate the life of composer Hikari Oe, in her West Newton, Massachusetts, studio between 2002-03.

Donna Divine, P’01, is the co-editor of the book “October 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds,” published in October 2025 by Academic Studies Press. Donna is the Morningstar Professor Emerita of Jewish Studies and professor emerita of government at Smith College.

Larry Greenberg writes, “I am always grateful to Brandeis for the lifelong friendships I have.” He reports he recently saw Bill Goldberg, P’99, and Paul Hinchey.

Marc Sapir says his 2025 book “I’ll Fly Away: Stories About Amazing Disabled Elders” received a rave review from Publishers Weekly and appeared on its Editor’s Choice list. Marc, a retired physician, served as medical director at the Center for Elders’ Independence in Oakland, California, for nine years.

Harriet (Freitag) Senie co-wrote the book “Memorials Now” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2025) and is the author of “Monumental Controversies: Mount Rushmore, Four Presidents and the Quest for National Unity” (Potomac Books, 2023). She is professor emerita of art history at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center.

Joan (Furber) and Michael Kalafatas celebrated a double 60th in 2025 — their 60th Brandeis reunion and 60th wedding anniversary. On their anniversary, their sons, daughters-in-law and four grandchildren joined them for a weekend that included a luncheon at the Wayside Inn, in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

Sandy (Kotzen) and Dennis Smith, who have been married for 60 years, live in an over- 55 community in Woodland Park, New Jersey, and spend their winter months in Sarasota, Florida. Sandy writes, “We are grateful to be healthy and active, and to have this time to enjoy our pastimes, and our children and grandchildren. We remember our Brandeis days with great fondness.”

In October 2025, Patricia Striar Rohner celebrated the publication of her novel “2 Poppins Lane” (Bridge House Publishing), which deals with the sexual abuse of children. The cover art is an oil painting by Patricia.

In addition to serving as abbot of the New Haven (Connecticut) Zen Center, Paul Bloom is a commissioner on the City of New Haven Peace Commission, established in conjunction with the United Nations in the mid-1980s.

Bert Foer reports he and friends Paul Bloom; Jeff Cohen; Michael Moscovich, P’99; Carl Sheingold; and Paul Solman, G’26, continue to meet virtually on Sunday evenings. “From time to time, we have invited other classmates and two Brandeis presidents to join us,” he writes. “No agenda, but conversations cover the waterfront — from personal, to philosophical, to political.”

Elsa Lichman writes, “This 81st year has been challenging due to health concerns and loss. But I was able to get a new gig for my nature column at The Lexington (Massachusetts) Observer, where my writing and nature photography have earned a positive response.”

Marian Solomon Lubinsky and Len Lubinsky ’63 visited the Boston area for their grandson’s graduation in May 2025. They had dinner with Marian’s former roommate Helene Weiner Stein and husband Marshall Stein ’63, both P’90, and with Judy Goldberg Krell and husband Fred Krell, both ’63, P’89. All three couples recently celebrated their 60th anniversaries.

Michael Moscovich, P’99, who splits his time between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Rancho Mirage, California, has welcomed a fourth grandson, Lazar. He writes, “Remain closely connected to Brandeis as the resident right-wing (by Brandeis standards) curmudgeon on our friend group’s weekly Zoom.”

David Rosenfield reports he is getting to spend more time with his wife and children after retiring as a professor of neurology at Houston Methodist Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine.

William Schneider, H’08, writes, “Though officially retired, I was asked to come back to teach a course on media and politics via Zoom.”

Carla Singer says, “I think I’m too young to be a grandmother, but my daughter and son-in-law thought differently. My new grandson lives in Oklahoma City, which is far away from NYC but worth the trip.”

Paul Solman, G’26, co-founded the antipolarization nonprofit American Exchange Project six years ago and serves as its board chair. The organization has sent more than 1,500 newly minted high school graduates on a weeklong visit to communities utterly unlike their own; the young people then host others for a week in their own community. “This is the best expression of the values Brandeis nurtured that I could come up with,” Paul writes. “Please connect us to a beloved teacher at a high school somewhere in America.”

Allen Zerkin, P’02, reports he and Paul Bloom celebrated their 80th birthdays last July by climbing the 5,260-foot-high Mount Lafayette, facing the Cannon Mountain wall in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, where the iconic Old Man of the Mountain profile used to be.

Judy Goldberg celebrated a Zoom birthday party with many relatives and friends, including Arlene Bandes, Geri Mund ’65 and Gila Svirsky ’68.

Tony Annesi, who holds three black belts, teaches traditional martial-arts seminars around the world. He also writes novels, books on martial arts, and social commentary from a libertarian point of view.

Naomi Baron writes about the impact of artificial intelligence on humans. Her latest book, “Reader Bot: What Happens When AI Reads and Why It Matters,” will be published by Stanford University Press in January 2026.

Sara Anne Fox, who was widowed in 1997 and lives in Los Angeles’ Silver Lake area, works with screenwriters and other writers as a coach/consultant/story editor. Older son Daniel is a novelist and an ESL teacher. Younger son Nicholas is an assistant conductor and chorus master at the Portland (Oregon) Opera.

Kay Mathew, who lives in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, is director of development at the Center for Teen Empowerment in Roxbury. She’s also a leader in many community organizations — including serving as chair of the Emerald Necklace/ Muddy River Oversight Committee and the Jamaica Pond Association — and a photographer whose work was recently exhibited in two galleries. She reports she Zooms with Lynn Silver and Jackie Odess every few months, traveled to London and Italy with Russell Gersten ’67 in fall 2025, and stays in touch with Andi John.

Ellen Novack is in her 21st year of teaching film acting and auditioning to acting students at Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama. She is the author of “Taming the Cyclops: How To Do Your Best Work in an On- Camera Audition,” and teaches a class based on the book at New York City’s Freeman Studio. The birth of Lola Cooper-Novack Breckon has made her a grandmother for the first time, she reports.

As he does most years for the past three decades, Howard Posner got together with Larry Bensky; Larry Fialkow; Stan Goldberg; Jon Kurtis; Joel Lubin ’69, P’07; Ken Nirenberg; Alan Silver; and Rick Tolin for a mini-reunion. This year’s gathering place was Sedona, Arizona, with a side trip to the Grand Canyon. They all missed Alex Barkas and Paul Schiffer ’69, “who, sadly, have passed on from the scene,” Howard says.

Mark Simon reports his grandchildren are celebrating milestones: “Off to college at one end of the spectrum, and off to pre-K at the other.”

Michele Boll creates art at Western Avenue Studios and Lofts, in Lowell, Massachusetts. She organized an exhibition, “Election 2024: Artists Respond,” which included one of her own works, “Sanctuary: Shelter From the Storm.”

Pat Gordon Lamanna was honored as Interfaith Music Maker of the Year by the Dutchess County (New York) Interfaith Council at its annual gala in October 2025. She performs music for community groups and Unitarian Universalist congregations.

Ken Greene, P’96, P’02, lives most of the year in Jerusalem.

Bob Panoff reports his son, Joseph, has received the Miami Cancer Institute’s Radiation Oncologist Physician of the Year Award.

An essay by Nicholas Racheotes, “From the Back of the Mirror,” will appear in the forthcoming book “Shifting Blind Identities in Higher Education: Stories of Selfhood,” published by Lever Press.