YESHIVA UNIVERSITY REVIEW Summer 2002

ReviewS U M M E R 2 0 0 2 / K A Y I T Z 5 7 6 2 YUT H E M A G A Z I N E O F

Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y A L U M N I

YU STUDENTS, FACULTY,

STAFF, AND ALUMNI

MOBILIZE F0R ISRAEL

This year, one of Israel’s most

difficult since its birth, more

than 1,000 YU students, faculty,

staff, and alumni exuberantly

marched in the Manhattan

Israel Day Parade on a beautiful

Sunday afternoon in May.

C O V E R P H O T O :

Y U S TA F F P H O T O G R A P H E R

V. J A N E W I N D S O R

2 FROM THE PRESIDENT: Looking Back, Looking Forward

VISION

3 GREED IS NOT GOOD

“For better or worse, business is also a location where human beings constantly and forever interpret life’s meanings.” So says Moses Pava, the Alvin H. Einbender Professor of Business Ethics at Sy Syms School of Business.

LEADERSHIP

7 ERICA JESSELSON AT 80: An Appreciation by Norman Lamm ’49Y,B,R.

8 THE COACH

Jonny Halpert YH,’66Y,F wins 300 for YU. A tribute from a former player.

9 TO STRENGTHEN & BE STRENGTHENED

■ The Tie That Binds: Lessons Learned from Operation Torah Shield II

■ Dissecting the Israel Experience

PROFILES

14 TELLING TALES OUT OF SCHOOL: Hanoch Teller ’79Y

“If something falls into your lap, you’ve got to do something about it.”

15 MONEY SMART: Esther Fuchs Berger ’73S

“I found that ‘gutsy’ was a survival skill I had best learn posthaste.”

16 IN A NEW YORK STATE OF MIND: Jonathan Greenspun ’94Y

“Winning a political campaign is like winning the Super Bowl or the World Series.”

COMMUNITY

18 THE UPDATE OF A LIFETIME

Mikey Butler ’01Y needed a lung transplant—his only hope for survival. Nina Novetsky Butler ’78S writes about the miracle that saved his life.

20 HOW IS THIS GOING TO END?

Dr. Joyce Brenner ’83W, coordinator of the Wurzweiler School of Social Work Block Program in Israel, reports on the stress of living under siege.

DEPARTMENTS

22 BOOKSHELF

24 ALUMNI NEWS

29 ALUMNI HONOR ROLL OF DONORS

43 CLASSNOTES

52 ENDNOTE: A Day of Unity

3

16

8

18

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ReviewS U M M E R 2 0 0 2 / K A Y I T Z 5 7 6 2

YU

Telling Tales Out of SchoolB Y J U N E G L A Z E R

anoch Teller ’79Y lives by this creed: “If some-thing falls into your lap, you’ve got to do some-thing with it.” That’s how he found himself in thebusiness of telling stories.

“In 1975, I was living in Israel and looking forsomething to do during intersession,” said Teller, today theauthor of 27 books and a celebrity of sorts for his narrativeability. All of 17 at the time, he was enrolled at YU but onleave to pursue his love of learning at a yeshiva in Israel.

On the advice of a friend, he made his way to KiryatShemona, a development town on the country’s northern bor-der, “thinking I would teach Sephardi youngsters there someTorah. Instead, I encountered a group of American volunteerswho, stir-crazed by a lack of entertainment, jumped at anopportunity for something to do.” Teller learned with themevery night—“we’ve remained in touch ever since”—and,upon his return to Jerusalem, wrote about his KiryatShemona experience in an article he submitted to two maga-zines. Both published the piece and asked for more.

“So I wrote a second one, and I realized that I had a talentfor story writing.” When people began asking him to tell histales—“something I had never done before”—he saw that hecould do that too. “That’s how it all began,” he said.

Teller, an apt name for someone in his line of work, prefersthe title of lecturer, distinguishing himself from those whosepurpose is simply to amuse. “I make a point of only tellingstories that have a message. They might be entertaining, butthey also must inspire. They must convey something aboutGod and His Torah.”

A prolific writer, his story ideas come from many sources.His book Hey, Taxi, for example, is a compilation of vignetteshe has heard in the back seat of taxis. Some books are biog-raphies of Torah giants; others are about unsung heroes—“ordinary people who reach out and seize the moment.” Hislatest, Builders, profiles the lives of Rabbi Aharon Kotler andthe Ponevezher Rav—outstanding roshei yeshiva in the 20thcentury—and Sarah Schenirer, founder of the Beis Yaakovschools for girls.

His profession takes him around the world about 10 timesa year, a perk if it didn’t mean having to leave his wife and 18

children—“one book I’d like to write is It Ain’t Cheaper By theDozen”—to manage without him back home in Jerusalem.Actually, they do quite well during his trips abroad. His wife,Aidel, even substitute teaches for her husband while he’saway. When he’s not traveling, Teller learns in the MirrerYeshiva and is a Jewish philosophy teacher in the overseasprograms of 17 women’s seminaries in Jerusalem. “I guess I’mblessed with a lot of stamina,” he says.

At least one of those trips always includes a stop at SternCollege for Women where Teller is able to reunite with stu-dents he taught in Israel. Invariably, he also spends a Shabbatat the Wilf Campus, a homecoming of sorts where he canalso scout out potential mates for his former students. Overthe years, he has been responsible for more than 100 shid-duchim (marriage matches) at YU and elsewhere, and feelsstrongly that the Jewish community should do more to helpbring people together.

His video docudrama, Do You Believe in Miracles?, “fellinto his lap” when he saw how profoundly people wereaffected by the miracles of the 1991 Persian Gulf War—Scudmissiles left Israeli neighborhoods demolished but residentsunscathed.

“People are fascinated by the phenomenon of miracles.Harnessing the powerful visual media to convey Jewish valueshad barely been done before, and it was an opportunity toimpact on countless families.” The result is an award-winning,professionally-castand scored one-hourproduction that hasbeen acclaimed as avital Jewish teachingand outreach tool.

Currently, Teller iscompleting a book forthe Simon Wiesen-thal Center aboutchildren of the Holo-caust. With “produc-er” now added to hisjob description, hesays he feels that “ifmy work has made amodest impact on ourpeople, I will feel es-pecially blessed.” ■

alumni profile H A N O C H T E L L E R ’ 7 9 Y

H

1 4

Money SmartB Y Y V O N N E H U D S O N

n the case of Esther Fuchs Berger ’73S, looks are deceiv-ing. Diminutive—even petite—she is a powerhouse in afield traditionally dominated by men. And while breakingdown barriers is formidable work, her success has beenguided in part by lessons first learned as a student at Stern

College for Women.“When I moved from Cleveland to the Big Apple, I found

that ‘gutsy’ was a survival skill I had best learn posthaste,” shesaid recently.

A second lesson, inculcated by Dr. Carole Silver, professorof English at Stern, was that “anything less than my best isn’tgood enough.” Berger put this dictum into practice while stillan undergraduate, emerging as a student leader who chairedthe Stern College Senate and oversaw The Observer studentnewspaper as executive editor.

After graduation she moved to Los Angeles and, marriedand a new mother, worked as an advertising copywriter. Butshe wanted more financial stability and needed more flexibil-ity as a working parent. Fascinated by investing since child-hood, she found herself drawn to a career in money manage-ment and finance.

“Most women who grew up in the 1950s were raised to bebread bakers, not bread winners. Women who don’t work out-side the home—and even many who do—traditionally do notmanage their own assets. Many don’t even open their ownmonthly bank statements,” she says.

In 1987, she joined PaineWebber, Inc. and rose to becomea first vice president at a time when few women held similarposts. As her reputation grew, she became an online financialexpert for the Women.com website, and a contributor toTown & Country magazine; she was published in Newsweek’s“My Turn” and interviewed on “Good Morning America,”“Oprah,” CNN, PBS, and NPR; and her articles appeared inpublications including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today,and The New York Times.

In 1997 Berger launched her own business and is nowmanaging director of Berger & Associates LLC, a BeverlyHills-based registered investment advisory firm. She is also

the author of MoneySmart: SecretsWomen Need to Know About Money(Simon & Schuster, 1993), whichaims to dispel the fear of taking con-trol of one’s own financial well-being.“Statistics tell us that over ninetypercent of all women will be forcedto take care of themselves at somepoint in their lives” as they face theramifications of being single bychoice, widowhood, divorce, paren-tal care giving, or other life transi-tions, she says.

“Understanding money and howto manage it may be intimidating atfirst, but it’s eminently doable.”

The winner, in 1999, of the SternCollege Alumnae Association’s 17thAnnual Samuel Belkin MemorialAward for Professional Achievement,Berger’s career path into the un-charted, often unfriendly territory offinancial services has been illuminat-ed by another lesson from her undergraduate days: “It is im-portant to me that my life be a reflection of the religious val-ues I hold dear—particularly as they relate to hesed [charita-ble deeds], tikkun olam [repairing the world], and kiddushHaShem [doing something that sanctifies God’s name]. Thereis something more important than making an extra five dol-lars,” she says.

Here is more of her plainspoken advice:• Specific investments are always based on the “two Cs andDs—common sense, comfort level, diversification, and dis-cipline.”• Instead of pursuing “the stock du jour,” take a judiciousapproach that includes establishing relationships of trustwith professional advisers who can guide investors througheven “a treacherous, volatile market. This is when it’s evenmore important to know your threshold for risk.”• When financial waters get choppy, “Retain your ability tosort through the information and hype. The overload of newsand advice—on the Web and on TV—can be overwhelmingand often contradictory.” ■

E S T H E R F U C H S B E R G E R ’ 7 3 S

I“Whether you do it gladly and willingly, or kicking and screaming, it’s important to plan and to take responsibility for your decisions.”— E S T H E R F U C H S B E R G E R

Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W • S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 1 5

In a New York State of MindB Y Y V O N N E H U D S O N

onathan Greenspun ’94Y has gone a long way sincehis days at YU. Then again, he hasn't.

New York City born and bred, he is commission-er of the Mayor’s Community Assistance Unit, aposition he earned in Michael Bloomberg’s new

administration in part because of his strong ties to the Jewishcommunity. And in part because of his hard work on behalfof the candidate, a virtual unknown among mayoral con-tenders before September 11.

“I was the point man for Bloomberg’s outreach to theJewish community, and the only person who advised him onJewish issues,” says Greenspun, the youngest commissionerin the new mayor’s administration. “I was required to drumup political support for a largely anonymous businessman andnewcomer to politics. Bloomberg was thirty points behindand that certainly didn’t make things any easier.”

Which made the victory even sweeter. “Winning a politi-cal campaign is like winning the Super Bowl or the WorldSeries. I can’t imagine a greater feeling of elation,” he says.

Jonathan Greenspun’s life in politics began at YeshivaCollege as leader of the Young Republicans on campus and avolunteer on Rudolph Giuliani’s mayoral campaign in 1993.Immediately upon graduation, he joined the campaign ofNew York gubernatorial candidate George Pataki and, after

the upstater took office, was rewarded with his first full-time,paying job, as the New York State Governor’s Liaison forJewish Affairs.

He spent the next seven years in the Governor’s office asone of Pataki’s specialized liaisons. Working with the City’sfive boroughs and adjacent counties, he sometimes repre-sented the Governor at Jewish community events and “had ahand in policy, writing speeches, correspondence, and sched-uling the Governor in front of various Jewish groups.”

With Bloomberg’s election, some two months after theattacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Green-spun found himself at the head of a unit whose responsibili-ties had virtually expanded overnight to meet the extraordi-nary demands of post-September 11. With a staff of 40, hisconcerns ranged from the recovery and DNA identification ofvictims to access to Ground Zero for family members. Ironi-cally, his office, across the street from City Hall, is just blocksfrom the devastation.

“I’ve had the opportunity to serve many, many differentpeople,” he says, “including as liaison to 59 CommunityBoards throughout the five boroughs, offering City supportfor emergency services such as assisting displaced personsfollowing a fire, and granting City permission for activitiesranging from street fairs to media events.”

Service to diverse neighborhoods is his all-consuming mis-sion. “We are the eyes and ears of the Mayor throughout thecity, and I get to address neighborhood issues—not only hear-ing complaints, but actually solving problems. I can’t think ofanything more rewarding.”

One neighborhood recently in the news isBrooklyn’s Crown Heights, where tensionsflared again in January when a federal appealscourt decision overturned the convictions oftwo men in the brutal 1991 murder of YankelRosenbaum. Greenspun, who still assistsMayor Bloomberg with Jewish relations, hiredanother YU grad, Fred Kreizman ’00SB, to helpcoordinate his efforts in Brooklyn.

“What a privilege I’ve been given to serve thecity in which I was born, raised, educated, andlive. I never forget how fortunate I am. Myheart has always been in this place.” ■

alumni profile J O N AT H A N G R E E N S P U N ’ 9 4 Y

J

Jonathan Greenspun (left) with his boss,

NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg.

“The Sphere,” a sculp-

ture by Fritz Koenig,

which had resided in

the World Trade Center

Plaza, was moved to

Battery Park where it

remains a monument to

fostering peace.

Greenspun’s responsi-

bilities expanded

overnight to meet the

extraordinary demands

of post-September 11.

A Nice Guy Finishes FirstIt was a heart-stopping moment for Dr. Jonathan HalpertYH,’66Y,F, who celebrated his 30th year coaching the YU

men’s basketball team this year. His son, Rafi, who was a soph-omore at YC and playing for his father, scored a three-pointshot under intense pressure, sending a 66–63 game into over-time. The Macs then finished the job against the Mt. St. Vin-cent Dolphins and delivered Coach Halpert his 300th careerwin. They also guaranteed that the team would finish the sea-son with a record above .500 for the 17th consecutive year.

Halpert was named head coach in 1972, three years afterthe retirement of legendary coach Bernard “Red” Sarachek,and only six years after he had captained the 1965–66Maccabee squad. The 1986–87 season was the only non win-ning season since the opening of the Max Stern AthleticCenter at the (then) Main Campus, in 1985.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Halpert said after the momentousgame. “My kid hit a three-point shot with no time left. Afterthirty years of work and hardship and frustration, one shotmakes up for everything. You can’t write it any better thanthat.”

Halpert’s remarkable affiliation with YU is intergenera-tional. His late father, Max, was a graduate of Isaac BreuerCollege, YC, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Stud-ies, and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology. Dr. Halpertsenior worked for all three presidents of Yeshiva University asa fundraiser for 40 years, including stints as a Yiddish andHebrew translator at Revel during his high school and under-graduate days. Including Rafi, “there has been a Halpert at YU

for over seventy years,” Halpert summed up proudly.Halpert holds a PhD in social science and was awarded

the College Basketball Officials Association Schoenfeld Awardin 1981 and again in 1997. He received the MetropolitanBasketball Writers Association “Good Guy” Award in 1998.

Broadcasting Macs Games on www.yu.eduThanks to a generous grant by the President’s Circle, a groupof undergraduate alumni that helps advance undergraduateprograms, this past season Macs basketball marked an impor-tant milestone when its December 27 game was broadcastlive over the Internet.

The gift, to purchase needed equipment, also made possi-

alumni

2 4 S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 • Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W

Other features include the

capability to build and store a

personal web page with up to one

megabyte of disk space free of

charge; hot links to other web

resources; an events calendar for

upcoming YU alumni functions

around the world; and free

permanent email addresses.

To register for the OLC, alumni

can go to www.yu.edu/alumni and

click the “Online Community”

button, or log onto their school’s

alumni association website and

click the “Online Community”

button. Registration is a one-time

process. Membership for all YU

grads is free.

To learn more, contact Robert

Saltzman, director of University

alumni affairs, at 212-960-5373.

Staying inTouchHave you discovered YU’s Online

Alumni Community? Maintained by

the Office of University Alumni

Affairs, the OLC can help friends

and former classmates stay in

touch and promote businesses

and services. It enables all

graduates of YU schools to re-

connect, exchange ideas, and

share career information.

YU’s OLC features:

• an interactive alumni directory

• Business Yellow Pages

• bulletin boards where alumni

can post messages to

other alumni.

Additionally, alumni can search

for jobs in their fields throughout

the country. And, the Mentoring

Service capability is a useful tool

for individuals contemplating a

career change or seeking expert

career guidance.

ble the Internet broadcast of the Macs’ remaining seasonhome games, with play-by-play, pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows hosted by students.

The project was the initiative of seniors Adam Cohen andAvi Bloom, whose tireless efforts were rewarded when thePresident’s Circle agreed to provide $4,500 and the YUadministration offered space on the University’s official web-site. During the games, Mr. Cohen called the play-by-playand Mr. Bloom contributed color commentary.

The broadcasts, on the University’s official website atwww.yu.edu/athletics, were an immediate hit with alumni.William Gris YH,’55Y, a stock broker in Atlanta, said “It gaveme a very nice connection to the school, and I think that’swhat these broadcasts do for alumni who are out of town andinterested in sports. Also, I gave the website to a number ofstudents at our local yeshiva high school and they were veryexcited about the games and about YU. The broadcasts are agreat recruitment tool. They say something about theUniversity within the broader culture, and the students todayappreciate that.”

New YU Leadership in CanadaSamuel Z. Eltes YH’49 was electedchairman of the National Board ofCanadian Friends of Yeshiva Uni-versity at its annual meeting andassumed office in March. A native ofMontreal, Eltes earned his BA atMcGill University and has had a longassociation with YU activities inCanada.

He is owner and CEO of Automobiles Silver Start Groupof automobile dealerships in Montreal. His community lead-ership roles include serving as vice chairman of the JewishGeneral Hospital in Montreal, vice president of ShaarHashomayim Synagogue in Westmount, and as a member ofthe presidium of Kollel Torah Metzion. He is a member of theboard of directors of Mount Sinai Hospital.

Alumni Enhance AGS OfferingsDavid J. Schnall, PhD, YH,’69Y,R completed his first year asdean of Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education andAdministration by announcing new courses in guidance, law

and education, devel-opmental psychology,and teaching Hebrewlanguage; and a re-structured MS curricu-lum. In addition, threealumni will join theAGS faculty next se-mester: John Krug,PhD, ’74Y,F,R will of-fer “Informal JewishEducation,” and a guid-ance course; Rabbi

Peretz Hochbaum ’86Y,AG,R will teach “Didactics andEducational Methodology,” and Dr. Mel Isaacs will survey“Classroom Management.”

Growing Trend Brings Groups TogetherIn a growing trend, YU’s various alumni associations nowoften cosponsor joint events as a way to bring together alum-ni from the various schools. An alumni group formed last year,the Yeshiva Professionals Network, brings to two the numberof groups formed specifically for that purpose at the under-graduate level.

“Yeshiva Professionals Network is a joint project of theundergraduate alumni associations and was established tofoster business relationships among our alumni and to pro-vide them with networking opportunities,” said Joshua Annen-berg ’89Y, Yeshiva College Alumni Association president.“Since its inception, YPN has hosted networking cocktail par-ties in Manhattan and anticipates future programming toinclude seminars related to the various professions represent-ed in YPN as well as social activities such as a golf/tennisevent at a country club.”

A get-together, called “Night of Networking,” kicked off thisyear’s YPN agenda at Yeshiva University Museum in January.

YU GOLD, (Graduates of the Last Decade) also offers avenue for networking and socializing among alumni from thepast 10 years. Its recently-sponsored “Money 101” at theMidtown Campus focused on financial planning and thefinancial concerns of young families and of singles. The freeseminar (and dessert reception) featured Eric Cohen ’87Y,Yitzchak Solomon ’84Y, and Jonathan Glaser ’92Y,C.


YESHIVA COLLEGE—1952

Simon L. AusterIrwin DryspielIsidore FeuerMoshe GreenfieldLeon KestenbaumDov KravitzNorman MatlinBenjamin MigdalMelvin ShayJoseph SingerHarold Wiessman

YESHIVA COLLEGE—1977

Jason M. AlsterDaniel J. BeharRichard I. BernsteinDavid BraunsteinDaniel ChouekaWilliam DruckerJonathan S. EhrlichDaniel J. FeuerArthur Joseph FischerMartin H. GelberBarry T. GreeneDaniel A. GutenmacherF. Barry KaplanDavid L. KleinMoshe KoppelSholom KurzSteven M. LesserHenri E. LifshutzGary LinderKenneth G. MillerHarvey D. NitzkyTerry P. RifkinJeffrey M. SteinSamson M. Strauss

STERN COLLEGE—1962

Dorene Parsons FernsteinNaomi Lassman FlaumDena Shapiro LeiterLeah Frankel MuskowitzShifra NussbaumTova Weinberg ReichMyra Kagan SandalowGilda Goldstein Vogel

STERN COLLEGE—1977

Felecie M. AckermanEugenia Lanin Rosenthal

ChernyakhovskyNoemi S. CohnLori R. DrezenLinda J. FriedRita Golden FuchsLori F. Jetter Goldman

Lina Levit HaberNeumi HandelsmanNancy LevineChaya Marcus MillerTamar Feldman MillerYaffa S. Epstein PorotPeninah Segal RabinRuthie RapaportAnita Weinerman RothBracha E. Osofsky SchnitzerDonna S. SchorerHildy A. SchtamfSusan M. SchwartzJo D. ShapiroDeborah S. Kalb SharfmanSara Beth Goldenberg

SolonchShelly J. Abadi SpearElissa R. Kammerman UlielLee Segal WeinsteinMarianna Weiss

CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW—

1982

Chana Heffner BarronRobyn Adelman FriedmanBenjamin HellerJanet Kosman-RoseJean LomaskSharon PearlmanDorothy RobertsShira SchwartzEugene StanleyEarl Strum


1987

Jolie L. Busch-FrankScott S. CohenBarbara ConnollyKaren ErlichDavid G. GenetJoseph GreenblattEric S. HerschmanElizabeth Barrett IrwinLawrence R. KulakStephen MosesDana Green RosenstockJerome SchwartzmanRussell SchwartzmanRichard B. SolomonJeffrey Scott Steinberg


1992

Collin A. BiddleAdrian EismanLiza Torkan Elghanian

Carolyn Stacey FarkasPeter GerstelGary GrossIris KarevOri Joseph KarevJeffrey B. KlapperMark A. LeonardDaniel E. LevinstoneStaci E. MarinoGary R. MetzgerStephen Kenneth NewmanAndrea E. PollackDeena Lynn SchiffmanAdam TolchinskyLeslie A. Yudell


1997

Jessica DowlingTracy A. LewisYing L. MinakenAlan M. MindelJeffrey A. Soilson

AECOM—1962

Herbert F. FriedmanJerome GoldenbergRaymond S. KoffLeon M. Redler

AECOM—1967

Isabelle FairWilliam M. GreenSaul KatzN O OlambiwonnuStephen S. RinslerDaniel SwitkesBarry A. Zicherman

AECOM—1972

Nwachukwu A. AzikiweAnne P. DadamoJeffrey DonatPaul A. FeinRichard I. LevineStuart L. ReschWilliam A. Wittlin

AECOM—1977

Anthony Supo AkingbadeDavid J. CohenIrving EstrinArthur Elliot FischerLisa Beth GehrieElizabeth S. GoldbergRobert GouldIra HelfandHarris C. JacobsDavid J. Klein

Richard M. KreamChristina J. MirkovichSharon A. PerlmanJames F. ReyesRoy L. RosenStephen J. RothAlicia Scott-WrightErnest D. SimelaCharles E. SkomerJanet E. StrainRick StrassmanJohn L. WaciumaRobert WeingaratenDouglas J. WilkeningKaren Zavbrensky

AECOM—1982

David DaviesFred DiazGeorge FriedmanMark HelfaerRobert LambiaseRobin LederMark LeibowitzEileen LynchMichael McMillenSharon MolinasAna MonteagudoTuan Nguyen-DuyBetsy NicholasThomas A. PutnamEddie SchwartzMark SheridanBarbara SmithJay Wilson

AECOM—1987

Matthew N. BloomShari Leitsky BornsteinSusan A. CizekHelen F. ConnerPeter J. EisenbergCarol HarracksinghMiriam S. KushnerJeffrey H. LevineStephen MackeyAnthony MarantoRachel SchindlerWilliam SchwindingerSharon S. SholitanDonna Torre

AECOM—1992

Lindsey R. BadenRobin B. BerschLeon K. EisenSteven M. FeldmanRisa Fishman

Pedramine GanchieCarla B. GoldenStephen I. HsuShideh Imanian-ParsaElizabeth KabackEva KostaMichelle KoszerDov S. LinzerAbigail R. NeimanShital R. ParikhLeah PikeSusan A. SchaefferVerta I. SmithJanet Spector

AECOM—1997

Lars K. BeattieOlivia BeckmanJoshua BernheimNatalie ChangDaniel ChechikHong Keun ChoiEli E. Shimeon CohenSeth A. CrossonCraig M. FarmerMichelle GerreroNoemi GonzalezLaura GrippaMichael A. GrishaverJack GuidaJohn F. HeitnerMichael KesslerLaura Elizabeth Fleissner

KramerChristopher KwonNina Epstein LebowitzKeith A. LerroMarc D. MichaelsonGabriel NussbaumJennifer PetrilloAnne Marie RoeAviva B. ScheinDaniel SmucklerRobert G. StarrGonzalo H. VerdugoSusan S. WongAri Zaiman

Lost Reunion-Year AlumniWe’ve lost track of the following alumni from YC, SCW, CSL, and AECOM whose classes celebrated reunions this

spring. If anyone knows the whereabouts of these graduates, please contact the Office of University Alumni Affairs.

Alumni BriefsNew this year: a way for parents of undergraduates to con-tribute to scholarships for needy students or to help improvethe quality of life on campus for their children. The ParentsFund, separate campaigns for YC, SCW, and SSSB, representsthe first time the Office of University Alumni Affairs hassolicited parents of current students to help support under-graduate education.

Parent donors from each school sent letters to peer parentsthis spring, asking that they also participate in the effort tokeep YU competitive with the best colleges and universities inthe country. Contributions to the Fund will be earmarked forscholarships, library services, and technology (wiring of dormsand classrooms). For information, YC parents please callAbraham Mann ’59Y at 212-960-0852; SCW parents call JoanApple at 212-340-7862; SSSB parents call Susan Meyers ’92Sat 212-960-0885.

Speaking of fund drives, the participation rate of alumni, notgift size, is a key factor in computing schools’ national ranking.All alumni who made pledges should remember to send intheir contributions as soon as possible. A postage-paid remit-tance envelope is enclosed in this magazine. Your donation canhelp us to improve our ranking in this category.

The Office of University Alumni Affairs has moved to thedevelopment department on the seventh floor of Belfer Hall(room 723), Wilf Campus. It can be reached by phone at

(212) 960-5373; by fax at (212) 960-5336; or by email [email protected].

Commencement 2002The Honorable Limor Livnat, Israel Minister of Education,delivered the keynote address and received an honorarydegree from President Norman Lamm ’49Y,B,R at YU’s 71stAnnual Commencement Exercises on May 23.

Also receiving honorary degrees were: Mr. Arthur Cohn,renowned film producer and winner of six Academy Awards;Dr. Bernadine Healy, physician and former president andCEO of the American Red Cross; Mr. Malcolm Hoenlein,executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents ofMajor Jewish Organizations; and Mr. Michael Jesselson, phi-lanthropist, communal leader, and YU trustee.

More than 2,000 Yeshiva University students receiveddegrees and diplomas this spring. Kudos to valedictoriansHoorbod Delshadfar, James Striar School of General JewishStudies; Jonathan Meisels, Isaac Breuer College of HebraicStudies; David Nachbar, Yeshiva Program/ Mazer School ofTalmudic Studies; Adam Rapp, Irving I. Stone Beit MidrashProgram; Danielle Harris, Sy Syms School of Business(Women); Yoel Samuel, Sy Syms School of Business (Men);Rachelle Weinstein, Stern College for Women/ Rebecca IvryDepartment of Jewish Studies; Shoshana Frankel Posy andSarit Zauderer, Stern College for Women/General Studies;and Michael (Avi) Helfand, Yeshiva College.

alumni

Dateline: IsraelRabbi Chanoch Yeres (YH,’76Y,W,R) is educational coordinatorof the Yeshiva University Israel Alumni’s (YUIA) Jewish Heri-tage Program for the Hearing-Impaired. A psychologist, hehas been helping hearing-impaired residents of the some-times besieged Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, which faces theArab village of Beit Jala, cope with the emotional stress of liv-ing through trying times.

Supported by allocations from the Jewish Agency forIsrael, the program provides essential practical and psycho-logical support, including installation of special flashing lightsthat warn of gunfire in the homes of hearing-impaired resi-dents of Gilo, vibrating beepers that display text messageswith instructions on what to do in an emergency, and video

telephones that enable the hearing impaired to “see” the per-son calling and communicate in sign language.

“The deaf person sees people in states of hysteria or run-ning in the streets and he or she doesn’t know what is goingon, doesn’t know where family members are and has no wayto contact anyone. We provide them with the tools to get vitalinformation in real time,” Rabbi Yeres said.

In addition, YUIA sponsored a two-part family workshop ondealing with stress for the hearing impaired. Rabbi Yeres ledit, offering advice on how to cope with emotional stress aswell as practical solutions to dealing with danger.

“Our support helped these families overcome their fearsand learn to go about their normal lives…. Our programs lit-erally are lifesavers for the deaf and hearing impaired,” hesaid. ■

Contemporary Halakhic

Problems—Volume I

J. David Bleich ’99R, Herbert

and Florence Tenzer Professor

of Jewish Law and Ethics, CSL

The Right and the Good—

Halakhah and Human Relations

Daniel Z. Feldman ’96Y,R

Consciousness, Information and

Meaning—The Origin of the Mind

Stephen Goldberg YH,’63Y,A

The Copyright Permission and

Libel Handbook

Lloyd J. Jassin ’91CSL and

Steven C. Schechter ’91CSL

Memorable Encounters

Joseph Kaminetsky YH,’32Y,R

(deceased)

Faith and Doubt

Norman Lamm ’49Y,B,R,

president, YU

Special Educator’s—109

Diagnostic Tests

Roger Pierangelo, ’80F; and

George Giuliani

The Gates of November—

Chronicles of the Slepak Family

Chaim Potok YH,’50Y

Medicine In The Bible and

The Talmud

Fred Rosner YH,’55Y,A

Mandate Days—British Lives

in Palestine

A.J. Sherman ’87W

Helping the Stork—The Choices

and Challenges of Donor

Insemination

Carol Frost Vercollone; Heidi

Moss ’94W; and Robert Moss

The Response of Orthodox Jewry

in the United States to

the Holocaust

Efraim Zuroff YH,’70Y

alumni

Attention AuthorsWe’re looking to add to our collection of books by alumni. If you

would like us to display your tome in the Alumni Authors Library,

please send a copy to the Office of University Alumni Affairs, Yeshiva

University, 500 West 185th Street, BH723, New York, NY 10033-3201.

Some of the books alumni authors have sent us include:

S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 • Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W

bookshelf


The Rebbe, the Messiah,

and the Scandal of

Orthodox Indifference

by David Berger ’64Y,R, visiting professor of Jewish historyLittman Library of JewishCivilization, Oxford, UKA carefully researched inves-tigation by scholar and lec-turer Dr. Berger into themessianic view held by somein the Lubavitch movement.

In the Beginning: How to

Survive Your Engagement and

Build a Great Marriage

by Rosie Einhorn ’79W andSherry S. Zimmerman ’74STargum PressJerusalem, IsraelA psychotherapist and fami-ly lawyer combine humor,wit, and decades of profes-sional experience in anearnest look at the issuesfaced by newly engaged andmarried couples.

Seventy Faces: Articles of Faith

by Norman Lamm ’49Y,B,R,YU presidentKTAV, Publishing House, Inc.Hoboken, NJThis two-volume compendi-um includes 60 of Dr.Lamm’s most important“popular” articles, some ofwhich were first delivered aslectures in various forums.The first volume includeschapters on Modern Ortho-doxy, faith, community,morality and the family, andeducation. The second volume examines themes in-cluding Halakhah, holidays,the rabbinate, Israel andZionism, and the Holocaust.

The Kaddish Minyan:

The Impact on Ten Lives

edited and with an introduction by Herbert A.Yoskowitz YH’59Eakin Press, Austin, TXAn expanded, edited off-shoot of an adult educationclass offered by RabbiYoskowitz, this book contains narratives of 10individuals, whose healingexperiences through theobservance of Kaddish offerguidance to others inmourning.

The Jewish Way in Death

and Mourning

(Revised and Expanded Edition)

by Maurice Lamm ’51Y,B,R,Rabbi Maurice LammProfessor of ProfessionalRabbinicsJonathan David Publishers,Inc., New York, NYThe classic work for mourn-ers seeking religious direc-tion and consolation isnewly expanded and revised,with additional chaptersgeared towards Jews of the21st century. New issuesexplore organ donation,autopsy, a woman’s right tosay Kaddish, and permissi-bility of converts to Judaismto mourn their non Jewishparents.

Shadows of Sin

by Rochelle Krich ’69SWilliam Morrow,HarperCollins Publishers Inc.New York, NYThe popular crime fictionauthor takes readers on asuspense-filled adventurefeaturing homicide detectiveJessie Drake in her latestnovel, which has beennamed a Los Angeles TimesBestseller.

Halakhic Correspondence of

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

edited by Haym Soloveitchik’62R, BRGS Merkin FamilyProfessor of Jewish Historyand LiteratureNew York, NYDr. Soloveitchik has pub-lished a double-columnedfolio volume of some 325pages. He and two associ-ates worked eight years on the project. The book appeared in late August2001 and is in its secondprinting.

Chasidic Perspectives:

A Festival Anthology

translated and adapted byAlter B. Metzger ’54Y,R, professor of Judaic studiesKehot Publication SocietyBrooklyn, New YorkA selection of essays fromthe Lubavitcher Rebbe’ssichot (discourses) givesfresh insight into the Jewishholidays, weaving togethercenturies of traditionalJewish scholarship and cha-

Recordings

Amsterdam Ave.

produced bySteven I. WeissNew York, NY

A compilation album ofmusic by YU bands, thisalbum features the manysounds of Yeshiva University,from Chicago blues stylingsand Carlebach-inspiredtunes to Eastern Europeanklezmer and rock and roll.

Tsimbl un Fidl:

Klezmer Music for Hammered

Dulcimer and Violin

by Elie Rosenblatt ’02Y andPete RushefskyStudio Fast ForwardMontreal, Quebec, CanadaAccomplished violinist andfriend recreate the music ofold-world folk klezmer,resulting in a sound that isflawlessly orchestrated andemotionally powerful.

sidic spirituality in an easy-to-read collection that willappeal to all Jews.

By the Sweat of Your Brow

by David J. SchnallYH,’69Y,R, AGS deanMichael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University PressNew York, NYThe author explores thenature and value of work inclassical Jewish literature,arguing the inherent dignityof labor and need for work-ers’ rights and non work-related pursuits. Dr. Schnallunderscores the dignity of

labor as an integral compo-nent of God’s grand balance,but contrasts the way Jewsvalue work with other reli-gious and secular ethicalsystems.

The Book of Jewish Values:

A Day-By-Day Guide to

Ethical Living

by Joseph Telushkin ’70Y,B,RBell Tower, Crown/Random HouseNew York, NYA simple day-by-day manualfilled with easily accessibleteachings from the Bible,Talmud, and other Jewishwritings, the noted rabbi and

lecturer offers clear, concisewisdom for living an ethicaland honest life in a morallycomplicated world.

Exploring Jewish Tradition

by Abraham B. Witty YH,’69I,B,R and Rachel J. Witty ’65SDouble Day, Random House, Inc.New York, NYA step-by-step guide toJewish tradition and cus-toms. This in-depth reviewof Judaism offers basicinstructions for observingtraditions, accompanied byillustrations and translitera-tions of Hebrew vocabulary.

Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W • S U M M E R 2 0 0 2

Mima’amakim: Creative Expression

on the Jewish Religious Experience,

Volume II

Sponsored by SOY and theYeshiva College Dean’s OfficeA collection of short stories,poetry, artwork, and photographyexploring the many expressionsof Jewish religious life, withcontributions by YU undergradu-ates and alumni.

Ten Da’at: A Journal of Jewish

Education, Vol. XIV

edited by Moshe Sokolow,YH,’71Y,B, professor of Jewisheducation, AGS

Articles in this journal dedicatedto improving education in yeshiva day schools and highschools include discussions ofcurriculum development, religious education in Israel, and understanding Islam.

The Torah U-Madda Journal 2001:

Vol. 10

edited by David ShatzYH,’69Y,B,R, professor of philosophyThis annual journal devoted tothe interaction between Judaismand general culture deals withsuch diverse topics as themedieval approach to TorahUmadda; studying Gandhi atYeshiva College; and noncom-pete agreements in Americanlaw, economic theory, andHalakhah.

Letters to a Young Lawyer

Basic Books, Perseus Books GroupNew York, NYInaugurating a new series called the Art of Mentoring, this book offers advice andreflections on practicing law and legalethics from one of the most high-profilelawyers in America.

Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent Age

Little, Brown and CompanyNew York, NYThe provocative attorney and legal scholarasserts that human injustice, not humannature, has established the parameters of justice and rights today—in a collectionof articles ranging from topics such aseuthanasia to organ donation, from freespeech to the Holocaust. Beginning withan examination of the Bill of Rights,

Professor Dershowitz examines some of themost hotly contested civil liberties issues ofthe day, often bringing in first-hand knowl-edge of the cases.

Supreme Injustice:

How the High Court Hijacked Election 2000

Oxford University PressNew York, NYA forcefully argued, yet controversial analysis of the Supreme Court’s ruling onthe Bush vs. Gore 2000 presidential election concludes that partisan politicsoutstripped the desire to uphold funda-mental legal principles in the case.Dershowitz uncovers key inconsistencies inthe majority ruling, and questions whetherthe Court has damaged its ability to decidenational issues, and damaged the politicalsystem as well.

By Alan M.Dershowitz YH’55:

YU Publications

classnotes

YESHIVA COLLEGE STERN COLLEGE FOR WOMEN SY SYMS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE

Yeshiva University Review

welcomes Classnotes submis-

sions that are typewritten or

neatly printed. Relevant infor-

mation (name, maiden name,

school, year of graduation, and

a contact phone number) must

be included. The magazine is

not responsible for incomplete

or incorrect information.

Graduates of CSL, WSSW, FGS,

and AECOM may also direct

notes to those schools’ alumni

publications. In addition to

professional achievements,

YUR Classnotes may contain

alumni family news, including

information on births, mar-

riages, condolences, and

bar/bat mitzvahs. Engagement

announcements are not accept-

ed. We reserve the right to

edit submitted items. We

cannot be responsible for time-

sensitive submissions that

expire before publication.

Items sent for the next edition

of Yeshiva University Review

will be included as received

and as space permits.

Photographs are encouraged.

’30sRabbi Judah Washer ’32Y,R andchildren Sid Washer andHadassah Wang established ascholarship at Stern College forWomen in memory of their be-loved wife and mother, RabbanitHelyne Washer. The scholarshipis awarded by SCW to an out-standing senior student or gradu-ate who has shown excellenceand promise in communal oreducational studies and interest.

■ ’30s Mazal tov

Rabbi Nathan Taragin ’36Y,R andhis wife Beatrice on the marriageof granddaughter Shana RuthCappell to Adam Michael Bensley’99Y; and on the birth of greatgrandson Jonathan Yitzchak toDrs. Yosef and Selena Snow.

’40sMyron L. Reis ’43Y,F conducted12 two-hour sessions on theBook of Genesis approachedfrom literary and historical perspectives. The course waspresented under the auspices ofthe United Federation ofTeachers and was open to UFTretirees and their guests.

Rabbi Jacob M. Sable ’48Y,W,B,Rreports that his son David waselected president of the RiverdaleJewish Center, the synagoguethat Rabbi Sable founded in theearly 1950s. He believes it is thefirst time the son of a synagogue’sfounding rabbi was named president of that synagogue.

Dr. Alvin I. Schiff, ’47Y,F, Irving I.Stone Distinguished Professor ofEducation, AGS, was evaluator ofa summer (’01) program fortraining Hebrew language teach-ers at the Hebrew University inJerusalem. The program was co-sponsored by the University’s

Rothberg School, the Departmentof Jewish Zionist Education of theJewish Agency for Israel, and theNational Center for the HebrewLanguage of which Dr. Schiff ispresident. Also, he was a panelistin the Scholar’s Symposium con-vened by the Claims Conference(Conference on Jewish MaterialClaims Against Germany) inJerusalem. The purpose of thesymposium was to determineJewish communal priorities forthe distribution of Claims Confer-ence funds.


Israel Ribner YH,’43Y and wifeRosalyn on the birth of a greatgranddaughter, Maor. He isretired and lives in Be’er Sheva.

’50sDr. Charles Bahn YH,’50Y,R, aforensic psychologist, was hon-ored at a journal luncheon, WestSide Jewish Center.

Rabbi Robert S. Hirt YH,’59Y,B,R,assistant to the president, RIETS,spoke at the General Assembly ofUnited Jewish Communities inNovember on “Visions of Juda-ism in the 21st/58th Century—Where are we headed?” Also, hewas appointed vice chairman ofthe Continental Council for DaySchool Education, beinglaunched by UJC and JESNA.

Dr. Norman Linzer YH,’55Y,W,R,Samuel J. and Jean SableProfessor of Jewish Family SocialWork, WSSW, presented a paperon “An Ethical Dilemma in HomeCare” at the 17th Congress ofthe International Association ofGerontology, Vancouver, Canada.

Rabbi Simeon Schreiber ’58Y,B,R,Hackensack University MedicalCenter (NJ) chaplain, participat-ed in a symposium, “Religious

and Spiritual Issues at the End ofLife.” Sponsored by the Univer-sity of California-San FranciscoDepartment of Medical Ethics,the two-day panel discussionfocused on end-of-life issues anddoctors’ responses to them. Also,he is author of a pamphlet, “TheShiva Call—a Guide to Comfortthe Visitor and the Mourner.”


Rabbi Leon Aronsky ’59Y,R on themarriage of daughter RonnitMiriam to Nick Vasserman. Thecouple lives in NYC where she isa project director at Merrill Lynchand he is director of UBSWarburg Paine Webber.

Irene Sara (Kahana) ’86W andIsaiah Hertzberg ’50Y,R on thebat mitzvah of granddaughterYehudit Davida, daughter ofHadar and Dr. Harris Bram; andon the bar mitzvah of grandsonAharon Yaakov, son of Adenaand Dr. Abbe Mendlowitz.

Dr. Norman Linzer YH,’55Y,W,R,Samuel J. and Jean SableProfessor of Jewish Family SocialWork, WSSW, and wife Diane onthe bat mitzvah of granddaughterAderet Sarah, daughter of Mosheand Rebecca Linzer, in Israel.

Micha F. Oppenheim YH,’58Y,Fand wife Doris on the marriagesof their daughters Penina to AviFreud and Nechama to YosiEdelstein.

Michal (Linzer) Rosenberg ’98Sand husband Jay on the birth ofYehuda Aryeh. Mazal tov also tograndparents Dr. Norman Linzerand wife Diane.

Joyce Weitz ’59S and AaronWeitz ’51Y on the birth of grand-daughter Jillian Amanda toJonathan and Jennifer Weitz.


’60sRichard Drucker ’64Y is presi-dent, Kings Bay YM-YWHA,Brooklyn. He was honored byUJA-Federation for his volunteerservice.

Cantor Sherwood Goffin ’63Y,CTI,coordinator of outreach pro-grams, BSJM, lectured at YoungIsrael of Holliswood on “TheMusic of Duchenen.” He lec-tured at Young Israel ofWoodmere on “The MissinaiTunes—The Sacred Melodies ofthe Yomim Noroim.”

Dr. Stanford M. Goldman ’61Y,A ispresident-elect, Houston Radio-logical Society; first vice presi-dent/president-elect, AmericanSociety of Emergency Radiology;second vice president in succes-

sion, Texas Radiological Associa-tion; and nominating committeecochairman, American College of Radiology.

Aileen (Brenner) Konovitch YH’64was honored by Israel Bonds asteacher of the year in Miami. Sheteaches European and Americanhistory at Hillel Day SchoolSenior High.

Eva V. Lewis ’66S is a retiredNYC public school teacher, hus-band Bernard is a retired dentist.They have three children and fivegrandchildren. Since retiring, sheis a docent at the Museum ofJewish Heritage and YeshivaUniversity Museum.

Prof. Edith (Slomowitz) Lubetski’68B, SCW head librarian,presided over a session on the

Pentateuch at the Society ofBiblical Literature 2001International Meeting in Rome,last summer.

Morton J. Merowitz ’60Y authored“Between the Yeshiva World andModern Orthodoxy: The Life andWorks of Rabbi Jehiel JacobWeinberg, 1884–1966,” a reviewof a book by Marc B. Shapiro. It appeared in Shofar: Inter-disciplinary Journal of JewishStudies, summer 2001.

Rabbi Bernhard H. Rosenberg’69Y,F,AG,R received the Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. HumanRights Award from the Townshipof Edison, NJ.

Ivan Michael Schaeffer ’68Y ispresident, Jewish TelegraphicAgency—The Global News Ser-vice of the Jewish People. He isretired as president and CEO ofRadius, a global travel company.


Judith (Turk) ’68S and GaryRosenblatt ’68Y on the marriageof son Avi to Daniela Simone Gil.

’70sDr. Alan (Vinnie) Bresalier ’79Yopened an office for the practiceof periodontics and implant den-tistry in Weston, FL. He and hiswife Brenda have three children.

Rabbi Stuart Grant ’70Y,F,B,R isprincipal of Judaic studies, NorthShore Hebrew Academy HighSchool, Great Neck, NY.

Rabbi David Greenstein YH,’72Y,Bis acting president, Academy forJewish Religion, a nondenomina-tional rabbinic and cantorialseminary with campuses in NYCand LA.

Ira L. Herman YH,’79Y has joinedthe NYC law firm of RobinsonSilverman Pearce Aronsohn &

Berman LLP as a partner in thebankruptcy and creditors’ rightspractice group.

Lt. Col. Alan M. KalinskyYH,’73Y,F,R retired as chaplain,US Air Force Reserves, inNovember.

Dr. Eric Levine ’79W,’94W, WSSWadjunct associate professor, wasappointed assistant vice presi-dent for Campaign/FinancialResource Development, UnitedJewish Communities. He is coed-itor, Social Work Forum.

Ruth (Frank) YH,’73S,F andCharles Lipshitz YH,’71Y,F,R livein Efrat, Israel. Son Eli finishedactive duty in the Golani Brigadeand continues his learning in theYeshivat Hesder of Otniel.Daughter Batya is studying law atBar-Ilan University; Elana isdoing her two years of nationalservice at the Talpiot YouthVillage in Hadera; and Leora is astudent at the Horev High Schoolfor Girls, Jerusalem.

Minda Figlin Mafouda ’78Sreceived the Bureau of JewishEducation Lainer DistinguishedEducators Award in LA.

Dr. Idel I. Moisa ’79Y,A codirect-ed a conference, “Disorders ofthe Thyroid Gland: An Update”at North Shore University Hospitalat Glen Cove (NY). During thesymposium, he served as moder-ator of the surgical managementdiscussions and lectured on“Thyroid Nodules: Factors thatSuggest Malignancy.”

Yoni Mozeson ’77Y,R is principalof Mozeson & Malinowski, asmall independent advertisingagency in Teaneck, NJ, whichwon a national logo contest spon-sored by American Association ofPoison Control Centers, Inc., anddeveloped a national advertisingcampaign to raise awareness of

BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW WURZWEILER SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK FERKAUF GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY


Mazal tov to Naomi Shubowitz ’69S on her marriage to Israel Libersohn,in Israel. Their wedding was a virtual SCW mini-reunion, as friends andformer classmates gathered to celebrate the momentous occasion—a first-marriage for both chatan (bridegroom) and callah (bride).Standing from left: Brondi (Katz) Levine ’70; Arlene Osband Habshush;Judy (Feigenbaum) Binstock ’69; Rebekah (Schottenstein) Epstein ’69;Karen (Cookie) (Kaiser) Klavan ’70; Dory (Saslow) Weinberger ’68; andToni (Feltsher) Chernofsky ’70. Seated from left: Dvorah (Abrams) Gasner’69; Naomi (Shubowitz) Libersohn ’69; and Mrs. Esther Zuroff, formerdirector of student services at the Midtown Campus.

Y BERNARD REVEL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JEWISH STUDIES AZRIELE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JEWISH EDUCATION & ADMINISTRATION

oral cancer. One billboard elicit-ed an email to Mozeson from awoman in Manhattan, who wroteto say the poster made her sontake a lesion he had on hismouth more seriously. He had itexamined and it was diagnosedas being cancerous. Luckily, itwas at a stage where it was treat-able with surgery.

Catherine P. Papell ’77W is pro-fessor emerita, Adelphi UniversitySchool of Social Work. After retiring, she worked as a familyconsultant, NCMC Alcohol OutPatient Unit. She retired fromthere in Sept. 2000 at the age of 83.

Nava Rephun YH,’76W is a psy-chotherapist in private practiceworking with couples and individ-uals. She spoke on “Why YourSpouse Is Your Perfect Match,”Young Israel of Plainview, NY,and Cong. Beth Aaron, Teaneck,NJ. Also, she presented work-shops on “An Introduction toImago Relationship Therapy” atthe Annual Nefesh Conference,Baltimore, and at the NefeshInternational Conference,Jerusalem. She is a certifiedImago Relationship therapist.

Benjamin Weinstock YH,’75Y, apartner at Ruskin, Moscou, &Faltischek, P.C. and chair of its

real estatedepartment, wasnamed to the NYState Board ofReal Estate byGovernor GeorgePataki. He is oneof 13 real estate

experts to serve on the board,which promulgates the rules andregulations for the real estatebrokerage industry in NY State. It also advises the Governor onmatters of real estate.

Lawrence (Eliezer) Wise YH,’71Yis library director, TuttlemanLibrary of Gratz College, MelrosePark PA. He has been a profes-sional librarian since 1976 whenhe received a degree in the discipline from Pratt Institute.


Dr. Meryl Altabet ’76S,BG andhusband Bob on the bar mitzvahof son Michael Fried.

Leslie (Hecht) Kallus ’79W on thebar mitzvah of son Richard.Leslie is assistant director, YMHAof Clifton, NJ.

’80sAlice Berliner ’81W has spentmore than 17 years working inthe public mental health field.Living in Australia, for over 10years she has been a seniorsocial worker, supervisor, casemanager, and program and policy developer.

Marci (Mayer) Eisen ’81W waspromoted to director, HeleneMirowitz Department of JewishCommunity Life, St. Louis JewishCommunity Center, where sheworked for more than 20 years.She has three children, ages 9,12, and 14.

Laura B. (Kamil) Hall ’80W pre-sented a workshop, “Meditationas an Individual Tool and anAdjunct to Psychotherapy,” at the North Carolina NASW FallConference in November.

Rabbi Howard JachterYH,’86Y,B,R is spiritual leader,Congregation Shaarei Orah, theSephardic congregation ofTeaneck, NJ.

Dr. Linda Leest ’84W,’95W was anhonoree at the 10th AnnualSocial Workers Awards Receptionand was recognized as Social

Worker of the Year in Queens byClaire Shulman, borough presi-dent. Linda has been executivedirector of Services Now for AdultPersons for 15 years.

Stephanie Lucas ’87W is directorof social work for three hospitalsin the Salt Lake Valley that arepart of the Intermountain HealthCare System.

Felice (Schulman) ’96W andRandolph Owen Marcus ’82Whave three teenage sons andrecently celebrated their 25thwedding anniversary. She doescustody evaluations for Nassauand Queens County (NY); he isdirector of the Adult Day HealthCare Program for Frail Elderly,Jewish Home and Hospital.

Joan K. Parry ’83W is the authorof Social Work Theory andPractice with the Terminally Ill,in its second printing.

Sharna (Prottas) Rosenzweig ’85Sand husband Richard, an attor-ney, were honored by Agudath

Israel-Bais Eliezer of StatenIsland at its annual dinner inMarch ’01. Rabbi Manfred FuldaYH,’52Y,B,R, professor of Talmudand chairman, YC Jewish stud-ies, was guest speaker.

Mark Ross’82C has beenselected byMarquis’ Who’sWho in Ameri-can Law forinclusion in its12th edition

(2002). He was previously pro-filed in the 6th edition as well asin Who’s Who in America andWho’s Who in the East. An attor-ney in private practice in Union,NJ, he is also a co-owner ofMenorah Chapels, an independ-ent Jewish funeral home, wherehe serves as its senior directorand secretary/treasurer. He is theauthor of “Through My Father’sEyes,” a weekly column thatappears in several Anglo-JewishNJ newspapers.


The following alumni participated in the 33rdannual Association for Jewish Studies confer-ence, held in Washington, DC last December:David Berger ’64Y,R, Visiting Professor ofJewish History; Shani L. Berrin ’88S,B, instruc-tor of biblical Hebrew and Apocrypha; JeromeA. Chanes YH,’64Y,W; Mordechai Z. Cohen’87Y,B,R, associate professor of Bible; EphraimKanarfogel YH,’77Y,B,R, E. Billi Ivry Professorof Jewish History; Michelle J. Levine ’87B,assistant professor of Bible; and HaymSoloveitchik ’62R, Merkin Family Professor ofJewish History and Literature. YU faculty whoattended included Yaakov Elman; Louis H.Feldman, Abraham Wouk Family Professor ofClassics and Literature; Naomi Grunhaus,instructor in Bible; Jeffrey S. Gurock, Libby M.Klaperman Professor of Jewish History; ArthurHyman, BRGS dean; and Joshua Zimmerman,Eli and Diana Zborowski Professor ofInterdisciplinary Holocaust Studies.

Michael Wildes ’89C representedVeronica Hearst, the Dutch-bornwidow of the late media billion-aire Randolph Hearst, as shewent through the process ofbecoming an American citizen.He is an immigration attorney inEnglewood, NJ.


Moshe Adler ’84Y and wife Avivaon the birth of son AvrohomYonah. Mazal tov also to grand-parents Debby (Riback) YH’55

and Mel Adler YH,’57Y, andHeschel and Adinah Raskas; and to great grandmothers Tille Adler, Erna Waltuch, and Annette Raskas.

Anna Riva Charlop YH,’83S,C onher marriage to Stephen DovPrager. Mazal tov also to fathersRabbi Zevulun Charlop YH,’51Y,R,RIETS Max and Marion GrillDean, and Dr. Manfred Prager.

Jonathan Hartstein YH’84 andwife Carol on the birth of second

son Jonah Gabriel. Mazal tov alsoto grandparents Sam Hartstein’43Y, YU consultant on specialprojects, and wife Rachel.

Dr. Gila (Hartstein) ’85S,F andJonathan Heimowitz YH’82 on thebirth of third son David Shimshon.Mazal tov also to grandparentsSam Hartstein ’43Y, YU consult-ant on special projects, and wifeRachel, and Denise ’54T andAaron Heimowitz YH,’54Y.

Dr. Deborah (Gross) ’87S,A andDr. Dov Linzer ’88Y,A on the birthof Avraham Abish. Mazal tov alsoto grandparents Dr. NormanLinzer YH,’55Y,W,R, Samuel J.and Jean Sable Professor ofJewish Family Social Work,WSSW, and wife Diane.

Judy (Witty) ’82S,W and RabbiYaakov Lustig ’82Y,R on the birthof daughter Menucha Adina.Mazal tov also to grandparentsRabbi Irwin E. Witty ’53Y,R andwife Shulamith (Poupko), amember of SCW’s first class.

Robyn (Weitz) YH’87 and JeffreySocol YH,’85Y, senior associatedirector, Facilities Management,on the birth of third childYitzchak Israel. Mazal tov also tograndparents Ginger (Prager)’59S and Dr. Sheldon SocolYH,’58Y, YU vice president forbusiness affairs.

Steven Socol YH,’86Y and wifeLeslie on the birth of JordanAndrew. Mazal tov also to grand-parents Ginger (Prager) ’59S andDr. Sheldon Socol YH,’58Y, YUvice president for business affairs.

Chani Israel Tabak ’88W andhusband Steven on the birth ofseventh daughter Martina Ariella;and on the bat mitzvah of daugh-ter Toby Esther. Chani is assis-tant executive director, Bayonne(NJ) JCC.

Laya Ita (Glazer) ’89S and RabbiAvraham Aryaih Witty ’87Y on thebirth of daughter Chaya Kinneret.Mazal tov also to grandparentsRabbi Irwin E. Witty ’53Y,R andwife Shulamith (Poupko).

Lawrence Zierler ’82Y,R on thebar mitzvah of son Yoni.Lawrence was chosen as aninaugural fellow for the newlycreated Center for RabbinicEnrichment, Shalom HartmanInstitute, Jerusalem.

’90sBenjamin Balint ’98Y is assistanteditor at Commentary, the prestigious Jewish intellectualmagazine.

Tania Gelbard Cohen ’93SB isassistant controller at the JewishAgency for Israel. Her area ofresponsibility is Anglo communi-ties in the Diaspora.

Chuck Edler ’97W is a treatmentteam leader at the long-termtreatment facility for the VA inHot Springs, SD.

Suzanne Engel ’93W has beenworking on a volunteer basis aspart of the mental health team at Pier 94 assisting individuals to deal with the World TradeCenter tragedy.

Ivan Godfrey ’98W is a forensicsocial worker at a state psychi-atric facility in NY and begins aPhD in clinical psychology pro-gram at Walden University,Bonita Springs, FL.

Sharona (Margolin) Halickman’95S,AG, was installed as reli-gious mentor (madricha ruchan-it) at the Hebrew Institute ofRiverdale, NYC.

Aviva Klein ’98S was recipient ofa Congressional Fellowship onWomen and Public Policy in

RABBI ISAAC ELCHANAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY YESHIVA UNIVERSITY MUSEUM YESHIVA COLLEGE STERN COLLEGE FOR WOME


It’s Hard to Say Goodbye

It feels like the end of an era: Toby (Hilsenrad) Weiss YH,’65S hasstepped down as director of undergraduate alumni, a position she heldfor 12 years. Associated with the Office of University Alumni Affairssince 1981, she became its assistant director in 1983.

“Whether it was colleagues at YU seeking information about a graduate, or alumni leaders hoping to enlist a prominent name as theirgroup’s next speaker, everyone turned to Toby. She seems to knoweveryone who is anyone in the Jewish community,” said Robert Saltz-man, director of University Alumni Affairs and Toby’s boss since 1996.

“My years at YU brought me great satisfaction. I came on board aspart-time project coordinator and was able to move up the ladder. I’veworked with some wonderful people—both lay and professional,” Tobysaid. She “retired” to spend more time with her family and to devotemore attention to her duties as rebbitzin. She also plans to remaininvolved with SCAA, the alumnae association of her alma mater withwhich she has worked so closely in the past.

Toby’s departure coincides with her husband’s. Rabbi Avi Weiss’66Y,B,R was assistant professor of Judaic studies at SCW for 31 years.He resigned that position in January to pursue other interests. Tobynotes proudly that wherever they go in the world, she and Avi oftenmeet former students of his, and that many of them still have—andrefer to—the notes they took while in his class.

“We’ve developed many close and deep relationships with his stu-dents, many of them spending Shabbosim in our home, others bringingover the chassens [bridegrooms] for our approval,” Toby said.

They’ve also developed YU ties through their children, Dena Levie’87S, Elana Fischberger YH,’91S, and Dov Weiss YH,’95Y. And withAvi’s father, Rabbi Moshe Weiss ’38I,B,R at one end of the spectrum,and a new generation of grandchildren at the other, those ties may soonspan four generations.

N SY SYMS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW WURZWE

Washington, DC. She was one ofeight graduate-level scholarsaccepted into the Class of 2001.

She worked as alegislative assis-tant in the officeof Rep. AdamSchiff, and servedas a professionalstaff member withlegislative respon-

sibility for women’s health, SocialSecurity, and Medicare issues.

(Rose) Rosalie J. Russo ’95W re-ceived a DSW from the City Uni-versity of New York at the HunterCollege School of Social Work.Her dissertation was about socialworkers who work with peoplewho have mental retardation/developmental disabilities. Theresults of the dissertation werepresented at YAI’s NationalInstitute for People with Disabili-ties national conference in Mayin NYC. In addition to working atthe NY State Education Depart-ment, VESID, Dr. Russo teachesin the BA program in HumanServices at NYC Technical College.

Rebecca J. Silberstein ’90S,C is apartner at the firm of Debevoise& Plimpton. She is a member of

the InvestmentManagementPractice Groupwithin the firm’sCorporate Depart-ment. Her prac-tice focuses onleveraged buy-

outs, venture capital, privateequity, merchant banking, andother private investment.

Debra Ann Solkoff ’95W is a med-ical social worker in the LongTerm Home Health Care depart-ment of Visiting Nurse Service ofNY. She is the mother of threechildren and lives in Bayside, NY.

Rabbi Reuben Spolter ’94Y,R isspiritual leader at Young Israel ofOak Park, MI.


Michael Buchsbaum ’97SB on hismarriage to Melissa Ginsburg.

Ami Drazin ’91Y and wife Avivaon the birth of son Sam (YisraelMoshe). Mazal tov also to grand-parents Baila (Salit) Aspler ’67Sand husband Jerrold; and AvrumDrazin ’49Y and wife Ruth.

Beth S. Ettedgui ’96S on her marriage to David Badner.

Elana (Weiss) YH,’91S andMichael Fischberger YH’87 onthe birth of fifth child Noam Zev.Mazal tov also to grandparentsToby (Hilsenrad) YH,’65S andRabbi Avi Weiss ’66Y,B,R; DavidFischberger ’64Y and wifeHannah; and great grandfatherRabbi Moshe Weiss ’38I,B,R.

Mechal Weiss ’99S and ChaimHaas ’97SB on their marriage.Mazal tov also to parents Dr.Stanley Weiss YH,’71Y and wifeEvelyn; and Yanina (Leichtman)’68S and Dr. Gordon F. HaasYH’62.

Amy Love YH’92 and Ryan Hyman’98Y on their marriage. Mazal tovalso to parents Efraim Love YH’67and wife Barbara; and Mark andBeulah Hyman.

Adam Korobkin ’99W and wifeAdina on the birth of daughterTalia. He is assistant director,Long Beach, CA JewishCommunity Center.

Heidi (Wellen) ’94W and EricKuperman ’97C on the birth ofson Eliyahu Aharon. Heidi isdirector of the Men’s Division,AECOM.

Devora Cohen ’97S andMenachem Linzer ’95Y,AG,R ontheir marriage. Mazal tov also toparents Dr. Norman LinzerYH,’55Y,W,R, Samuel J. andJean Sable Professor of JewishFamily Social Work, WSSW, andwife Diane; and Shulamith(Lifshitz) YH’63, SCW librarian,and Rabbi Hershel Cohen’61Y,B,R.

Susan (Schlussel) Meyers ’92S,SSSB director development, andhusband Jeffrey on the birth ofsecond child Marilyn Rose(Miriam Shoshana). Mazal tovalso to grandparents Toby (Engel)Schlussel ’67S and husband Dr.Herschel, and Betty and JosephMeyers; and to great-grandmoth-er Adela Engle.

Lisa (Spindel) ’91S and RabbiYosef Nusbacher ’91Y,B,R on thebirth of fifth child Chana, inIsrael. Mazal tov also to grand-parents Dr. David Spindel ’62Yand wife Rachel, and Dr. NoelNusbacher ’62Y and wife Ailene.

Elissa Gross ’98S and ShimonOppenheim ’97Y on their mar-riage. Mazal tov also to parentsRachel (Eldad) Oppenheim ’66Sand husband E. Magnus.

Yardaena Osband (Glazer) ’98Sand husband David on the birthof daughter Aura Aviva Tziona.Mazal tov also to grandparentsJune Glazer, senior writer/editor,YU Communications and PublicAffairs, and husband Jeffrey; andBarbara Osband.

Michael Parker ’98Y and wifeSasha on the birth of daughterRachel Danya in LA. Mazal tovalso to grandparents Phyllis(Maza) ’69S and Charles Parker’68Y.

Tzippi (Lisa Chiger) Rosen ’93Wand husband Adam on the birthof daughter Rebecca Michelle.

Lisa Ickowics ’98S and AviRosman ’99SB, YU coordinator of student services, on their marriage.

Mitchell Schwartz YH’90 and wifeTamara on the birth of BenjaminPessach. Mazal tov also tograndparents Elaine Schwartz,FGS director of admissions, andhusband Seymour; and ZviSchwarzman.

Gila (Goldis) Snett ’94S and hus-band Gershon on the birth of sonYaakov Moshe. Mazal tov also tograndmother Arlene (Press)Goldis ’68S.

Rachel (Levin) Weinstein ’94Sand husband Joshua on the birthof fourth child Yair Shmuel.Rachel is pursuing an MSWdegree at the University ofIllinois, Chicago.

Beth (Allis) YH,’94S and VictorWittenberg YH,’93Y on the birthof second daughter Amira Tova.

’00sBenjamin J. Mantell ’00Y, CSLstudent, was appointed byManhattan Borough President C.Virginia Fields to serve as a rep-resentative on CommunityPlanning Board 12 inWashington Heights, where helives with his wife and child.Also, he is a member of theNYPD Auxiliary Police associatedwith the 34th Precinct.

Keith Zakheim ’00Y has formed apolitical consulting company withhis brother, Roger, that managesindividuals’ political portfolios.The Zakheim Group advocateson behalf of philanthropists andactivists so that their concernsbecome known to key figures inthe political world.


CondolencesRabbi Menachem Aronowsky’54Y,R on the loss of his wife Ita.

Cantor Bernard Beer YH,’65CTI,BSJM director, on the loss of hismother Anna.

Rabbi Amos Bunim ’50Y,R andMina (Bunim) Glick ’88B on theloss of their wife and motherSarah.

Gary Cohen ’70Y on the loss ofhis father Harold.

Dr. Howard Dean ’78A, Governorof the State of Vermont, on theloss of his father Howard B.

Hon. Jerome Feller ’62Y on theloss of his wife Nechama.

Debbie Gibber, YU MuseumBoard member and YU Guardianwith husband Elliot, a RIETSBoard member, on the loss ofher father Charles Goldner.

Simeon Goldstein YH’32 on theloss of his wife Naomi.

Rabbi Moshe Gorelik ’53Y,R,assistant professor of Talmud, onthe loss of his sister Ann.

Rabbi Chaim Hagler YH,’91Y,R onthe loss of his father Irving.

Alan YH’73 and David ItzkowitzYH’73 on the loss of their fatherPhil.

Jeffrey Kantowitz YH,’79Y andRobert I. Kantowitz YH,’76Y,BG,on the loss of their mother Hilda.Robert is a YC Fellow with hiswife, Robin, a former vice presi-dent of the YC Alumni Associa-tion, and cochairman of thePresident’s Circle.

Rabbi Milton Kramer ’42Y, YCAApast president, and wife Etta onthe loss of son David.

Rabbi Haskel Lookstein ’58R,B,Dr. Joseph H. LooksteinProfessor of Homiletics and

BRGS Board member, on theloss of his sister Dr. NathalieFriedman.

Joan K. Parry ’83W on the loss ofher husband John.

Dr. Jack Prince ’59Y and wifeMarilyn on the loss of their sonJay. Condolences also to ElliotPrince YH,’83Y on the loss of his brother.

Stanley Raskas ’65Y,B,R, YCBoard member who is a YUGuardian with wife Sheri, JudithHellman ’72S, and Dr. HershelRaskas on the loss of their moth-er Annette.

Rabbi Daniel Rhein ’70Y,F,R,Gusty Levin YH’69, and MichaelRhein on the loss of their brother Joey.

Sam Rosenbloom YH,’51Y on theloss of his mother Vita.

Arnold Roth ’71Y, whose 15-year-old daughter Malka was killed inthe Sbarro Jerusalem bombing.

Debra (Stitskin) Roth ’58S,W onthe loss of her mother Dorothy.

Dr. Jay Rothschild YH,’57Y on theloss of his mother Sadie.

Steven Selesny ’84Y on the lossof his father.

David Stadtmauer ’55Y on theloss of his wife Paula.

Mordechai YH,’85Y and Dr.Yitzhak Twersky ’81Y,A on theloss of their father Rabbi Jacob.

Joan Nancy (Saltz) Usdan ’68S onthe loss of her husband Irwin.Condolences also to childrenSteven YH,’92Y and Alex UsdanYH,’00Y; and to his sister, SCWBoard member HadassahBienenfeld. She and husbandMarvin are major supporters ofmany schools and projects of YU.

Marcel Wechsler YH’57 on theloss of his mother Betty.

Rabbi Benjamin YasgurYH,’74Y,B,AG,R and RabbiJordan Yasgur YH,’77Y,F,R on theloss of their mother Florence.

We MournDr. Helmut E. Adler, in June ’01.He was professor emeritus ofpsychology, YC. An authority onbird behavior and psychophysics,his wide-ranging research inter-ests were reflected in his serviceas vice chair and chair of thepsychology section of the NewYork Academy of Sciences. Hejoined the YC faculty as aninstructor in 1950, and wasnamed professor in 1964 andprofessor emeritus in 1991.

Helen Mills Alpert, in March ’01.She was a dear friend who was alongtime leader, AECOMWomen’s Division, serving asnational vice president and onthe executive board of the NYChapter. She chaired AECOM’s1970 Spirit of AchievementLuncheon.

Sharon P. Bell ’92W, in June ’01.She was an oncology social work-er. Condolences to her husband,Michael, and the entire family.

Rabbi Nahum M. Ben-Natan’57Y,B,R, in April ‘01. Director ofchaplaincy, Levindale HebrewGeriatric Center and Hospital,Baltimore, he had served as spiritual leader, Knesseth IsraelSynagogue, Birmingham, AL;Shomrei Hadath Synagogue,Poughkeepsie, NY; and YoungIsrael of Ottawa. In Baltimore, hewas associate rabbi, Beth JacobSynagogue, and served as spiri-tual leader, Upper Park HeightsCongregation. Condolences to his wife, Janet, and their fivechildren.

David Biderman YH’83, in June’01. Condolences to his wife and children.

Sarah Blaustein YH’65, in June’01. She was murdered in a ter-rorist attack in Israel. Her acts ofhessed and commitment to Israeland the Jewish people remain aninspiration. Condolences to herhusband Norman, her four children, and the entire family.

Simon Bond, in May ’01. He wasa YU Benefactor with his latewife Tekla and an honorary alum-nus. They established scholar-ships at YU graduate schoolsand RIETS in memory of Mr.Bond’s parents Cyvia and MosheBezalel Baumblat.

Rabbi Joel Corn YH,’44Y,R, inJune ’01. A retired teacher, he issurvived by his wife Juliana Corn’81F, children Yechiel andYitzchak, and their families.

Leonard Davis, in January ’01. He was a YU Benefactor with hislate wife Sophie through theLeonard and Sophie DavisFoundation. The foundation supports research laboratories at AECOM.

Marvin Fredman YH,’47Y, in May’01. He was owner, FredmanBros. Furniture Co., St. Louis.Condolences to his wife, Esther,and to his children DebbySchuman ’76S, Joel ’79Y, Michael’81Y,R, and Tamar.

Rabbi Naftali Friedman ’60R, inMarch ’01. Condolences to hiswife Mary, his daughters DinaBaker ’86S and Shira Gordon’92S, and son Dov.

Rabbi Zacharia GellmanYH,39Y,R. Condolences to hisbrother, Rabbi Nehemia Gellman’44Y,R.

Dr. Max Halpert I,’38Y,F,B, inSeptember ’01. He was a long-

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK FERKAUF GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGY BERNARD REVEL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JEWISH STUDIE


ES AZRIELI GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JEWISH EDUCATION & ADMINISTRATION RABBI ISAAC ELCHANAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY YESH

time fundraiser at YU, servingthree University presidents dur-ing his tenure. He retired in1979. Condolences to his sonsDr. Jonathan Halpert YH,’66Y,F,Macs basketball coach; andDaniel Halpert YH,’63Y.

Rabbi Irwin Haut ’55Y,R, in May’01. He was a member and sup-porter, Young Israel of Flatbush.Condolences to his wife Rivka.

Jerome R. Jakubovitz, in March’01. He was a prominent realestate developer who was amember, SCW Board of Directors,for over a decade. A YUGuardian with his wife Joan,national YUWO vice president, he established a scholarship atSCW in memory of his motherZara Jakubovitz Silver. He was amajor supporter of psychiatricresearch at AECOM.

Rabbi Leon Katz ’37Y,B,R, in May’01. He was president, RIETSAlumni, 1951–54, and honorarydegree recipient who served thePassaic and Clifton, NJ, commu-nities for over 63 years as rabbiand rabbi emeritus of Congrega-tion Adas Israel. With his wifeRhea he was a Fellow of SCW,RIETS, and YUHS. Their childrenShimon YH,’70Y (and Nancy)Katz and Avram YH,’81C (and Dr.Nadine) Katz are YU Guardians;his brother Rabbi Michael Katz’45Y,B is a rosh yeshiva atRIETS. The family establishedthe Rabbi Dr. and Mrs. Leon KatzProfessorship in Rabbinics atRIETS and scholarships at MSTA,SCW, and RIETS.

Dr. Leo Landman ’49Y,R, in July’01. He served as BRGS dean,1982–92. Also, he was dean ofundergraduate Jewish studies,1987–91, and dean of graduateJewish studies 1987–92.

Rabbi Isidore A. Lefkowitz YH’31,

in May ’01. He was a Torahscholar and founder, YeshivaRambam, Brooklyn. Condolencesto his son, Harold YH’51, whoworked in the YU accountingoffice during the 1960s.

Milton Levin, in April ’01. He wasa champion of AECOM since itsestablishment who was an hon-orary member of its Board ofOverseers after serving nearly aquarter-century as a member. YU Guardians, he and his wifeFanny were among the firstAECOM Founders and supportersof its cancer research programs.

Charlotte Lifschultz, in May ’01.She was a dear friend and gener-ous supporter of YU with herhusband Sidney.

Rabbi Emanuel L. LifschutzYH,’32R,B, in May ’01. Heserved pulpits in New York,Pennsylvania, and Ottawa beforeassuming the position of commu-nity chaplain, Jewish ChaplaincyService of the Milwaukee JewishWelfare Fund. In 1977 he be-came a chaplain at VA Hospital,Milwaukee.

Leonard Marcus, in December’01. He was a founding memberof the FGS Board of Governorsand, with his late first wife,Murial, a YU Guardian andFellow of RIETS. They estab-lished FGS’ Leonard and MurialMarcus Family Project for theStudy of the Disturbed Adoles-cent, which has supported thefellowships of hundreds of stu-dents and advanced research ina vital area. Condolences to hiswife Adele; children Peter andJohn; grandchildren; and theentire family.

Daniel Yitzchak May ’93Y,B, inNovember ’00. At YU, he was atalmid in the MYP shiur of RabbiMichael Rosensweig, Nathan


World Loses ‘a True Gadol’

Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik ’40Y,R, a revered rosh yeshiva at RIETS andone of the world’s foremost Talmudic scholars, died October 5, 2001in Chicago, where he served as dean of the Brisk Yeshiva. He was 84.Called “a true gadol” by President Lamm, he had been associatedwith Yeshiva University since the 1930s. A dynamic mentor to genera-tions of students, he taught Talmud at YU, commuting from Chicagoweekly despite suffering a debilitating stroke in 1983. He was recognized as an extraordinarily sensitive and devoted teacher by hisstudents and peers.

Last year, Rabbi Soloveichik, affectionately known as Rav Ahronby his students, was chosen by the YC Alumni Association to receivethe 44th Annual Bernard Revel Memorial Award for Religion andReligious Education for his lifelong contributions to Jewish scholarshipand education.

In 1974 a founder of Chicago’s Yeshiva of Brisk, RabbiSoloveichik was a scion of a distinguished lineage of rabbinic andcommunal leaders stretching back over 200 years. His father, RabbiMoshe Soloveitchik, and brother, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, TheRav, also taught at RIETS.

Prior to founding the Brisker yeshiva, Rabbi Soloveichik served foreight years as dean of faculty of the Hebrew Theological College inSkokie, IL. He also served on the faculties of Yeshiva Chaim Berlinand Yeshiva Tiferet Yerushalayim, both in New York City.

A native of Haslovitz, Poland, Rabbi Soloveichik was the youngestof six children. His grandfather, Rabbi Haym Soloveitchik of Brisk,Lithuania, was known as the Brisker Rav, the innovator of a new, analytical method of Talmudic study. The Yeshiva of Brisk was namedin his memory.

Prior to his arrival in America, Rabbi Soloveichik studied with therenowned Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner in Warsaw and was privileged to en-counter many of Europe’s Torah luminaries including the Hafez Haim,the Gerer Rebbe, Menachem Zember, and Shlomo Zalman Kahane.

He arrived in the United States in July 1930 from Poland, a fewmonths after his bar mitzvah, and was accepted at RIETS when hewas only 13 years old. He attended the lectures of his father and laterstudied with his brother, who was named rosh yeshiva soon afterRabbi Moshe’s death in 1941.

Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik received semikhah (ordination) in 1940,the same year he earned his bachelor of arts degree. He also earneda degree from New York University Law School. Author of many schol-arly articles and several volumes, he is well known for his scholarshipin Talmud, Jewish law, and contemporary Jewish thought.

Rabbi Soloveichik also served as spiritual leader of the MoriahSynagogue in New York City and at the Hapoel Hamizrachi CenterSynagogue in Chicago. Intimately involved in political and communalaffairs, he was an adviser to young Orthodox activists who tried toinfluence Israeli government policy in recent years. He met numeroustimes with at least four of Israel’s recent prime ministers.

Following funeral services in Chicago and at Newark Airport, burial took place in Jerusalem, attended by some 2,000. A hesped(memorial) marking shloshim (the end of 30 days of mourning) washeld Nov. 7 in Lamport Auditorium at the Wilf Campus, where 1,200gathered to remember a great scholar and leader.

Rabbi Soloveichik whose wife Ella died in August, is survived bysix children, including four sons all of whom are rabbis, almost 40grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

and Perel Schupt Professor ofTalmud. He went on to study atHarvard with Dr. Isadore Twersky’64R, then worked in computers.Condolences to his wife Debra;children Elisheva Chaya andBenjamin Moshe; his parents Dr.and Mrs. Sheldon May; and hissisters Rena May ’96S,SG andMalka May ’98S,B.

Eva Meyer, in February ’01. Shewas a YU Guardian with her husband Manfred H. They estab-lished SCW’s Eva and ManfredMeyer Course in Modern JewishProblems.

Myron A. Minskoff, in December’00. He was a distinguished

executive in the building industryand member, YU Board ofTrustees, 1963–67. He carried onthe legacy of his father SamuelMinskoff, a YU trustee, 1939–50,memorialized by YU with anundergraduate scholarship.

Rabbi Milton Richman ’40Y. Heserved as spiritual leader, TempleHesed, Scranton, PA, for 31years and then became rabbi atTemple Beth El, Winchester, VA.He taught world religion andprayer at the Lord FairfaxCommunity College. Condolencesto the entire family.

Rabbi Solomon RoodmanYH,’38Y,R, in May ’01. He led

Anshei Sfard Congregation,Louisville, KY, from 1946 throughthe mid 1980s. Also, he was oneof the Louisville Jewish DaySchool founders.

Rabbi Leonard RosenfeldYH,’37Y,R, in August ’01. He wasa distinguished educator and for-mer head of the NY Board ofJewish Education, and served inpulpits in the US. For the lastdecades he lived in Israel.Condolences to his wife Rosalie,son Ezra Rosenfeld ’77Y, anddaughter Tirzah Houminer ’67S.

David E. Rousso, in February ’01.He was a leader of the Sephardiccommunity who was a member

of the Sephardic Council ofOverseers. He and his late wifeEvelyn were Sephardic StudiesFellows and established theNissim Eliahu Rousso MemorialLadino Collection for theSephardic Reference Room,Mendel Gottesman Library.

Lewis Rudin, in September ’01. ABenefactor of the University andAECOM through the May andSamuel Rudin Family Foundationand The Louis and Rachel RudinFoundation, he provided hun-dreds of scholarships for stu-dents and support for research incancer and AIDS at Einstein, andsupported programs in Talmudic

Rabbi Israel Miller ’38Y,R, senior vice presi-dent emeritus and one of the nation’s out-standing Jewish communal leaders who

championed Jewish causes and advocated Jewish human rights, diedin March in Jerusalem at age 83. Funeral services were held in Israel.

A high-ranking administrator at YU for more than 25 years, RabbiMiller joined the University administration in 1968, was senior vicepresident of the University since 1979 and senior vice presidentemeritus since 1994. He was a member of the Board of Governors ofWSSW and of the RIETS Board of Trustees.

“Rabbi Miller’s portfolio was diverse and influential. During hislong and illustrious career, he served his people, his country, and hisfaith with distinction,” said President Norman Lamm ’49Y,B,R.“However, for most of his life, he was always devoted to his universitywhich he served with wisdom and love.”

Rabbi Miller’s association with the University spanned more than60 years. After earning his bachelor’s degree and ordination, hetaught applied rabbinics at RIETS and influenced countless students.He received a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1949.Rabbi Miller was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree fromYU in 1967.

Rabbi Miller played a singular role in modern Jewish communallife. A gentle, soft-spoken man, he was received by the last six USpresidents and negotiated with foreign governments on behalf of worldJewry. He was president of almost every major Jewish organization,

most recently serving as president since 1982 of the Conference ofJewish Material Claims Against Germany.

His tireless energies helped achieve a landmark compensationagreement for the criminal theft that was part of the barbarity of theHolocaust. He was chairman of the prestigious Conference ofPresidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the coordinatingbody of religious, secular, and Zionist groups in the United States,serving as its spokesman in matters relating to Israel and internationalaffairs in the US and abroad.

Rabbi Miller’s special interest in Soviet Jewry found expression inthe three years of his national leadership of the American JewishConference on Soviet Jewry. Earlier in his career, in 1965, he led adelegation of the Rabbinical Council of America to the Soviet Union,where he was accorded the privilege of speaking from the pulpit inMoscow. This resulted in a front-page story and his being designated“Man in the News” in The New York Times in which he was dubbed“Down-to-Earth Rabbi.”

A native of Baltimore, MD, for more than 25 years Rabbi Millerprovided insightful and compassionate guidance as spiritual leader ofKingsbridge Jewish Center in the Bronx, NY.

Rabbi Miller is survived by his wife, Ruth, and four children,Rabbi David (and Miriam) Miller YH,’68Y,B,R, associate director ofRIETS’ Caroline and Joseph Gruss Institute in Jerusalem; RabbiMichael (and Phyllis) Miller YH,’71Y,B,R, executive vice-president ofthe Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New York;Deborah (and Norman YH’68) Kram of Brookline, MA, director ofMaayan, a Jewish Women’s Study Institute; Judith (and Jay ’79Y,C)Kalish YH,’80S of Jerusalem, an administrator at Hebrew University;19 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and his brother Davidand sister Dorothy who reside in Netanya, Israel.

RABBI ISAAC ELCHANAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY YESHIVA UNIVERSITY MUSEUM YESHIVA COLLEGE STERN COLLEGE FOR WOMEN

Rabbi Israel Miller, a Championof Jewish Causes


studies at RIETS. Condolences tohis wife Rachel, brother Jack,and to the entire family.

Dr. Joseph Safran, in January ’01.Professor emeritus of Jewisheducation at FGS, he joined thefaculty of TI in 1958 and taughtat the undergraduate and gradu-ate levels for some 20 years. Hewas former chief rabbi of YassiRoumania; former member of TelAviv’s chief rabbinate; and authorof a three-volume work on Jewisheducation published by MosadHaRav Kook. Condolences to hischildren, Rabbi Bezalel ’68Y,B,R,Rabbi Eliyahu ’69Y,F,R, andMiriam Nussbaum ’60S.

Irving S. Shapiro ’31IBC, inSeptember ’01. He was a formerchairman of the DuPontCompany who evolved into cor-porate America’s lead liaison toWashington, DC in the 1970s. He received an honorary degreefrom YU in 1978.

Louis Shapiro, in May ’01. Hewas a YU Guardian with his wifePauline. They established thePauline and Louis ShapiroReading Area in the MendelGottesman Library. HolocaustStudies Fellows, RIETS Fellows,and High School Fellows, theyendowed in their name theMishnayos Bekiyus Competitionat RIETS and a scholarship at SWHSG.

Rabbi Abraham Shkop, in August’01. He was an instructor ofBible at TIW. After retiring, hecontinued his teaching career atvarious Torah institutions.

Major Max L. Shulman, inNovember. He was a formermember, CSL Board of Directors,and a YU Guardian with wifeSylvia.

Rabbi David L. Silver ’31R, inJune ’01. One of the oldest rab-

binic alumni, he was spiritualleader of Kesher Israel Congrega-tion, Harrisburg, PA for 50 yearsuntil his retirement in 1983. Hereceived a YU honorary degree in1960. In 1997, the RIETS Rab-binic Alumni association honoredhim for his dedicated efforts.Condolences to his children,Rabbi Ahron Silver YH,’74Y,R;Basya Zucker YH,’62S; MalkaMorris YH,’68S; and AdinaCohen, YH’60; and to his sister,Yetta Izenstein, a YU Guardianwith her late husband, Dr. LouisIzenstein.

Rabbi Isaac Suna YH,’54Y,B,R,MSTA Jewish studies facultymember for more than 40 years,in May ’01. Widely esteemed forhis dedication to his students, hewas also instructor in Bible for19 years at TIW. He received theFaculty Recognition Award at theYUHS Centennial AwardsBanquet in 1986. Condolencesto his wife, Odette; daughter, Dr.Rochelle Ausubel ’80S, personalcounselor and psychologist, SCWand SWHSG, respectively; andsons Hillel ’82Y and DavidYH,’86Y.

Rabbi Joseph Tabachnik YH,’43Y,in August ’01. He was rabbi andrabbi emeritus, West SuburbanTemple Har-Zion, Chicago.Condolences to his wife Miriamand to the entire family.

Rabbi Joseph Wermuth ’45R. He served as ritual director atThe Jewish Center for more than25 years. Condolences to hisentire family.

Ruth Wexler, in June ’01. Shewas a YU Guardian with her hus-band Jack. They endowed theRuth and Jack Wexler Patio inthe Jerome and GeraldineSchottenstein Residence Hall atthe Midtown Campus.

N SY SYMS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ALBERT EINSTEIN COLLEGE OF MEDICINE BENJAMIN N. CARDOZO SCHOOL OF LAW WURZWE

Walter Wurzburger, Philosophy Professor and Rabbi, Dies

Dr. Walter Wurzburger ’43Y,R, adjunct professor of philosophy at YU,died April 16 in Manhattan at age 82. He taught philosophy at SternCollege for Women and Yeshiva College from 1967 until earlier thisyear, when he stopped teaching because of ill health.

The YU community held a memorial service in the Lipschutz-Gutwirth Study Hall and Shul in the Leah and Joseph RubinResidence Hall May 13.

With an MA and PhD in philosophy from Harvard University, most recently he was rabbi of Cong. Shaaray Tefila in Lawrence, NY,until he retired in 1994. Before that he served at pulpits in Bostonand Canada.

Dr. Lamm once called him a “prodigious intellectual and moralactivist whose leadership has been inspiring to generations of rabbinicand lay leaders of Jewish life.” Dr. Wurzburger was a distinguishedmember of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik’s first generation of studentsand was a close friend of the Rav and his family for many years.

He was outspoken about his belief that Modern Orthodoxy shouldengage with contemporary society. “He was a very good teacher… the intellectual of the Modern Orthodox rabbinate,” said Dr. NormanLamm in The Jewish Week (April 26, 2002). “Intellectually honest…he didn’t just repeat what others mouthed.”

Dr. Wurzburger served as president of the Rabbinical Council ofAmerica and of the Synagogue Council of America, a now-defunctorganization that represented Orthodox, Conservative, and ReformJudaism.

During the late 1980s, a period of inner conflict among the majorbranches of Judaism, Dr. Wurzburger was the keynote speaker at aconvention of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of AmericanRabbis. In his address, he urged the different denominations to “subordinate pursuit of sectarian interests and denominational welfareto the overriding concern for klal Yisrael [the Jewish people].”

He was also a member of the International Jewish Committee onInterreligious Consultations, the major Jewish group that is in continu-ing dialogue with the Vatican.

Dr. Wurzburger immigrated to the United States in 1938 fromMunich, shortly after Kristallnacht. He obtained a master’s and a doctorate in philosophy from Harvard. He was the editor for 26 yearsof the Orthodox journal Tradition, and co-editor with Dr. Lamm of A Treasury of Tradition (Jewish Publication Society, 1994). He is theauthor of Ethics of Responsibility: Pluralistic Approaches toCovenantal Ethics (Jewish Publication Society, 1994) and God is ProofEnough (Devora Publishing, 2000).

He is survived by his wife, Naomi; three sons, Dr. Benjamin ofJerusalem, Joshua of Manhattan, and Myron ’73Y of Hewlett, LongIsland; and one grandchild.


community


B Y N I N A ( N O V E T S K Y ) B U T L E R ’ 7 8 S , E d D

Dr. Nina Butler is principal of general studies at Hillel Acade-my of Pittsburgh and has been an educator for over 20 years.Married to Danny, a judge in Pittsburgh, in 1999 she wasawarded the 17th Stern College Alumnae Association’s AnnualSamuel Belkin Memorial Award for Jewish Education.

February 18, 2002

THE SHORT STORY: Mikey Butler. Lungs. Transplant. Shab-bos afternoon and night. Twenty-year-old donor. Perfectlungs. Operation half as long as expected. He’s doing well.Baruch Hashem!

THE LONG STORY: So, the nurse popped by Shabbos after-noon and said, “Nina, the transplant coordinator is on thephone for you!” “It’s Saturday. I can’t take the call—unlessshe’s calling about lungs for Mikey.” Stall. “Nina, I think you’dbetter take the call….”

Mikey, who has spent the last month in Shadyside Hos-pital’s ICU—literally at death’s door from his cystic fibrosis,was life-flighted (via helicopter!) the one mile to PresbyterianHospital. He insisted that Danny and I, [brother] Gavri, andcousin Rabbi Rafi Butler be waiting for him there, while [sis-ter] Shoshi and [friend] Jessica and the rest stay behind topack up the room. As we drove over (on Shabbos—we hadcareful rabbinic instruction for this eventuality), we didn’twant to touch any of the preset dials in the car. Gavri musthave last driven the car because his favorite rock radio stationwas blasting! The song was The Who’s, “We Won’t GetFooled Again!” Considering our false alarm just three nightsearlier (when we were transported to the other hospital andwaited in the Pre-Op holding area for three hours just to findout that the potential lungs had a tumor), what can I say?There are no simple coincidences! Hashem was with usLOUD and clear as we raced across Oakland!

While in Pre-Op, we learned that the donor was a strong,tall, 20-year-old woman. What a difference from the “false

EDITOR’S NOTE: When this issue

of Yeshiva University Review was

in the planning stages, we intend-

ed to print a letter from Mikey

Butler ’01Y to President Norman

Lamm ’49Y,B,R expressing his

deep gratitude and amazement for

“the hesed you and Yeshiva

always have shown me in every

situation…despite the extenuating

circumstances in my years as a

student.” He also thanked Dr.

Lamm for personally traveling to

Pittsburgh to confer a bachelor’s

degree on him at a surprise cere-

mony at Pittsburgh International

Airport. A fifth-year senior,

Mikey had missed most of the

fall 2001 semester due to cystic

fibrosis. He often faxed or

emailed papers and tests from his

hospital bed, and his doctors

gently told Mikey that he probably

wouldn’t be well enough to return

to YU for the spring semester.

Shortly after his commence-

ment last December, Mikey’s

health took a turn for the worse

and he was hospitalized. His

health continued to rapidly deteri-

orate and he became gravely ill.

It soon became apparent to his

doctors and family that his only

hope of survival was a lung

transplant. And with the place-

ment of Mikey’s name on a

national lung-transplant waiting

list, their vigil at his bedside

began. Over half the people on

that list die waiting.

On February 16, Mikey

received his new lungs. In a

communication two days later,

Dr. Nina Butler ’78S described the

drama and events surrounding her

son’s surgery to a long list of well

wishers. We have reprinted it

(with editorial notes in brackets)

instead of Mikey’s letter to Dr.

Lamm because his fight for life—

“day by glorious day,” as he

is prone to say—and the love that

surrounds him have eclipsed all.

THE Update of a Lifetime

alarm night,” when we had tried to convince ourselves thatlungs from a 70-year old man in Indiana could last for yearsand years.

Mikey was wheeled into the operating room at about 6:15pm. After anesthetics and tests, the operation formally gotunder way at 7:30 pm. We were told that the average amountof time for this operation was 12 hours, but that Mikey’s sit-uation was complicated, and could take up to 24 hours.

Do you understand how remarkable it was that the donorwas there, in the hospital—rather than several states away?That the lungs would be out of the donor’s body for minutesrather than hours? That our close friend, neuro-radiologistManny Kanal, was back in town, scrubbed in, and withMikey at all times? Being a weekend, and an evening, the OR

had no “liaison” to keep families informed about the progressof the operation. Miraculous Manny ran back and forth giv-ing us vivid descriptions at least every half hour.

We heard—repeatedly—that the donor lungs lookedhealthy and strong (even in a bucket, awaiting their newhost). We heard about the fluid andmeticulous strokes of the surgeon.

We heard that Mikey would notfeel a need to cough ever again.

Manny came out to describe dif-ferent “moments,” like the onewhere he was standing at the head ofthe bed, gently stroking Mikey’s hairand describing the goings-on intoMikey’s ear (the doctors and nursesprobably thought he was nuts!—butthose of us who know Mikey knowhe would love to have been watchingin some rigged up mirror!). Mannystood there looking down overMikey’s body, chest open, lungsremoved, at Mikey’s strongly beatingheart. Can you imagine? I can’t!

Manny also took digital pictures!He presented us with a photo of thesurgical team (with Mikey undercovers); it’s a classic.

As the surgery continued, a euphoric air rose in the wait-ing room. At one point, more than a dozen people jammed in… with about 20 cell phones! Everybody was sharing theprogress of the operation with somebody! At another point, Iwalked down the hall for some air and met the “Heart Fam-ily.” That isn’t their real name, but we are known as the “LungFamily” to them. This one 20-year-old girl changed the livesof 5 different families with 5 organ donations. What an in-spiring z’chus [merit].…

Rabbi Daniel Wasserman’s energy and enthusiasm filledthe halls as he ordered pizzas for a 10 pm melave malkah[post-Sabbath celebration] (Shoshi delivered) … and barbe-qued steaks for 2 am! He also sent email updates to his con-gregants through the night. His loyal friendship has engulfedus, growing ever closer through his twice daily hospital visitsthroughout the past month. [Friend] Judi Kanal has beenextraordinary, printing out my emails and delivering them tothe hospital every morning for a month. She’s organizedShabbos meals, couriered computer disks of school business,

Mikey with his mother, Nina,

and brother Gavri.

and more than I can mention. [Friend] Lila Weiss had beenextraordinary, making sure to send kosher meals to the hospi-tal for the mother, even when the child cannot eat! [Friends]Leah Milch and Rabbi Isser Pliner have been extraordinary,covering for me at school while I disappeared from work foran undetermined amount of time. Cousin Estelle Comaykeeps leaving mysterious packages on our kitchen table—justin case we could use some soup or fried chicken or fruit. AuntChantze and Uncle Donald have hosted a steady stream ofShabbos guests. OBGYN Dean Pollack lifted my spirits eachday by reporting on his new deliveries. Danny’s sister, Faygel,and Ari Kanal have organized (at least) twice weekly tehillim[psalms] groups at the Kotel. Rabbi Tzali Friedman ofCentral East NCSY started a ‘Mitzva for Mikey’ campaignthat caught fire across the country. And the list continues….

And then there is Joel. His wife, Tova, continues to feed(and share) my chocolate addiction! One of Mikey’s partingregrets at accepting a transplant was that Joel would nolonger be his primary-care physician. Joel is more than afriend, more than a doctor. Joel saved Mikey’s life—morethan a few times. He even “crashed” the transplant (in jeansand a flannel shirt) to make sure those doctors received thenewest data from synergy studies Joel had commissioned oneach of Mikey’s cultured bacteria. Joel continues to visit,inform and advise, even though his doesn’t ordinarily practicein this hospital. He cares. We love him and, more important-ly, Mikey loves him.

Back to Mikey. The operation took significantly less timethan expected. Mikey was in recovery and squeezing ourhands by 4 am. He’s still in the cardiothoracic ICU now, a daylater, but we can speak to him through his drug-induced fog,and he finds a way to respond, despite the ventilator. Thisafternoon he mouthed HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Danny.

The medical team continues to warn us that we shouldexpect the next month to be very bumpy as Mikey combatsinfections from various bacteria and fungi that he hosts …and whatever else we don’t know about yet. Knowing that allof you are with us softens the bumps. Thanks to yourthoughts, prayers, and compassionate actions.

With awe for Hashem’s choices and wonders,—Nina ■

EDITOR’S NOTE:

As we go to press, Mikey continues a miraculous recovery.He returned to campus at the end of May to partcipate inCommencement activities.

How isThis Going to End?B Y J O Y C E B R E N N E R ’ 8 3 W, D S W

Coordinator, WSSW Block Program in Israel

At WSSW’s Second Conference on Field Education in a GlobalPerspective, last January, Dr. Joyce Brenner spoke about howsocial workers are helping Israelis live with the stress of inter-necine violence. This is an edited version of her presentation.

he most frequently expressed question in Israel is:“How is this going to end?” The Israeli response isthat familiar shrug and rolling of the eyes, which saysso much.

In my capacity as coordinator of the WurzweilerBlock Program in Israel, I come into frequent contact withmany social workers, including our 21 students, their super-visors, and other colleagues and friends from a wide variety ofagencies. Our conversations invariably focus upon the politi-cal situation and the tense and tragic times within which weare all living.

I have come to believe that there are three tasks that needto be accomplished in order to live with this stressful situa-tion, especially after September 11. These tasks come fromthe world of chronic illness; they are acceptance, confronta-tion, and denial.

Acceptance is exactly what I am doing here by discussingthe awfulness of the situation. Although this is not easy, weneed to realize that by accepting the reality that terrorism willcontinue to occur, we have begun to accept the fact that wewill continue to live in a chronic state of stress. Not a happycondition for sure, but it seems to me an honest facing of theuncertainty of our times.

Confrontation embraces the active responses to this hor-rific situation, which give us some sense of hope and the pos-sibility of change. Social workers have found many ways ofconfronting what we are all going through here in Israel.

A national organization, called Natal (a Hebrew acronymfor responses to terrorism), has formed in response to the cri-sis. It provides professional support to families and individu-als who are closest to a terrorist incident, both immediatelyafterwards and during their recovery phase.

Social workers are giving lectures on ways to deal with ten-sion and holding post-traumatic stress support programs in

T

community


schools, centers, and other gathering places. The whole ofIsrael is probably suffering from some aspect of this syndromeand only time will tell how it will shape our personalities.

Ad hoc groups, facilitated by social workers, are springingup, depending on the needs of the moment. These groups arevery responsive to specific populations. For example, parentsof teenagers are in serious dilemmas as to how much freedomthey can allow their children; parents of young children needassistance in discussing fears with their youngsters; the eld-erly need to be protected from being isolated; families thatlive in particularly dangerous areas need help with day-to-dayliving; and even long-time Israelis who repeatedly say, “Thissituation has been going on forever,” need help in expressingtheir anxieties.

Therapists are asking their clients how they are dealingwith the situation. This is an important shift because thera-pists reported last year that their clients did not want to dis-cuss news events. Over the course of the year, news events

have demanded discussion. Silence does not work.Many social workers are finding ways to express

their social action inclinations. Osim Shalom, ajoint Arab/Israeli social work organization, hasgrown from 200 members to 600, almost equallydivided by ethnic group. I have become active on asubcommittee and helped organize a discussionabout religious responses to escalating terrorismamong a panel including a sheikh, a rabbi, and aChristian minister.

Finally, denial is the most useful defense mech-anism, which enables us to fulfill our daily respon-sibilities and to laugh and have fun.

It means building a bubble that enables us tocope with this incessant stress. But I don’t believethis bubble is impenetrable—we need to let the

news in, in doses that each individual can manage. The senseof control we then gain gives us some sense of security.

But perhaps most important, we need to allow that bubbleto be permeable, to let ourselves cry. There are daily funeralsin Israel for young people, older people, teenagers who wentout one evening, families whowent for pizza, others who justhappened to be on a bus. Wemust continue to tune into oursenses, scream, and protest thehorrific mess that is happeningaround us.

My message is a very authen-tic social work message: to livenow, as we think human beingsshould live, in defiance of allthat is bad around us—that initself is a marvelous victory. ■

“My message is a very authentic social work message: to live now, as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us—that in itself is a marvelous victory.”

*Wurzweiler’s Block Education

Plan has, since 1976, made

the MSW accessible to

students from all over the

United States, Canada, Israel,

and other countries through

summer classes at

Wurzweiler and fall-through-

spring field placements in

their home communities.


LOOK ING BACK OVER THE RECENT MONTHS , I am proud of the way the ideals and

values advocated by our institution have been so poignantly translated into deeds.

I am proud of the men and women whose vision continues to guide and nurture our Uni-

versity even during tumultuous times. Thus, a ten million-dollar gift from the Wilf family is now

underwriting a major enhancement and beautification of YU’s main campus, which we have

named the Wilf Campus in grateful recognition. Also, the largest one-time donation from an

alumnus in the history of Yeshiva College was presented this year by the nephew of the late Dr.

Benjamin Wolstein, Class of ’44. The extraordinary three million-dollar bequest will provide

scholarships for deserving and financially needy students at

Yeshiva College. And a $250,000 gift from High School alumnus

Dr. Jonathan Zizmor and his wife, Alexandra, was given in honor

of his former MSTA teacher, Rabbi Macy Gordon.

Despite the tensions we’ve all lived with since last fall, I am

proud that our students were able to remain focused on their stud-

ies. This year, nine students have completed their senior honors

theses through the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program

at Yeshiva College; 16 completed senior research projects at Stern

College for Women’s S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program.

Two undergraduates this year were awarded perhaps the most generous of scholarships in

the nation to pursue graduate studies. Shoshana Frankel Posy, a computational biology major

and Stern College valedictorian, is the winner of a highly prestigious Howard Hughes Medical

Institute Predoctoral Fellowship and will receive $21,000 a year plus expenses for five years.

Yitz Brilliant, who graduated summa cum laude from Yeshiva College, was awarded a Jack Kent

Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship. He will receive $50,000 a year for six years. Joseph

Sebeo, a YC sophomore this year and a chemistry-biology major, won a prestigious Barry M.

Goldwater Scholarship.

Our response to ongoing events in Israel puts our entire student body in the spotlight. And

how they shine! Yeshiva University’s ties with the country, the people, and the ideal of the

Jewish homeland extend from our earliest days to the present, remaining strong in times of

peace and growing stronger in times of crisis—as you can see on the cover and read in the

pages of this Review.

Finally, a kiddush Hashem (sanctification of God’s name) that made national news: after

September 11, students from both campuses, especially Midtown, performed the mitzvah of

shemirah, which stipulates that a Jewish body—or its parts—must never be left unattended. In

shifts over Shabbat, they selflessly remained with unburied body parts found at Ground Zero

and held by the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office throughout the school year. Featured

in The New York Times and other media, the service they performed attracted highly laudatory

comment from all over the country.

Our students are magnificent in their industry, dedication, and sense of service. They are an

inspiration and a source of enormous pride for Yeshiva University. I salute them and pray that

they continue to bring honor to our institution and to our heritage.

—NORMAN LAMM ’49Y,B ,R

Looking Back, Looking Forward

YESH IVA UN IVERS I TY

REVIEW

YESH IVA UN IVERS I TY

R O B E R T M . B E R E N

CHA IRMAN, BOARD OF TRUSTEES

DR. NORM AN LA MM ’4 9 Y, B , R

PRES IDENT

DANI EL T. F OR MA N

V ICE PRES IDENT FOR DEVELOPMENT

P E T E R L . F E R R A R A

DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICAT IONS AND

PUBL IC AFFA IRS

YU REV I EW

J U N E G L A Z E R

ED ITOR

R I C H A R D D O R N E

CONTR IBUT ING ED ITOR

J UDY T UC KER

DIRECTOR OF DES IGN AND GRAPHICS

CONTR IBUT ING TO TH IS I SSUE :

K E L LY B E R M A NE S T H E R F I N K L E ’ 9 8 SGARY GOL DENB E R GYVONNE HUDSONJ O E H I R S C H

PHOTOGRAPHY

YU STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS :

NORM AN GOL DB E R GP E T E R R O B E R T S O NV. J ANE W I NDSOR

OFF ICE O F UN IVERS I TY A LUMN I A F FA IRS

R O B E R T R . S A LT Z M A N

UNIVERS ITY D IRECTOR

Yeshiva University Review is publishedtwice each year by Yeshiva University,Department of Communications andPublic Affairs. It is distributed by mailto alumni and friends of the Universityand on campus to faculty and adminis-trators. Paid subscriptions are availableat $15 per year.

Editorial contributions and submissionsto “Classnotes” are welcome, but thepublication cannot accept responsibilityfor unsolicited manuscripts or photo-graphs. All submissions are subject toediting at the discretion of the editor.Opinons expressed in the Review are not “official” University policy.

Send mail to: Yeshiva University Review,500 West 185th Street, New York, NY10033-3201. Phone: (212) 960-5285. Email: [email protected].

© YESH IVA UN IVERS ITY 2002

from the president

2

his season, Dr. Jonathan Halpert YH,’66Y,F cele-brated his 30th year coaching the YU men’s basketballteam. Perhaps even more significant, in February theMaccabees handed him his 300th win (see p. 24) in athrilling game that made it onto the pages of The New

York Times (February 26th edition). Solomon Krevsky, a stu-dent at YC from 1981 to 1983 and one of CoachHalpert’s former players, wrote the followingcongratulatory letter after reading the article.

Krevsky is an attorney practicing law in a firmhe cofounded five years ago. He lives in Harris-burg, PA, with his wife and daughter. At YU, heplayed starting shooting guard, and was named anAll-Star at the Hunter College Invitational Tourna-

ment. He says that despite the years he still plays ball, “butconsiderably slower because of age and aching knees.However, the ‘mambo’ cut continues to be unguardable. Iremain an ardent sports fan and can be found discussingYeshiva scores in shul on Shabbos mornings, reminiscing ofmy days as a Maccabee.”

leadership JONATHAN H ALP ERT YH, ’ 6 6 Y,F

TheCoach:ATribute

T

8 S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 • Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W

Dr. Jonathan HalpertYeshiva University

March 13, 2002 Department of Athletics500 W. 185th Street

Dear Coach Halpert, New York, NY 10033

Mazal tov on #300! I was recently visiting my cousin in Brooklyn, and he asked me to jog his mem-ory about whether you had been my coach at YU. “Sure was,” I said proudly. “Why?” He explainedabout a recent article he read in The New York Times describing the fascinating and rather story-book tale on the accomplishment of your 300th victory.

After reading the article for myself, I felt touched by nostalgia and a sense of history knowingthat I had played some small role in helping you to achieve this milestone. Your description of thedays pre-Max Stern Athletic Center immediately transported me back to a time and place that Irecall with great fondness. The excitement and buzz surrounding our basketball program in theearly ’80s will stay with me a lifetime. Marv Albert, Dick Shaap, and regular national print mediacoverage—not bad for a team that had to walk six blocks to George Washington High just to prac-tice! I am thrilled to have read about the team’s string of winning seasons, and I’d like to believe ourteam served as a springboard for that success.

As with us all, the days and years are hurried and we often fail to reach out to those who havehelped to shape our very existence. I have always believed that success on the ball fields and courtsserves as a template for success in life. Our program was not a selfish one—the seasons were longand the class schedules and practices demanding. Few, if any, of the members of the larger Jewishcommunity ever had the chance to see us play, which is a shame because we learned much morethan basketball. We shared a concrete understanding of pride and dignity that I shall never forget.

When I returned home from Brooklyn, I immediately dusted off the sports scrapbook my fathercompiled. I reread numerous articles from the Times, Post, and various Jewish periodicals. I partic-ularly recall a win at Maritime, the defending Independence Athletic Conference champs and ourthen archrivals. I remember Harvey Sheff grabbing every important rebound as we fought to hangonto the lead. Joey Eaves was, as always, spectacular. In the final minute I found myself at the linefor two with the game in the balance. They called time-out to “ice” me. I was not going to miss and,in the huddle, told you so. I’ll never forget the look in your eyes and the sound in your voice. I wasn’tas confident as I let on until I heard you confirming your faith in me that, indeed, I would sink theshots. I did. They missed. Harvey grabbed the rebound. We won! I jumped into Harvey’s arms likeMagic Johnson jumping into Kareem’s after a Lakers’ championship in Magic’s rookie year.

We started that season 5–0, and that was our fifth win. We didn’t just win that game for our-selves, or even for our school. To me, we won that game for Jews everywhere. The statement wasclear and simple—we can play! The media onslaught began.

I’m certain you’ve had many memorable wins among the 300. I wanted to share this one withyou to join in the celebration of your accomplishment, and to reinforce the significance of eachalong the way—in ways you may have never known.

Congratulations again! Sincerely,Solomon Krevsky#22

Mr. Jack Bendheim March 5, 2002President, SAR Academy

Dear Jack:I deeply regret that I had to turn down the gracious invitation to speak at the

dinner this coming Sunday in honor of Erica Jesselson. As you know, Yeshiva iscelebrating our quadrennial Chag HaSemikhah at the same time, and duty comesbefore pleasure.

I remember first meeting Erica and Lucy Pappenheim about the time of my barmitzvah. Ludy OBM was coming to take Erica out, and the buzzing in the house-hold of my uncle and aunt, Rabbi and Mrs. Joseph Baumol, was all but deafening.The Pappenheim girls were very precious to my family, and Ludy cut a gallant fig-ure with the upturned brim on his fedora and the famous diamond tiepin thatcomplemented his aristocratic demeanor. The rest, as they say, is history.

The years have passed by all too quickly, but the greatest marvel of all—onethat has made the inexorable passage of time not only tolerable but positively pre-cious—is the fantastic flowering of Erica’s personality. I do not think anyonecould have predicted it, despite some early signs of extraordinary qualities. It isfor me a source of endless optimism: you can’t foretell a person’s future from con-sidering only his/her past.

Everyone—but everyone—knows who Erica is and everyone is aware of herhistoric achievements. And yet, I believe—no one does. A woman of such inex-haustible energy, of such tremendous joie de vivre, of such bountiful exuberance,of such creative ideas and, above all, of such endless hesed [charitable gooddeeds] in things both large and small, is beyond normal assessment. The KotzkerRebbe once said that when Solomon wrote “who can find a woman of valor?,” hemeant that you can’t find her because beyond every layer of virtue lies yet anoth-er one, and beyond that still another one—an endless array of goodness and cre-ativity. In that sense, we do not really know Erica, and probably never will.

She now celebrates her 80th birthday, and it is not only her simcha [celebra-tion] but also that of the entire Jewish community. Unfortunately, she has trou-ble with her shoulders, her hip, her elbow—but none whatsoever with her capa-cious heart and creative mind. Moreover, she can still shoulder communal bur-dens, she is “hip,” as the teenagers say, and if needed she can still use her elbowsquite effectively to shove aside both nonsense and ill will. What a woman!

Please convey to her my most genuine felicitations. Mindy, and all my col-leagues at Yeshiva University, from trustees and Benefactors to faculties andadministration and (her favorites!) the students, all join me in a hearty mazal tovto Erica. May she be the recipient of the berakhot [blessings] of our Father inHeaven, and may He grant her many more years of continuing achievement andoverflowing “nachas” from her sons and their families.

Wherever will we find another one like her? She simply must live to 120!

Cordially yours,Norman Lamm

E R I CA J E S S E L S O N leadership

EricaJesselsonat80Erica Jesselson and her late, beloved

husband, Ludwig, made their mark as

humanitarians, supporters of Jewish

education, arts and culture, community

service and welfare in the United States

and Israel. “Ludy” served on the YU Board

of Trustees from 1961 until his death in

1993. At that time, he was the Board’s

chairman, a position to which he was

elected in 1989. He received an honorary

doctorate from YU in 1969.

Since 1973, Erica has served as chair-

person of the Board of Governors of the

Yeshiva University Museum, which she and

Ludy endowed. They also established a

library endowment, and, to honor her

husband’s memory, Erica joined with other

family members in 1994 to establish the

Ludwig Jesselson Kollel Chaverim (Institute

of Advanced Talmudic Study) at RIETS.

That year, she was presented with the

Eitz Chaim Award, the highest honor

conferred by RIETS.

After Ludy’s death, Erica has continued

“hands-on” involvement in every phase

of Jewish education, art, and culture on

two continents. President Norman Lamm

’49Y,B,R recently paid tribute to this

remarkable woman in a letter to Jack

Bendheim YH,’68Y, RIETS trustee.

student leadership YU AND I S RAEL

&BeStrengthenedToStrengthen

January 13, 2002. More than 200 Yeshiva University students wait to embark

on a weeklong visit to Israel they’ve been planning for a month. Called

Operation Torah Shield II (after a similar effort during the Gulf War), they

intend to demonstrate solidarity with the beleaguered Israeli people—and

victims of terror everywhere, “to strengthen and be strengthened,” as one of

them puts it, is their mission and goal.

Torah Shield II is coordinated by the Orthodox Union and cosponsored by

the Israel Ministry of Tourism, the Conference of Presidents of Major

American Jewish Organizations, the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish

Agency for Israel, and private donors. YU students are instrumental in organ-

izing the program, developing its itinerary, and securing financial support.

In the weeks prior to departure, the students collect gifts of food and other

supplies for distribution in Israel. (They each fill a spare suitcase to take with

them on the flight to Tel Aviv.) For the next seven days, they meet with ordi-

nary Israelis, talk with soldiers and visit hospitals, tour Jerusalem’s Old City,

travel to a kibbutz. They attend lectures and seminars, and visit more than

20 yeshivot and seminaries across the country, meeting students currently

enrolled in YU’s S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program.

Yeshiva College sophomore Joe Hirsch is one of them. Here is his report.

The Tie That Binds: Lessons Learned fromOperation Torah Shield IIB Y J O E H I R S C H

hose who have traveled to Israel on an El Al jetlin-er know that there is nothing more gratifying than themoment the plane finally lands. One can literally feelshivers of joy as the plane winds its way along the tar-mac. But when I visited Israel this past January as part

of Operation Torah Shield II, a solidarity mission by under-graduate students of Yeshiva University, the experience waseven more powerful than usual. After weeks of planning andpreparation, our team of 200 students had finally arrived,energized by a moving send-off at JFK International Airport[that included President Lamm] and greeted at Ben Gurionby a swarm of reporters and bright camera lights. For an entireminute, I felt glued to my aisle seat, completely taken by themoment. To strengthen and be strengthened. As passengersaround me scurried to collect their carry-on luggage, the sig-nificance of our trip finally set in. We bore a simple but force-ful message: that we stoodfirm with our brothers andsisters in Israel during theirtime of need.

And what a time it hasbeen. In the months sincethe intifada began, Israelhas found itself locked inone of the worst recessionsin more than two decades.Saddled with debt andreeling from the loss of

nearly $3 billion in tourism revenues, the country has desper-ately needed a boost from Jews living abroad. Not surprising-ly, though, the daily outbreaks of fresh violence have causedmost Diaspora Jews to stay home and support Israel from adistance. Their not-so-subtle message provides little comfortfor the nearly 250,000 Israeli families affected by unemploy-ment, and sends a powerful signal to Yasir Arafat and his ter-ror regime that the Jews are weak, tired, and ultimately beat-able. Operation Torah Shield II, we hoped, would shatter theperception that American Jews do not care about the eventstaking place 6,000 miles away. We would make a difference.

Armed with candies, donated clothing, and letters fromyoung schoolchildren back home, we set out on a weeklongjourney that brought us face-to-face with the people of Israel.Our first stop was the town of Shiloh, where we visited withthe family of the slain Yehudah Shoham, a five-month-oldbaby killed in a drive-by shooting. His father, Benny, spokemovingly about the need to maintain faith, even in times ofabsolute sorrow. Next it was on to Eli, a rapidly expandingcommunity of 350 families north of Jerusalem. From ourperch atop a mountain, we saw the land unfold before oureyes. The journey to Tekoa, just west of Efrat, reduced manyto tears when we visited the memorial of young KobyMandell, a 13 year-old American oleh [immigrant] who was

Y U A N D I S R A E L student leadership

T

Operation Torah Shield II.

participants hand out packages.

of tooth brushes, deodorant,

Game Boys, and batteries.

to soldiers in Tekoa.

found bludgeoned to death in a cave near his home. Andwhen we toured the Muslim Quarter in the Old City ofJerusalem, it felt like we were travelers in time.

It’s hard to describe the thrill we felt when a soldierthanked us for our care packages, or when a young Israeli girlgrinned at us through chocolaty teeth after we gave her acandy bar. People kept telling us how much our visit meant tothem. There was the young mother from Eli who invited usinto her home for hot drinks and snacks; the ebullient manfrom Hebron who gave out his home phone number and in-sisted that we call for a Shabbos meal; the filmmaker who ad-mitted how spiritually uplifted she felt after spending a weekcovering our program. You can’t buy experiences like these.

By the end of our seven-day mission, I felt more connect-ed to Israel than I had at any point during my two years ofstudy at a yeshiva there after high school. And when wearrived at the airport for our midnight flight back to theStates, I knew why. With only afew precious hours left to ourunforgettable journey, the entiremission joined together for anelectrifying melave malkah [post-Sabbath celebration] in an emptyterminal. The singing and danc-ing filled the air, and our hearts.People who usually pass one an-other at YU without so much as anod locked arms in tight em-brace. We had arrived as 200strangers—different backgrounds,different hometowns, differentambitions. We left as 200 friends,joined by the common thread ofour experiences.

Operation Torah Shield IItaught me that one Jew’s tragedyis every Jew’s tragedy. It becameclear to me on this trip that thereis no greater unifier among Jewsthan Israel. Boarding the plane, Iglanced longingly over my shoul-der one last time. Then I collapsed in my seat with a mixtureof exhaustion and exhilaration. We had been privileged tomeet with some modern-day heroes; their faces and storieswill not be forgotten. ■

Dissecting the Israel Experience

B Y J U N E G L A Z E R

pproximately three-quarters of all students whoenroll at YU after high school do so after spendingat least a year abroad in YU’s S. Daniel AbrahamIsrael Program. Also, a significant portion of YU’shighest-achieving undergraduates are among

those who have come to campus via the Israel experience.These findings, according to Dr. John Fisher, director of

Enrollment Management, highlight the effect YU’s S. DanielAbraham Israel Program has on the nature of the undergrad-uate student body at the Wilf and Midtown campuses. They

are part of a study prepared byDr. Fisher for the Faculty Admis-sions Committee.

“The Israel experience hasbecome the major source for newstudents, in part because manyhigh school graduates, acceptedand expecting to attend IvyLeague schools upon their returnfrom learning in Israel, changetheir minds during the course oftheir year abroad,” Dr. Fishersays. “Students often find thatdoing intensive learning all daytends to make them more obser-vant and more passionate abouttheir Judaism. At some point theybegin to reevaluate their prioritiesand many decide to attend YU.”

Dr. Fisher reports that a major-ity of students in this groupbecome student leaders at YU,receive the most coveted scholar-ships, and participate in the Jay

and Jeanie Schottenstein Honors Program at Yeshiva Collegeand the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Stern Collegefor Women. They contribute to an encouraging trend that Dr.Fisher notes in his report: data show that students who spend

student leadership Y U A N D I S R A E L

Stern College senior Yael Shmuel

distributes toys to children in Israel.

A


a year or more in Israel before coming to YU have higher SAT

scores and high school averages than do those who come toYU directly from high school. Once they get to YU, they tendto have higher GPAs by the end of their first semester on cam-pus and, tracked over time, tend to persist and graduate in fargreater numbers. And beyond that, they have a better rate ofbeing admitted into medical, law, and other professional andgraduate schools; starting successful careers; and going intobusiness.

“I can describe it but I can’t explain what makes them sopassionate, engaged, and absorbed in what they are doing,”Dr. Fisher says. He recently accompanied undergraduatedeans, heads of Jewish studies programs, and administratorsfrom YU to Israel to touch base with the nearly 900 studentsthere under YU auspices. In all, three YU contingents visitIsrael during the year, coordinated through the YU in Israeloffice in Jerusalem. They hold meetings with the heads of the33 schools where YU students attend. A staff of four, headedby assistant director of admissions Mark Lehrman ’86Y,B,oversees the program and the administrators’ visits.

Danny Gilbert ’00SB enrolled through the S. DanielAbraham Israel Program at Yeshivat Sha’alvim for two yearsafter high school. Much to the surprise of some friends andfamily members, he turned down a five-year tuition-free pro-gram at The Cooper Union, one of the premier architectureand engineering schools in the country, to come to YU. It wasin Israel that he began to think about what was really impor-tant in his life. “I felt I needed to put myself in an environ-ment that would nurture the values I feel are important. Asmy time in Israel progressed, I realized I didn’t want to com-promise those values.”

Gilbert is illustrative of the trend Dr. Fisher highlights inhis report. At YU, the MIS major was a Distinguished Scholar;editor-in-chief of Einayim LaTorah, the SOY Torah publica-tion; a synagogue youth director; and an NCSY regional advis-er. He graduated with a 3.54 grade point average.

He now works for Goldman Sachs in its commoditiesdepartment. Married to Atara Gewirtz ’00S and recently afather, he said, “Every day that goes by, I’m more and moresure that I made the right decision.” ■

“Students who spend a year or more in Israel tend to have higher GPAs by the end of their first semester on campus…”— D R . J O H N F I S H E R

STUDENTS RESPOND TO ISRAEL CRISIS This year, students from Yeshiva College, Stern College for Women, and Sy Syms

School of Business raised some $54,000, carrying donation buckets at the National Solidarity Rally in Washington, DC, an April

prayer rally in Lower Manhattan, and the Israel Day Parade [see front cover]. Proceeds were donated to the Israel Emergency

Solidarity Fund. Another student group launched a nationwide newspaper project called Kol Haneshama (“Every Soul,” Psalms

150) to memorialize terror victims in Israel. The project features a full page of photos and personal biographies. The inserts have

been running in more than 20 newspapers nationwide since March and reach approximately one million readers. Coordinated by

undergraduates Naphtali Weisz and Judah Elbaum, the project originated during Operation Torah Shield II.

S U M M E R 2 0 0 2 • Y E S H I V A U N I V E R S I T Y R E V I E W 1 3

Perhaps it’s a little too late, but these executives just might learnthat it’s possible to make a buck and to treat employees and stock-holders with decency and fairness.

All these books belong to the fast-growing canon of Moses L.Pava, PhD, a rising star in the field of business ethics. For years, Dr.Pava, the Alvin H. Einbender Professor of Business Ethics at Sy SymsSchool of Business, has been championing the notion of corporatesocial responsibility, which holds that business leaders should payheed to the needs and concerns of employees, stockholders, con-sumers, and the community, not just to the bottom line.

M O S E S L . PAVA vision

Greed isnotGoodProfessor Moses L.Pava, Business Ethicist

B Y G A RY G O L D E N B E R G

Suggested summer reading for the folks at Enron and Arthur Andersen:

• The Search For Meaning in Organizations: Seven Practical Questions for Ethical Managers

• Corporate Responsibility and Financial Performance: The Paradox of Social Cost

• Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations (Vols. 1–4)

r. Pava is not alone in advocating capitalism with aconscience, but he brings to the debate a uniquevoice: the Jewish perspective. A PhD in businessadministration and accounting and a one-time

rabbinical student, Dr. Pava has carved a niche forhimself by mining Jewish sources—from the biblical parablesof Joseph to the philosophical treatises of Martin Buber to thereligious teachings of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik—for wis-dom that is relevant to the ethical conduct of business in the21st century. “There’s a long history of halakhic questions thathave arisen in terms of business,” he says, “but usually thosequestions are restricted to tight-knit Jewish communities.”

Dr. Pava believes this tradition deserves a broader role inour lives. “Sometimes we fail at business because we arbitrar-ily divide life in two, and don’t apply our ethical standards inthe workplace,” he says. “The Torah teaches us that a mean-ingful life is of one piece, and therefore must be pervadedwith ethics.”

The divided selfFor a long while, Moses Pava himself lived the divided life.

He was born and raised in Springfield, MA, where hisgreat grandfather settled in the 1890s and helped to establishthe city’s Orthodox synagogue (coincidentally, PresidentNorman Lamm’s first pulpit). “I wanted to be a doctor whenI grew up—not a professor doctor, a real doctor,” he says,laughing. “By the time I finished my first chemistry courses atBrandeis, however, I came to my senses and decided to be-come a pulpit rabbi,” he says. Thereafter, the young studentimmersed himself in Jewish studies, capping off his collegiatecareer with a year in Jerusalem at Yeshivat Hamivtar.

In 1981, he enrolled at the YU-affiliated Rabbi Isaac Elchan-an Theological Seminary (RIETS), lasting only a few months.“I loved the learning and the studying,” he explains, “but Irealized I didn’t have the personality to be a pulpit rabbi.”

Unanchored, Dr. Pava returned home to Springfield and

began knocking on doors. No one was hiring, however, so hedecided to attend business school, if only because it wouldmake him more marketable. With his new bride, Vivian New-man, his high school sweetheart, Dr. Pava settled in Washing-ton Heights and enrolled in the MBA program at New YorkUniversity.

By that time, economist Milton Friedman’s ethos—whichcontends that a corporation’s only social responsibility is toincrease profits to shareholders—had permeated businessschools around the country; at NYU, it was written in stone.“We weren’t ever allowed to critique the founding assump-tion, which is that human beings are only capable of maxi-mizing their own self interest,” Dr. Pava recalls. “I used toread Milton Friedman out loud to my wife. It put her to sleepwithin thirty seconds, but I was a believer.”

Dr. Pava excelled at NYU. “I was good at manipulating theequations and testing the models. But it had a game-like qual-ity to it, and I felt from the beginning that there was some-thing missing,” he says.

What was missing, he came to realize, was a connectionbetween his traditional religious upbringing and the cold ration-alism of modern economics. “It wasn’t so much that religionand modernism were both wrong, what bothered me evenmore were my suspicions that somehow they were both right,”he remarked in a recent speech. “But, how could that be?”

On the advice of his professors, he switched to the doc-toral program, which had more of an academic focus. Thechange suited him. Over the next few years, he worked on hisdissertation and started teaching at Hunter College, a role heespecially enjoyed.

Back to YUIn 1988, he was invited to join the faculty of YU’s new busi-ness school. He thought he would stay a year or two at most.Dr. Pava settled in, finished his doctorate, and began con-ducting accounting research—nothing out of the ordinary.

D

vision MOSES L . PAVA

“Managers and other key employees who insist that the organization is simply a utilitarian tool and that ‘business is business’ are either misguided or lying, or both. For better or worse, business is also a location where human beings constantly and forever interpret life’s meanings.”

—DR. MOSES PAVA , THE SEARCH FOR MEANING IN ORGANIZAT IONS


But the “uneasy bouncing back and forth” between his privateand professional lives continued to nag him.

That would slowly change as his research turned to corpo-rate social responsibility. His initial foray into this emergingdiscipline was a study measuring the cost to corporations ofacting in a socially responsible manner. “There had to be cost—that was what I was taught at NYU,” he says. “The questionwas, how much poorer did these companies do compared tothe controls? Much to our surprise, we found that the social-ly responsible companies performed at least as well if not bet-ter than the control companies. I also did a literature searchon the topic, and what I discovered amazed me. I could notfind a single study that documented a negative relationship.”

The study, conducted with YU colleague Joshua Krausz,PhD, Gershon and Merle Stern Professor of Banking andFinance, was published in the Journal of Business Ethics, gen-erating a stir in the academic community. The topic is treatedin greater depth in their 1995 book, Corporate Responsibilityand Financial Performance. “Many reasons suggest placingthis book on the shelves of every university library, especiallythose supporting business schools,” noted one reviewer,Georges Enderle, a business ethicist at the University ofNotre Dame.

Then came a meeting with a remarkable man: ClarenceWalton, a former president of Catholic University, who is con-sidered by many to be the father of modern business ethics.“[It was] the single most important event in my professionallife,” says Dr. Pava. The two crossed paths when the eminentethicist came to Sy Syms School as a visiting professor. Whatimpressed Dr. Pava most was Dr. Walton’s “broad and encom-passing moral vision” and seamless blending of his public andprivate lives. “His writing and research is energized by his reli-gious commitments, yet there isn’t even a hint of fundamen-talism,” he says. Observing this great scholar, Dr. Pava realizedhis own quest for unity “was worthy of serious academicreflection—and not something to be put off until retirement.

“I learned many things from Dr. Walton,” he adds. “Per-haps, first and foremost, he taught me that the reason we goback home again—in his case to Catholicism and in my caseto Judaism—is not to stay there and try to start over again byourselves, but to continue to grow and develop together.”

Dr. Pava’s research culminated in three well-regardedbooks, Business Ethics: A Jewish Perspective; Jewish BusinessEthics: The Firm and Its Stakeholders (written with anotherYU colleague, Aaron Levine, PhD, Samson and Halina

Use your moral imagination

Central to Dr. Pava’s teachings is the concept of moral imagination.

“Moral imagination recognizes that no predetermined set of rules

can encompass all moral decision making,” he writes in The Spirit

of Covenantal Leadership. “It can be formally defined as the ability

to imaginatively see various alternatives for acting within a given

circumstance…. Many ethical traditions have recognized a need

for moral imagination or something like it. In the rabbinic world,

for example, the area of decision making which falls beyond the

rules is labeled in the Talmud as lifnim mishurat hadin, which is

normally translated as ‘beyond the letter of the law’…. The path of

moral imagination carries many implications. To me, it means that

we must be open to the metaphors which often control our lives,

it means that multiple viewpoints are always better than single

viewpoints, and human creativity is, in part, the product of a

community. In order to grow, it suggests that we must approach our

professional work facing outward, we must adopt an experimental

approach, and finally we must impose our own ethical restraints.”


Bitensky Professor of Economics), and the aforementionedSearch For Meaning in Organizations. A fourth work, TheSpirit of Covenantal Leadership: Using Traditional Resources toBuild Better Organizations, will be published by Palgrave, theacademic arm of St. Martin’s Press. He also edits an annualseries, Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations.

Few business ethicists are so grounded in the intricacies ofeconomics, which has earned Dr. Pava the respect and atten-tion of his business-school peers. According to Thomas W.Dunfee, vice dean and director of the Wharton Undergrad-uate Division at the University of Pennsylvania, “[Dr. Pava’s]interpretations demonstrate his command of the underlyingaccounting and finance issues. Too often business ethicistsare not sufficiently familiar with the underlying businessfundamentals. Pava is one of the most knowledgeable busi-ness ethicists.”

Ethics for the next generationTeaching took Dr. Pava on a parallel journey. About eight yearsago, he was asked to take over the business ethics course atSy Syms. He adopted a standard curriculum, built on seculartexts. After one semester, he recognized this approach wasinappropriate for his students, all of whom are observant Jewsdedicated to intensive study of Jewish texts.

The logical solution was to incorporate the Jewish per-spective. “Although this felt much less forced and foreign tomy students, I quickly became very uncomfortable,” Dr. Pavaremarked in the speech. “Should I really be teaching auniquely Jewish business ethics? Will this be of any use to ourstudents as they begin their careers in accounting, investmentbanking, management, etc.? I had this vision of my studentsbringing in the code of Jewish law to a business meeting andbeing disappointed when no one else in the room consideredit as authoritative.”

The course was redesigned once again, ensuring that itwould prepare students to work in modern, secular organiza-

tions. “They have to be able to talk to people in a languagethat they understand,” he explains. “I want them to be ableto use Jewish sources, but in a way that is nonconfrontation-al, nonauthoritarian. The idea is to extract universal princi-ples from these texts. You can’t say, because rabbi so-and-sosays this, you have to do it. But you can bring a traditionaltext to the pluralistic table and say, look at this story, don’tyou think this might have some application in a contempo-rary situation.”

In sum, Dr. Pava wants his students to be able “to utilizethe vocabulary that they grew up with and not have to pretendthat they are somebody else—that they are students of Im-manuel Kant when they are actually students of Rabbi Akiva.”

Back to RIETSA few years ago, Dr. Pava was invited to teach a course onbusiness ethics for the rabbinical students at RIETS. “I’mprobably the first one ever to drop out of the rabbinical schooland come back as a visiting professor,” he says with a wrysmile. Turning serious, he adds that it was one of the high-lights of his career at YU. “It represented a coming together ofeverything I had experienced—the 1970s and the hope ofbecoming a rabbi, the 1980s and my education in economics,and the 1990s and my research into business ethics. It sym-bolized a reconciliation, and the beginnings of an integration,”he explains.

Lately, Dr. Pava has been integrating another philosophi-cal oeuvre, the American pragmatist movement (whose ad-herents included William James and John Dewey), into histeaching. “One of my guiding principles is that businessethics is nothing if it is not practical,” he says. “It can’t be piein the sky. You have to start from where people are. The an-swers come through conversations more than looking thingsup in books.”

True enough, but books by Dr. Pava are a good place tostart. ■

vision MOSES L . PAVA

“The point of a religiously based ethics is that economic activities are never to be viewed as ends in themselves. Economic activities—at the individual, organizational, and national level—are a means toward building a just and caring society in which the best of human and spiritual values may flourish.”

—DR. MOSES PAVA , BUS INESS ETH ICS : A JEWISH PERSPECT IVE


A Day of Unity, Fasting, and Prayer at YU

endnote A DA Y OF UNITY

On March 13, more than 1,500

Wilf Campus students, faculty,

and RIETS roshei yeshiva heeded

a call to join Jewish communities

around the world in fasting and

prayer, gathering in Lamport

Auditorium for afternoon services

and the recitation of tehillim

(psalms) on behalf of Israel and

the Jewish people. At the Midtown

Campus, students, faculty mem-

bers, and administrators fasted,

and some 350 gathered for prayer

at the Geraldine Schottenstein

Cultural Center. In the evening,

at the opening of the Red

Sarachek Basketball Tournament

in the Max Stern Athletics Center

on the Wilf Campus, more than

1,200 students, parents, and

players recited tehillim.


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YESHIVA UNIVERSITY REVIEW Summer 2002

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Transcript of YESHIVA UNIVERSITY REVIEW Summer 2002