Mazel Tov

Caryn Adelman of Chicago, Florence Eckstein of Phoenix, and Leah Siskin of West Palm Beach, Florida were elected to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s Board of Directors.

Ann Bialkin, president of ELEM-America, an organization devoted to helping Israeli youth in distress, was presented with an award from the Israeli Government in recognition of her work.

Mathilda Brailove recalls the inception and development of the United Jewish Appeal over her forty years of involvement and service in “A Time to Remember,” the UJA video which received the silver medal at the 30th annual International Film and Television Festival.

Gretel Ehrlich, author of “The Solace of Open Spaces,” a collection of narrative essays, and Deborah Eisenberg, author of “Transactions in a Foreign Currency,” a collection of short stories, received $25,000 awards for outstanding writing from the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation.

Joelle Fefer of Toronto won the bronze medal in marksmanship in the recent Pan Am games in Indianapolis.

Erna I. Gans of Chicago, Bobbie Greene Kilberg of McLean, Virginia, Sheila Johnson Robbins of New York City and Sheila Rabb Weidenfeld of Washington, DC were among ten people sworn in as members of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Committee in November 1987.

E. Billie Ivry is the first woman elected trustee at Yeshiva University.

Claudia Koonz’s Mothers in the Fatherland (excerpted in LILITH #17) was nominated for the National Book Award in 1987.

Harriet Kurlander has been named the director of the National Commission for Women’s Equality of the American Jewish Congress. She is the first full-time director to deal exclusively with women’s issues.

Dr. Rela Geffen Monson, professor of sociology at Gratz College, has been appointed the college’s acting dean for academic affairs.

Susan Morgenstein has been named curator of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Actress Liv Ullmann received an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa in October. University President Ephraim Evron, paid special attention to Ullmann’s “public efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry.” Her most recent film, “Moscow Farewell,” is loosely based on the life of former refusenik Ida Nudel.

Batya Washitz was the recipient of the Elwyn Institution’s first Aliza Begin Humanitarian Award for advocacy on behalf of Israel’s mentally retarded people.

Rabbi Sue Ann Wasserman has become Atlanta’s first female rabbi when she joined the staff of The Temple.