Obituaries

JUDITH EPSTEIN, teacher to generations of women of Hadassah, where she was a leader for over 70 years, and president from 1937-39 and 1943-47, died in New York on October 27, at age 92.

BLANCHE FINE, for more than 40 years a leader of Na’amat USA, and its president from 1963-65, died on March 5.

MARILYN HIRSH, author-illustrator of more than 30 books for children, and first recipient of the Sydney Taylor Award for Jewish Children’s Literature of the Association of Jewish Libraries, died in New York on October 17, at age 44.

DR. GISELA PERL, who was forced to work under Dr. Josef Mengele and risked her life performing abortions in an attempt to save pregnant women in Auschwitz, died in Jerusalem in November at age 88. Perl, who survived to deliver 3,000 healthy Jewish babies, made aliyah from New York ten years ago.

BETTY K. SHAPIRO, a leader in the Jewish and women’s communities died in Washington on March 18. Shapiro was international president of B’nai B’rith Women from 1968-71, creator of its public affairs program and convener of the Women’s Plea for Soviet Jewry.

FRANCES STELOFF, the distinguished independent bookseller who championed experimental writing and challenged censorship, and whose Gotham Book Mart, founded in 1920, remains a literary landmark, died in New York on April 15 at age 101.