Obituaries

MILLER, Aaron M., on July 16, 2021, passed away peacefully at home at the age of 92, surrounded by his family. Aaron is survived by his loving wife Charlotte (Grace) of over 70 yrs, his daughter Marcia Silverstein and husband Gary, and son Richard Miller and wife Jamie. Also survived by his grandchildren Steven Silverstein and wife Rachel, Michael Silverstein and wife Sharon, Hannah Miller and Jonah Miller. He was predeceased by his parents Tilly (Beck) and Frank Miller and siblings Henry Miller and Hilda Kasoff.

Services will be private. In lieu of flowers donations in his memory to Dana Farber Cancer Institute PO Box 849168, Boston, MA 02284.

Grodberg. Shirley (Merkle), of Sarasota, FL, formerly of Newton, and Worcester, MA and Cincinnati OH, passed away July 14, 2021. Beloved wife of the late Marcus Grodberg. Mother of Joel, Kim, and Jeremy Grodberg. Graveside service at B’Nai Brith Cemetery, Worcester, MA on Monday, July 19, 2021 at 2 pm. Don’t send flowers, Shirley would prefer you plant something instead.

To view the service recording please click here.

Burton Silberstein of Chestnut Hill, MA, entered into rest on July 11, 2021, at the age of 93. He was the beloved and devoted companion of Marilyn Mades for 25 years, and the loving father of Karen and Keith Simmons of West Bloomfield, MI and Debra and Donald Silberstein of Andover, MA. He was the enormously proud “Pepa” of Ashley and Adam Wexner, Karlee and Alex Simmons and Allyson, David and Daniel Silberstein.  The greatest blessing were his two great-grandchildren, Leonard and Lewis Wexner. Burton is also survived by Marilyn’s children, Rick Mades, Mara Mades, Rebecca Dana, and Laura Mades. He was grandpa to Marilyn’s grandchildren, Ben and Matt Dana, Jackson Mades, and Andrew, Emma and Avery Mades, and great-grandchildren Maia and Eli Dana.

Burton was the devoted son of the late Rose and Louis Silberstein. He was predeceased by his loving wife, Carole Kisloff Silberstein.

Burton was born in Lynn, MA and grew to be a student athlete at Colby College in Waterville, ME, where he played baseball and basketball. He served in the military during the Korean War.  Following his return from the army, he founded Colby Footwear, which has now evolved almost 70 years later to Easy Street and is now run by his son, Donald.

Burton always had a wide circle of lifelong friends and family, and his commitment to these relationships was inspiring.  He was known for his wonderful sense of humor and he made connections with people wherever he went. He loved to play golf until he no longer could, and he enjoyed wintering in Boynton Beach, FL for many years, though Boston was always his special place.

Special thanks and gratitude to wonderful caretakers David Tugume and Godfrey Wagwekku.

Burton will be eternally missed. Funeral arrangements will be private, but can be found streaming here at 10:45 AM on Wednesday, July 14. Zoom shiva will be held Wednesday evening after burial at 7 PM. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Carole Kisloff Silberstein Brain Tumor Research Fund, or  Colby College Art Museum. 

Our beautiful, beloved mom, ma, mimi, Irene has completed her journey. She was the life blood of the Pearlstein/Finkel family. She is at peace, having joined our dad, Myron, as well as her family and friends who have passed before her. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. Funeral will be private. There will be no memorial observance. Donations may be made to Seasons Hospice + Palliative Care, 597 Randolph Ave., Milton, MA 02186 or Shriner’s Hospital for Children, Office of Development, 2900 Rocky Point Dr., Tampa, FL 33607.

Tess Wishengrad Siegel died peacefully at home in Canton, MA on July 9, 2021. She was 80.

She was cherished by her family and her dog, Nellie. A lover of music, literature and poetry, she enjoyed playing everything from Brahms to baseball, but was perhaps best known as a titan of the scrabble board with a soft spot for chipmunks and chocolate chip cookies.

Tess was born in 1941 in New York City, to Rose Pesin and Morton Wishengrad, writer for stage, television, and radio, known for his work on The Eternal Light produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary. Tess’s early life was marked by tragedy, losing first her mother at age 9, then her father at age 21.

Some of her happiest childhood memories were spent at Deerwood, a summer music camp in the Adirondacks where she developed a passion for music that sustained her throughout her life. She attended Vassar College, then completed her education at Boston University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in Music, and later completed a master’s degree in Education.

In 1962, she married Paul Yager. Three years later, they moved to Israel to study Hebrew and eventually settled in the Boston area where they raised their children, Josh and Abby Yager.

In 1986, she married Eli Siegel, Professor of Biology at Tufts University, whose intellect and humor both amazed and delighted her throughout their marriage. Together with Eli, she raised his young son, Michael Siegel, whom she loved and cared for as her own.

Highlights of their life together include trips to visit relatives in Australia, Asia and Europe that they had long dreamed of taking.

Tess was a natural born teacher. Blessed with a flare for animating and conveying the subtleties of language, she taught high school English in Newton, Stoughton, and at the Maimonides School in Brookline where she is still remembered for her theatrical direction of Thorton Wilder’s, Our Town.

But it was as a piano teacher that she struck the most profound chord in students’ lives. In a career spanning 35 years, she mentored young musicians who flocked to her living room studio for individual lessons and gathered for monthly recitals to celebrate each other’s musical growth.

Several of her students with whom she remained in touch until soon before her death have said that she not only infused them with a love of music, but more importantly, cultivated their imagination, encouraged exploration, and fueled their belief in themselves.

As a wife, mother and grandmother she offered unconditional love, support and encouragement for which we are eternally grateful.

Tess is survived by her siblings, Joel Wishengrad, Nina Wishengrad and Dan Wishengrad;  her children Josh Yager, Abby Yager and Mike Siegel; their spouses Sarah Holewinski Yager and Ming-Lung Yang; her grandchildren, Miru Yang and Lilah Yager, and her beloved husband Eli Siegel, with whom she would have celebrated 35 years of marriage three days after her death.

Funeral services will be held Friday, July 16th at 10 am Temple Reyim, 1860 Washington Street, Newton, MA 02466. Burial will follow at Zviller Cemetery, 776 Baker Street, West Roxbury, MA 02132. Donations in her memory can be made to American Jewish World Service, PO Box 568, Edna, NH 03750.

Donald Saul Gair, 96, died at home in Arlington Thursday, July 8, this past week with his family at his side.

Married for 68 years, Donald and Joyce Rae Moon Gair, his partner in all that they created together, raised Nancy, Jane, and Peter and helped them and their spouses, Bill Champion, Keith Prairie and Wendy Muello, raise their six children, Jonathan and William Champion, Everett Prairie, and Nora, Molly, and Nathan Gair. All will miss Donald but hold forever his love and wisdom in their hearts.

Donald was born in New York City January 25, 1925, foretold by a solar eclipse (important family lore), to Mollie nee Arginteanu and Harry A. Gair. Donald and his beloved sister Barbara Gair Scheiber of Rockville, Maryland, who passed away in March at age 99, grew up in a family that prized words and stories and theater, arts, music, travel, and the outdoors and active participation in different areas supporting those in difficulty. Harry was a noted plaintiff’s attorney; Mollie a clinical psychologist; Barbara an author and vigorous advocate for disabled children; Donald a physician and child psychiatrist. Along with his loving stepmother Harriet Rosenberg Gair, who became a partner in the Gair & Gair law firm and a Putnam County Judge, came brothers Elwood Gair, and a bit later twins Roger and Anthony Gair, each crucial keys to Donald’s learning about being a good big brother.

Family and lore, perhaps, led Donald to a vision as a very young child. In the sky he saw a large business card:

Donald Saul Gair

All Questions Asked – & Answered.

Maybe to that end and to fulfill his four-year-old self’s declaration to become a doctor, Donald became Dr. Gair in 1950 at Harvard Medical School, a crucible of wonder for him and his many lifelong schoolmates, after attending Harvard, serving as Lt., J.G., in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and graduating from Harvard University in 1945 as a proud alumnus and member of the Signet Society.

His career as a physician and psychiatrist specializing in child and adolescent care spanned over 70 years and featured the training of generations of those who became peers in his field.

Donald did his medical internship at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, his psychiatry residency at Boston Psychopathic with neurology at Queens Square in London as well as a child psychiatry fellowship at Mass Mental Health Center (renamed from the Psycho). Along with his private practice, he became Clinical Director and then Superintendent of the Gaebler Children’s Center for under 16-year-olds, after leading the struggle to keep it open by designating it a state hospital. During that time he was appointed Chair of the Dept. of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, consulting and teaching and supervising there after his retirement from BUSM. He reluctantly retired from his private practice in 2017.

Donald cherished teaching (recalling always that teacher in Latin is doctor) and supervision. His goal, if he had a first lecture to medical students, was for everyone to become child psychiatrists, to join him in his calling.

At the onset of his medical training, Donald began the far more important study of courting and harmonious relating and living as he met, proposed to, and got fortunately married to the vivacious Joyce Rae Moon, R.N., of Bangor, Maine, who, we believe, agreed to but on a trial basis, which successfully went Donald’s – and all our – way.

Some of his greatest joys were travel with his family especially with his wife Joyce. At their camp on Mousam Lake in Maine and in Virgin Gorda, BVI, long-time friends and new also became family sharing in birthdays, boating, and years-long conversation. All such travel and stays included singing and harmonizing often with plucked and struck strings and brass.

Surviving Donald are his wife Joyce, their three children and their spouses Peter Gair and Wendy Muello, M.D., Jane and Keith Prairie, Nancy Gair and Bill Champion; grandchildren Nathan, Molly, and Nora Gair; Everett Prairie; William and Jonathan Champion; his brothers Elwood Gair and Anthony Gair, an attorney at Gair, Gair, Conason, et al.; and many dearly loved nieces and nephews (including grands and great grands).

His sister Barbara Scheiber and brother Roger Gair predeceased him.

Donald and all his family want to thank the support from hospice and the lovely care from his 24/7 helpers which allowed him to be comfortable at home.

Burial will be private. In due course a memorial service will be planned to allow for a longer get-together and good-bye.

Please, if interested, see Dr. Gair’s brief reflections on parts of his ever-growing care for the field of his calling and those it served. In it is one of his powerful aphorisms (since continually worked on), “Truth is the fragile child of skepticism. Dogma the brutal spawn of certainty.” (Gair 1988).

https://www.aacap.org/App_Themes/AACAP/docs/life_members/news/life_members_wisdom_and_history_a_gift_in_my_life.pdf

Donald Saul Gair – January 25th, 1925, NYC, NY – July 8th, 2021, Arlington, MA

Barbara (Sherter) Levitz, of Belmont, MA passed away peacefully at home July 6, 2021.  Daughter of the late Edith and Joseph Sherter of Dorchester, MA.  Beloved wife of the late Dr. Irvin Levitz. Devoted mother to Mark H. Rubin and his wife Lauren E. Rubin, and the late Eric J. Rubin and his surviving wife Roberta Rubin.Caring stepmother to Jennifer Aronson, Susan Levitz, Sandy Lunner and Michael Levitz. Loving grandmother to Jake, Grace, Lucy and Evan Rubin. At the request of Barbara’s family her funeral service and interment will be private. Memorial observance will be at the home of Mark and Lauren Rubin, Sunday, July 11, 2021 from 3:00 -5:00 PM. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation, 72 River Park Street, Suite 202, Needham Heights, MA 02494 or The National Brain Tumor Society, 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458.

PAVLOFF, JEFFREY A., of Randolph, MA, passed away July 5, 2021. Beloved son of Elaine (Harpel) and the late Richard Pavloff of Randolph. Loving brother of Alan Pavloff and his wife Lynda of North Easton. Adored uncle of Anastasia and Dylan. Graveside service at Custom Tailors Cemetery, 776 Baker St., West Roxbury, MA on Wednesday, July 7, 2021 at 1 pm. In lieu of flowers, donations in Jeffrey’s memory may be made to the American Diabetes Association, or the National Kidney Foundation.

Miriam Laserson Weiser Varon, an actress and poet who worked on stage, film, radio, and television on four continents in six languages and helped her husband establish and operate two Israeli embassies, died at age 102, on July 2, 2021, at her home in Brookline, Massachusetts, in the company of loved ones.

She was born May 23, 1919 in a horse-drawn carriage in Moscow, Russia, en route to the hospital. Her father, engineer Leon Laserson, fainted when she made her accelerated appearance. Her mother, Dr. Frieda Orkin Laserson, one of the first two women accepted to medical school in Russia, calmly delivered her third child.

From there, life continued eventful and surprising, and took her all over the world. Her family moved for a time to their native Riga, Latvia, and subsequently to Vienna, Austria. As a grade school student in Vienna, she was the only girl on a boys’ soccer team and became an ardent Zionist and avid mountain-climber, running away from summer camp at age 15 to summit the Grossglockner with three boys from her Zionist youth group. Her other great passion was for acting, which she studied at the Theatre de l’Atelier in Paris, France, while skipping lectures at the Sorbonne. World War II broke out while she was visiting her parents at their second residence in Bucharest, Romania, and she made her way to Palestine, where she lived in Tel Aviv from 1939 to 1947. She was an apprentice with the Habima Theater, later to become the national theater of Israel, and co-founded a new theater, Ha Teatron Ha-Hadash. She supported herself and eventually her widowed mother through a combination of day jobs and acting work.

She was cast in the movie “My Father’s House,” written and filmed in Palestine by American author Meyer Levin, and traveled to the United States to promote the film. She then settled in New York City, where she worked on Wall Street while performing off-Broadway and regionally and on live television. For CBS, she produced and starred in her own adaptation of Argentinean playwright Alejandro Casona’s “The Lady of the Dawn.”  In New York, she met Benno Weiser, a journalist, Zionist activist, and fellow Viennese, and after an on-again/off-again romance and a break-up trip across Canada in his convertible, top down all the way, married him on Armistice Day, 1956, when he “unconditionally surrendered.”  Together they wrote a play, A Letter to the New York Times, which they subsequently produced in Latin America.

In 1960, she and her husband moved their family to Israel, for which her husband had obtained key votes in favor of the United Nations partition resolution from various South American countries. After four years in Jerusalem, her husband was appointed an ambassador and tasked with establishing the first Israeli embassy in the Dominican Republic. At this time, to represent their nation abroad, they chose the Hebrew surname Varon. As ambassador’s wife, she arranged and supervised the various ceremonial and entertaining aspects of the job, and was evacuated together with her two young children to Puerto Rico during a civil war in which the deposed President was rumored to be living in her embassy. The family returned to New York in 1966 when her husband joined the Israeli delegation to the United Nations, and in 1967, moved to Asuncion, Paraguay, where her husband and she again opened the first Israeli embassy. During their diplomatic years she coped with war, terrorism, hurricanes, and earthquakes. She continued acting, mostly in Spanish, during her postings, and led her family in outdoor adventures on five continents on epic vacations.

Following her husband’s retirement from diplomacy, they settled in Brookline in 1972. While he wrote, raised funds for Israel, and taught at Boston University, she acted with Boston area theater companies including the Lyric Stage, Worcester Foothills, and the Nickerson Theater in roles that included Mrs. Alving in Ghosts, Esther in The Price, Jocasta in Oedipus Rex, Edith Frank in Meyer Levin’s adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank, the Grand Duchess in You Can’t Take It With You, Bubbie in Crossing Delancey, and many roles in new plays and new play readings.  She appeared in locally shot films, industrials and commercials, and worked as a print model. During these decades she also wrote three volumes of poetry, Thoughtprints, Wind Chimes and Late Harvest, worked as a translator (she was fluent in English, Spanish, German, Hebrew and French, and capable in Russian, Yiddish and Guarani), and traveled the world.

She is survived by her son, Leonard (Amy Woodward), of Hingham, Massachusetts, daughter Daniela of New York City, grandchildren Aaron (Gail Rosewood) and Anna, nieces Ruth Ullman, Nina Dunn, Lillian Laserson, nephews Henry and Michael Hirschhorn, with their families, and by Sarah Nakato Luke, who from  2004 was a live-in caregiver first for her husband and then for her, allowing them to live out their lives in their home as was their fervent wish. She was predeceased by her parents and her siblings Michael, Renata, and Gregory.

Funeral services will be at Bigelow Chapel, Mt. Auburn cemetery, 580 Mt. Auburn St., Cambridge on July 6, 2021 at 1:30 p.m.  Interment to follow at the cemetery. Donations may be made to The Actors Fund or Appalachian Mountain Club.

To view the livestream of Miriam’s service, please click here.

We share with you now the profound loss of someone we deeply loved and the world will miss. Nancy Levy died suddenly on late on July 1st, 2021. She had a very fragile heart and it could not survive one final incident. Nancy was a very special woman, who made friends easily of everyone she met- from fellow teachers, to many people at her new long-term care facility, to every mailperson, handyman, salesperson, etc. She was deeply spiritual and her temple describes her as the backbone of their congregation. Nancy touched many lives and made a huge difference in this world. She will be missed by many, many people, especially her sister, Ellen, and her 30-year-old son, Micah. Contributions can be sent to B’nai Or of Boston at their website   or mailed to B’nai Or of Boston PO Box 400715 Cambridge, MA 02140.  Please earmark any contributions to the Nancy Levy Spiritual Development Fund.  Shivas will be held on Zoom, Tuesday and Thursday night and in person on Weds night. For more information on attending a Shiva Minyan, contact Julie Leavitt at injewel1@gmail.com or marilynpstern@gmail.com. Traditionally, Jews say ‘May Her Memory Be for a Blessing.’ Those of us who knew Nancy echo this and also know that, without any doubt, Nancy Levy was a blessing for us all.

Funeral service on Tuesday, July 6, 2021 at 1:30 pm at Congregation Or Atid, 97 Concord Rd., Wayland, followed by interment at Beit Olam East, 42 Concord Rd., Wayland, MA.

Service can be viewed here