H eadlines
Former ‘Jewish Exponent’ Editor Dies at 80
O B I TUA RY
SELAH MAYA ZIGHELBOIM | JE STAFF
JOURNALIST MARILYN
Laudenslager, a
former Exponent editor, died on Feb.
1 in Medford, N.J., leaving
behind a legacy that includes
hundreds, if not thousands,
of articles on local Jewish
communities. She also leaves behind
an extended family of sib-
lings, half-siblings, children,
grandchildren, stepchildren,
step-grandchildren and step-
great-grandchildren — many of
whom are better writers because
of her influence.
Laudenslager, who wrote
under her first married name
Marilyn Silverstein, was 80
when she died.
“She took every comma,
every period, every word seri-
ously,” said Josh Silverstein,
Marilyn Laudenslager
Photo provided
Laudenslager’s youngest son.
“She believed in the power
and importance of the written
word and was just very careful
to try to get it right.”
Her decades as a journalist
include 17 years at the Jewish
Exponent, from 1985 until
2001, where she worked as the
religion editor and features
editor. “She wanted to go after
assignments that made things
right,” said Fredda Sacharow,
who served as the Jewish
Exponent’s managing editor
from 1986 until 1998. “She
wanted to write about the
homeless in Philadelphia. She
wanted to write about things
that she saw that could be made
better by stories that she did.”
Laudenslager pursued top-
ics others felt were a shanda for
her to cover, including clergy
abuse and the trial of Rabbi
Fred Neulander, who was con-
victed of hiring two men to
kill his wife. Laudenslager also
went undercover to report on
the Jews for Jesus movement.
Homelessness in the Jewish
community was one of the
topics she was most passion-
ate about covering, even when
her articles were not neces-
sarily flattering to the Jewish
community. After leaving the Exponent
in 2001, she continued to com-
mit herself to Jewish writing.
She spent eight years at the
New Jersey Jewish News, where
she served as the Princeton/
Mercer/Bucks bureau chief.
She also worked as a freelance
copy editor and edited a pleth-
ora of Jewish writing, includ-
ing Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish
Responsibility, A Guide to
Jewish Practice by Rabbi David
Teutsch and the quarterly
journal The Reconstructionist.
She also did copyediting for
The Forward and the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency.
Her work won her numer-
ous awards, including from
the American Jewish Press
Association and the New Jersey
Press Association.
“She had a passion there
for the Jewish community that
kept her doing that work,” Josh
Silverstein said. “Even long
after she left, she loved building
rapport and relationships with
rabbis and having discussions
with them about Jewish cus-
toms and teachings. That’s just
really where she developed her
network, her sources. It was all
there. Even when she left the
Exponent, she wanted to keep
that and wanted to continue to
have a hand in talking about
things of importance to the
Jewish community.”
Laudenslager is survived
by her husband Richard J.
Laudenslager; three sons
from her first marriage, Bob,
Steven and Josh Silverstein;
brother Harold Schachter;
half-siblings Judy Miller, Rania
James, Bonnie Wassall and
David Schachter; five grand-
children; five stepchildren;
12 step-grandchildren and 15
step-great-grandchildren. l
szighelboim@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
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H EADLINES
Soviet Immigrant Running for City Council
L O CAL
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
“I HAVE A QUESTION for
you,” Irina Goldstein asked.
“What does conservative mean
anymore, right? What does
conservative look like in 2019?”
Goldstein, 34, is betting that
the answer is a Soviet immi-
grant running for an at-large
Philadelphia City Council
seat as a Republican, one who
actively posts on social media
and describes the U.S. penal
system as “the new Jim Crow,”
all while maintaining strictly
conservative economic policies.
Goldstein left the former
Soviet Union with her par-
ents when she was 4, stopping
in Austria and Italy for close
to a year before settling in
Northeast Philadelphia. She
said she is deeply commit-
ted to stymieing socialism in
Irina Goldstein, in a still from her
upcoming campaign commercial
Photo provided
the United States.
“Th ey got rich, and we got
poor,” she says of her family’s
time in the U.S.S.R. “We had
equal amounts of nothing.”
Her father, a builder in
Ukraine, and her mother, a
radiology nurse, worked as a
day laborer and a hospice care
nurse, respectively, in the U.S.
Aft er testing out of high
school early, she attended
Community College
of Philadelphia before transferring
to Temple University. She had
a stint in the pharmaceutical
industry, but found it draining.
Before long, she decided that
she had bigger plans, and moved
on to the MBA program at Saint
Joseph’s. While she studied
part time, she started Gold Bull
Management, a fi nancial services
company. A few years later, she
started a fur coat company called
MOD+FURS. Even still, it felt like
something was missing.
Th at’s when some of her
more politically inclined friends
began to tell her she should con-
sider running for offi ce.
“I speak a lot of truth,” she
said, “and I never met a politi-
cian who spoke the truth.” But
her friends convinced her with
a comparison to one particular
Republican: President Trump.
Though at first evasive
on her stance on Trump (“I
respect the position of the pres-
ident of the United States”), she
eventually confesses: She sees
herself in him.
“What I don’t like about him
is actually what makes him
most eff ective,” she said. Like
him, she said, she’s a bulldozer.
Indeed, she displays a similar
capacity for taking advantage
of the news cycle and utilizing
social media. She rails against
the “radical, Marxist and
self-centered agenda” of city
Democrats on Twitter, and the
“delusional, nonsensical, child-
ish thinking and planning” of
their national counterparts.
Of her own longtime coun-
cilman, Bobby Henon, who
was recently hit with federal
charges of bribery, conspiracy
and fraud, she said: “You fi nd
out that the councilman from
Northeast Philadelphia, where
you grew up, where you and
your parents have paid taxes
for over 30 years, is not there to
advocate on your behalf!”
She’s similarly frustrated
with the Philadelphia GOP.
“I wasn’t met with fanfare,
I can tell you that,” she said of
her appeals for assistance.
“Any candidate that calls
and asks for assistance and
guidance, we’ve been happy to
give it, and we have given it to
Irina,” responded Christopher
Vogler, vice chair and execu-
tive director of the Republican
Party of Philadelphia.
Wherever she fi nds her sup-
port, Goldstein is ready for the
campaign. “I have the mouth of a sailor
and the heart of a servant,” she
said. “Where does this person
fi t in? Politics!” ●
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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