H eadlines
One Year of the Pandemic: Those We’ve Lost
L OCA L
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
IN APRIL 2020, the Jewish
Exponent ran the first segment
of “Those We’ve Lost to
COVID-19.” The series aimed to pay
tribute to those who died of
a disease that threatened to
overwhelm their memory with
staggering death tolls and
frightening symptoms.

O ne ye a r si nc e t he
pandemic began, the Exponent
has featured 25 people in
six sections of “Those We’ve
Lost,” and the names of new
coronavirus victims continue
to appear in the newspaper’s
Death Notices section and staff
inboxes. These names belong
to Jewish teachers, veterans,
clergy, doctors, business
owners, nonprofit workers,
athletes, artists and more.

This is by no means an
exhaustive list of members
of the Philadelphia Jewish
community who have died of
COVID-19 over the last year,
but it is a tribute to those we
covered thanks to the outreach
of their loved ones.

Most of the people below
received more extensive
coverage at the time of their
death. Two of the people,
Ashley Altman and Susan
Love, were not covered in one of
our “Those We’ve Lost” install-
ments, so they get a little extra
detail here. For the others, we
chose a couple of humanizing
details about them to remind
you of who they were.

March 2020
Dr. Irvin Kean, 95, worked
out twice a day and walked
the golf courses of Sarasota,
Florida, six days a week. He
was a dentist for 43 years.

April 2020
Rebbetzin Rachel Altein,
95, was an influential leader
within the Chabad Lubavitch
movements and worked
at the Chabad Women’s
Organization’s publication Di
Yiddishe Heim (“The Jewish
Home”) as its English-language
editor. Loretta Coleman, 85, was
born in London during World
War II and married Gerald
Coleman, a “bespoke tailor
from Liverpool,” as her son
Rabbi Alexander Coleman
put it.

Margit Feldman, 91, was
born in Hungary and survived
Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

She served on the New Jersey
Commission on Holocaust
Education for more than
40 years, helped pass a state
law mandating a Holocaust
and genocide curriculum in
public schools and co-founded
Raritan Valley Community
College Institute for Holocaust
and Genocide Studies.

Ethel Hamburger, 92, was
a longtime Sisterhood leader
at Beth El Congregation in
Bethesda, Maryland, the
1947 Chicago Jr. Hadassah
Ashley J. Altman
Membership Queen and
one-time Congregant of
the Year at Beth Sholom husband, Bernard Millrood, in
1974. She was an artist who
Eileen Chanin, 74, taught Congregation in Elkins Park.

loved painting, needlepoint
herself to play the piano
and sculpture.

Sylvia Millrood,
82, was
the one-handed after an injury. She
first president
of the
Sisterhood had an adventurous spirit and
Gloria Allen Moskowitz,
traveled to Morocco with her of Congregation Or Shalom,
88, was the former admin-
which she
founded with
her 1-year-old as a young mother.

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Courtesy of Jennie Nemroff
a World War II veteran who
helped build the old Liberty
Bell Pavilion. He founded
community spaces like the
Beachcomber Swim Club
and West Oak Lane Jewish
Community Center dedicated
to serving
middle-class families and Jewish people.

Roy Gomer, 83, was a
dedicated father and loved
taking care of his grand-
children. His wife, Bobbie
Gomer, 79, was a fixture of
the Philadelphia bridge scene
and achieved the distinction
of Platinum Life Master. They
Eve Rudin, 103, was a died within one day of each
passionate liberal political other.

activist. “She went door-to-
door against McCarthy and
Libbie Rubin Greenbaum,
had a lot of influence on me,” 96, enjoyed swimming, tennis
daughter Marion Rudin Frank and bridge. She was active in
said. “She was very much the Sisterhood of Main Line
for women having an equal Reform Temple and Hadassah.

opportunity.” Arlene Horowitz, 78, was
May 2020
a former art educator in the
Richard Aronson, 94, was Haverford School District and
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Susan Love
Courtesy of Ashley Freedman
created the program Art Goes was beloved by her nieces and
to School. She loved throwing nephews.

parties, whether it was for the
High Holidays or a random December 2020
Tuesday. Ashley Altman, 100, was
a World War II veteran who
Melva Klebanoff, 95, earned a Bronze Star for his
taught art at Samuel K. Faust work tracking enemy troop
Elementary in the Bensalem movements before the Battle of
School District for more than the Bulge. He worked as a real
25 years. She was an artist, and estate developer in Philadelphia
her true love was painting.

aft er his honorable discharge.

He was a charter founder
Avraham MacConnell, 72, of the Ellis Island Project and
served in the Vietnam War and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
became a Philadelphia police Museum and supported many
offi cer when he returned from Jewish charities. He also estab-
military service. He worked as a lished the Sandra Altman Brain
detective in the sex crimes unit Tumor Research Fellowship
of the Juvenile Aid Division and Visiting Professorship at
and received a commendation Penn Medicine in honor of his
for going undercover to expose wife, who died of a brain tumor
a youth detention center abuse at 45.

ring. Altman was an avid
Philadelphia sports fan and
Nola Schwartz, 85, was a particularly loved the Phillies
businesswoman who enjoyed and the Eagles, but his favorite
treating her loved ones to tickets granted admission to
Broadway shows and fancy the sports games and recitals of
meals in New York. She had
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