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Academic, Lawyer Phyllis Lachs Dies at 88
O B I TUA RY
SELAH MAYA ZIGHELBOIM | JE STAFF
PHYLLIS LACHS, who died
March 1 at 88, was a woman
ahead of her time.

She spent most of her career
on the faculty at Bryn Mawr
College, where she received a
master’s and Ph.D. in history
and then became the college’s
first general counsel after grad-
uating from the University of
Pennsylvania School of Law.

She clerked for a Pennsylvania
Superior Court judge and did
a postdoctoral program at Yale
Law School.

“Phyllis epitomized work-life
balance and having it all, phrases
that have now become common-
place in our culture,” daughter
Susanna Lachs Adler, board
chair of the Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia, said in
a eulogy. “She was a pioneer who
made it look effortless, when as
we know, it was anything but
effortless.” Lachs was born in 1930,
the oldest child of a native
Philadelphian and a Russian
immigrant. She attended
Reform Congregation Keneseth
Israel and went to Camp Akiba.

During her childhood, her par-
ents sponsored an Austrian fam-
ily fleeing Nazi Germany, who
lived with them for a time. This
had a profound impact on Lachs’
Jewish identity.

As an adult, she belonged
to Temple Beth Hillel-Beth
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8 MARCH 14, 2019
Phyllis Lachs
El in Wynnewood. Later, she
joined Adath Israel in Merion
Station. She was a supporter of
the American Associates, Ben-
Gurion University of the Negev
and the Israel Guide Dog Center.

Tradition was important to her,
and she hosted many Shabbat
dinners and seders.

Lachs’ decision, in 1959, to
work while she still had four
children at home, was not an
easy one, as she recalled when
her granddaughter, Sara Adler,
interviewed her for a college
paper. She faced discrimina-
tion from employers and col-
leagues, and other mothers in
the neighborhood made disap-
proving comments.

That decision may have
been informed, Lachs Adler
supposed, by her experience at
Philadelphia High School for
Girls and Wellesley College, as
well as the fact that both her
own mother and grandmother
worked. In Sara Adler’s paper,
Lachs said she was inspired by
iconic feminist Gloria Steinem,
who, when asked if well-
qualified women entering
the workforce would make it
harder for average men to get
Photo courtesy of Susanna Lachs Adler
jobs, replied, “I hope so.”
Her daughter, inspired by
her mother’s example, also
became a lawyer. “She was the
first attorney in Pennsylvania
to have her bar admission
to the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania moved by her
daughter,” Lachs Adler said.

Lachs brought her pioneer-
ing spirit to other parts of her
life, starting a needlepoint busi-
ness called The Blue Thread.

“She was very kind,” Lachs
Adler said. “She had dignity,
treating other people with
kindness and with dignity, giv-
ing tzedakah and making sure
we felt that it was part of who
we were to give back.”
Lachs is survived by her
children, Susanna Lachs Adler
and husband Dean, Michael E.

Lachs and Joshua Lachs; her
brother, Robert Seltzer and his
wife, Ellen; and grandchildren
Anna Tykocinski and her hus-
band David, Sara Adler and
Matthew Lachs.

Donations can be made to
the Jewish Federation. l
szighelboim@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
2/22/19 1:18 PM
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