H eadlines
State Legislator Babette Josephs Dies at 81
OB ITUARY
SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
BABETTE JOSEPHS, a
stalwart progressive and a
representative of the 182nd
Pennsylvania House District
from 1985-2012, died Aug. 27
of cancer in Eugene, Oregon.

She was 81.

Josephs was a longtime
fighter for reproductive rights,
LGBT rights, racial equality
and environmental sustain-
ability, serving 14 consecutive
terms, making her the longest-
serving woman in the state
House of Representatives. She
was one of only a handful
of Democratic Socialists of
America members to be elected
to state government.

“I describe her as an indefat-
igable advocate for progressive
values and issues in the
legislature,” said former Rep.

Dan Frankel of Pennsylvania’s
23rd District.

Josephs and Frankel became
colleagues and friends in 1990.

Frankel was the chair of the
Pennsylvania Jewish Coalition,
and Josephs was nominated for
and won PJC’s Legislator of the
Year Award that year.

They both represented
districts with sizable Jewish
populations and progressive
constituencies, and Frankel,
who was elected in 1999,
looked to her for advice.

They would swim laps
at the East Shore YMCA in
Harrisburg, joined sometimes
by Speaker of the House
Mike Turzai, which Frankel
said was “an unusual exhibi-
tion of bipartisanship, at least
recreationally.” This was emblematic of who
Josephs was: charming and
with a good sense of humor,
Frankel said. She also was
fierce and determined.

“There was an intensity to
her,” Frankel said. “She really
didn’t take any flak from people.”
As a representative, Josephs
was a bastion for liberal causes.

She was an early supporter
of the Fairness Act, which
provided civil rights protec-
tions against employment and
housing discriminations on
the basis of age, race, religion,
ethnicity and gender. Joseph’s
committee heard the bill and
kicked it out of committee
in 2007, the only time at that
point that the bill ever got out
of committee, according to
Frankel. A fighter for civil liberties,
Josephs cast the only vote against
legislation requiring all school-
children in the state to recite the
Pledge of Allegiance daily.

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JEWISH EXPONENT
Babette Josephs was “indefagitable,” according to Dan Frankel
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
“Babette’s fire was stoked
over decades of doing the right
thing. She was among the early
champions of people living with
HIV,” said Ronda Goldfein,
executive director of the AIDS
Law Project of Pennsylvania, in
an ACLU PA tribute to Josephs.

“She introduced an HIV confi-
dentiality bill that prevented
health care and social service
providers from disclosing that
patients and clients were living
with HIV.”
She was scrutinized in 2013
after accusing fellow Jewish
Labor Committee member
Gregg Kravitz of falsely claiming
an LGBT identity to win over
gay voters in the Pennsylvania
House primary, the Jewish
Exponent reported. Kravitz
responded by denying her claim,
saying sexual orientation was
not relevant to his election.

After retiring, Josephs
continued to pursue her
progressive passions. She
served on the board of the
Jewish Social Policy Action
Network and founded and
served as executive director
of the state chapter of the
National Abortion Rights
Action League. Josephs also
co-created the Clara Bell
Duvall Reproductive Freedom
Project, which merged with the
ACLU PA.

Josephs was born in
Manhattan and raised in
Queens, where she received her
bachelor’s degree from Queens
College in 1962. She earned
her law degree from Rutgers-
Camden School of Law in 1976.

She married her husband,
Herbert Newberg, in Queens in
1962, and they were married for
30 years before his 1992 death.

Prior to serving in public
office, Josephs was a teacher
and lawyer and founded
and directed environmen-
talist, education and abortion
advocacy groups.

Josephs moved to Eugene in
2019 to be closer to her daughter
Eliza Master. Aside from her
daughter, she is survived by her
son Lee Newberg, six grand-
children and brother Williams
Josephs. l
srogelberg@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0741
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
Teen Wins Award for Bat Mitzvah Project
L OCA L
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
FOR MANY JEWISH kids,
the bar/bat mitzvah project is
an obligation. But for Jemmi
Seeherman, it was a revelation.

Throughout 2020, she
raised almost $1,300 and
collected more than 600
care items for the PA Breast
Cancer Coalition. After the
Wyndmoor resident had her
bat mitzvah in November, the
coalition sent her parents an
email. It said that Jemmi had won
the nonprofit’s annual Shining
Light Award for grassroots
leadership. “I learned that I actually
have the power to make stuff
happen,” she said.

Jemmi’s project actually
started two years earlier when
her mom, Elisa Seeherman,
was diagnosed with breast
cancer. The daughter was 11 at
the time and scared, she said.

“It couldn’t have been easy,”
Elisa Seeherman said.

But after facing her fear,
the daughter started helping
her mother recover. She began
cleaning more around the
house and hanging out with
her mom just to talk.

“She was a shining light,”
said Michael Seeherman,
Jemmi’s father and Elisa’s
husband. Elisa Seeherman made a full
recovery in 2019. Near the end
of the year, she sat down with
Jemmi to discuss possible bat
mitzvah projects.

And the daughter had an
idea. She remembered her mom
reaching out to the coalition
and receiving a care package. It
was filled with useful goodies
like comfortable satin pillow-
cases, cooling towels for her
neck and adult coloring books.

“It provided her with stuff
that people might not know
they need,” Jemmi said.

The daughter wanted to give
other breast cancer patients the
same care package. She pitched
the project to Rabbi Saul Grife
at Beth Tikvah B’nai Jeshurun
in Erdenheim, the family’s
synagogue. He approved.

“He wants each project to
be meaningful for the kids,”
Michael Seeherman said.

Jemmi recorded a video
asking for donations and
posted it on social media. It
also went out through her
parents’ Facebook accounts,
the synagogue newsletter and
the coalition’s website.

Each post included two links:
one for making donations, on
the coalition site, and another
for shipping items to the
Seeherman house, through
Amazon. Donations and
packages came from friends
and community members alike,
Michael Seeherman said.

As COVID-19 pushed
Jemmi’s bat mitzvah back
from March to November, the
dollars and items kept coming.

“I was amazed at how many
people were actually donating,”
she said.

Now 14, Jemmi is starting into
her freshman year at Springfield
Township High School. And at
her temple’s Hebrew school, she
is going to mentor students with
special needs.

Jemmi is in the Reta
Emerson Fellowship Program,
which trains high school
students to work with children
with special needs. After
Jemmi Seeherman on the day
she dropped off care package
items to the PA Breast Cancer
Coalition office in Lebanon.

Photo by Elisa Seeherman
being recommended by Roni
Handler, Beth Tikvah’s director
of education, Jemmi wrote an
essay to apply and was accepted.

“She’s going to continue to
find outlets to make a differ-
ence,” Elisa Seeherman said. l
jsaffren@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
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