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Revision as of 16:52, 6 July 2008 by 67.101.255.166 (talk) (death info added)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Lois Roisman was an activist, playwright and national leader in the field of Jewish philanthropy. Roisman was the first executive director of the Jewish Funds for Justice, the first national Jewish grant-making organization in the United States. Roisman was previously executive director of the Oklahoma City Community Foundation. Roisman has spent over 20 in the field of philanthropy. The American Jewish Committee reported that Roisman, "claimed that political and religious developments were causing Jews to reassess their position in American life.
- "The Moral Majority's call for the Christianization of America underlines the importance of a more active Jewish participation in efforts to create a just society", she said. Initial grants made by the fund were to Navajos in Arizona, homeless African-Americans in Boston, and low-income Mexican-Americans in Colorado." In the early 1980s, she was the director of the community foundation program at the Council on Foundations, a trade association for philanthropies. One of its first grants was to a young Chicago activist named Barack Obama.
Background
Lois Levin was a native of Fayetteville, Texas, and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. She spent much of her early life in Oklahoma City, where she was a medical editor, ran a charitable group and helped start a summer arts program for grade-school students. She later relocated to Brenham, Texas.
She wrote seven plays, including Nobody's Gilgul, which in 1993 won the Source Festival's award for best new play. The play, a comedy, concerned a female lawyer and an angel from the shtetl, or a poor Jewish community. It was performed at community theaters nationally and anthologized in Making a Scene: The Contemporary Drama of Jewish-American Women (1997). Her poetry was also published in literary magazines.
Family/Death
Her marriage to Arnold Fagin ended in divorce. She died of congestive heart failure on June 2 2008, aged 70, at her home in Lyme, New Hampshire.
At the time of her death, Roisman was a research associate at the Brandeis Women's Institute at Brandeis University and was completing a series of poems she described as a personal dialogue with the tales of the Chasidim.
She was survived by her second husband, Anthony Roisman; three children from her first marriage; three stepchildren; seven grandchildren and a sister.
References
- Maynard, Steve (1985-08-24). "Texas native heads one-of-a-kind Jewish fund". Houston Chronicle. Houston Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-11-20.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - Brandriss, Marc (1986). "Review of the Year" (PDF). American Jewish Committee. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - Teltsch, Kathleen (1985-08-13). "New Jewish Philanthropy Aiming At Nonsectarian Aid For All Poor". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - "Lois Roisman obituary". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-06-14.
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