by dan pine
staff writer
Margaret “Maggie” Sontag noticed the little things. And that loomed large for her family and friends.
Knowing whether a friend preferred his blintzes with jam, or how a plate of gefilte fish might go down for the break-fast after Yom Kippur, Sontag kept things straight. An expert chef, she loved to feed people and, in doing so, she nourished those around her — in every sense of the word.
Sontag’s sudden death from a brain aneurysm Dec. 29 shocked those that loved her. At 59, she still had a lot of living to do.
“Maggie fed people and loved people,” said Rabbi Jane Litman, Sontag’s colleague at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El.
“She was a tremendously maternal and generous human being, always looking for ways to be kind and supportive. She believed in the age-old Jewish idea that food equals love.”
As catering and lifecycle manager at Beth El, Sontag did more than simply oversee the wedding and b’nai mitzvah schedule. More often than not, she served as caterer, cook and color-schemer, lending a personal touch to every culinary and decorative decision.
Her resume in the Jewish professional world is impressive. Before her seven-year tenure at Beth El, she served as an assistant to the executive director at S.F.’s Congregation Sherith Israel. Prior to moving to California in 1996, she worked with the Union of Reform Judaism doing outreach to interfaith families. With a degree in early childhood education, she also taught at synagogue schools in Texas and Florida.
The New York native grew up the daughter of Holocaust refugees in what she called a “Conservadox” home. She later married Alan Sontag, with whom she had three children.
After divorcing, Sontag lived in Orlando, Fla., working in the Jewish community there.
While surfing the Web in 1996, she found herself in a chat room for women over 40, called “The Golden Girls.” It was there that she met Ann Murphy, an East Bay resident. The two developed an online friendship that blossomed into romance.
“She was single and open,” said Murphy, Sontag’s partner of 10 years. “She was not a lesbian but she decided she would be open. When we met for the first time at the airport, it was like a blind person who had just gotten their sight.”
At the time, Murphy had an 18-month-old daughter, Adrienne. Sontag’s youngest child, her son Marshall, was 15 years old. But the new couple forged ahead and, as Murphy said, “Maggie embraced motherhood again.”
Blending families can be a challenge, but the Murphy-Sontag clan found its way. “If there was trouble,” Murphy said, “we got it worked out.
“I remember Maggie asking [Marshall] at the table, ‘How do you feel [about the lesbian relationship]?’ He shrugged and said, ‘Whatever floats your boat.’”
By 2001 she had joined the staff at Beth El, where she became friends with Litman.
“I was at her house one morning,” the rabbi recalled, “and she was showing me how to make blinis in the shape of flower petals. I told her I wanted to learn. The next morning there was a cook pan on my desk with blini molds wrapped in a blue ribbon.”
With an ability to discern the tastes of friends and colleagues, Sontag started a Beth El custom of mounting a lavish communal break-fast after Yom Kippur. “She would sneak a plate to the back of the bimah right before Neilah [closing],” Litman said, “so when the rabbis and cantor were done, instead of fighting their way to the tables, there would be little plates.”
On Dec. 28, Sontag delivered a casserole to a family in need. She was excited about her new mission to help kasher the kitchen at the Jewish Community Center of the East Bay, and on the morning of Dec. 29, she was preparing to attend Torah study at Beth El.
She suddenly fell into a coma, from which she never woke up.
“We were blessed to have every day with her,” said Murphy. “There was no time in Maggie’s life she wasn’t in the middle of many things.”
Maggie Sontag is survived by her wife, Anne Murphy of Berkeley; her children Todd Sontag of Jacksonville, Fla., Heidi Sontag of Orlando, Fla., Marshall Sontag of Orlando, Fla., and Adrienne Sontag-Murphy of Berkeley; and sisters Madeleine Goldman and Louise Janson, both of Delray Beach, Fla.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California