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Friday January 18, 2008

Ruth Yaffee dies at 94, Kol Shofar founding member

by dan pine
staff writer

Less than three weeks after the death of Harry Yaffee, her husband of 70 years, Ruth Yaffee has died.

Yaffee died Jan. 4 in San Rafael of congestive heart failure. She was 94.

Together with her husband, Yaffee was a founding member of Congregation Kol Shofar. A tireless volunteer there, Yaffee was an inspiration to her congregational community.

The last time she entered Kol Shofar’s sanctuary for the High Holy Days, in 2006, “the Queen of England couldn’t have been greeted with more respect,” remembered Tessa Cherniss, a Novato resident and a longtime family friend.

Yaffee had a quick, agile mind. She was a masterful bridge player, a voracious reader and inveterate crossword puzzle solver, even into her final weeks.

“She was also a great thinker and gave wonderful counsel to people,” Cherniss said. “And she was always right. She really understood people very well.”

Born in upstate New York, Ruth Finkelstein was orphaned at a young age and raised by relatives. She met her future husband while majoring in Latin at a teacher’s college in Albany. The two married in 1937 and never left each other’s side. They raised two daughters, Judith and Susan, and lived in Virginia and Maryland before relocating to Marin County.

In the late 1950s, the Yaffees were among the pioneers working to found a new Conservative congregation in Marin. Kol Shofar officially opened in 1964.

Her husband became one of the congregation’s most visibly active members, serving as its first secretary-treasurer. Ruth Yaffee served more behind the scenes.

“She was the woman behind the man,” Cherniss added. “When they needed to be grounded in reality, she was there. She was very much a realist and a pragmatist.”

Yaffee taught preschool at the former Marin Jewish Community Center and was active with her local B’nai B’rith chapter. When the adventurous couple moved to Guam for two years in the 1970s, she volunteered on the local U.S. military base.

Back in California, the couple enjoyed good health and good times. They traveled frequently, celebrated with family, and did what many attempt, but few accomplish: live to the fullest every day.

“She was a role model for women today,” Cherniss said. “When people asked her the secret of 70 years of marriage, she would say, ‘You only listen to 50 percent of what he has to say.’ They were a marvelous couple, still in love after 70 years. They were the last of the generation of founders. That generation is now gone.”

Ruth Yaffee is survived by her daughters, Judy Zaborowski of New York City and Susan Brown of Kailua, Hawaii, and four grandchildren.

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