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Monday September 8, 2008

Deaths

Diann H. Melnick at her residence in San Francisco on September 1, 2008. Wife of David for 44 years; mother of Marc (K.T. Albiston) Melnick and Jennifer (Guy) Bar-Nahum; grandmother of Benjamin Jacob Melnick, Sophie Rose and Elianna Rose Bar-Nahum.

A caring public health nurse for over 30 years, she worked in some of the most challenging districts in San Francisco. Known to all for her quick and quirky wit, penchant to speak her own mind, as a voracious reader, and as a feminist before it became chic. Memorial services were held at Cong. Emanu-El, 2 Lake St. at Arguello Blvd., SF. In lieu of flowers the family requests contributions to KQED or Planned Parenthood. Sinai Memorial Chapel.

Dora Worthman Picheny, recently of Oakland, California, passed away May 26th. She died of old age, two weeks short of her hundredth birthday. Her mind remained sound, but having become progressively weaker during the past few years, she was confined to bed from mid-May, taken care of by kind attendants and by her son Jacob. Dora’s and Jacob’s many friends were frequent visitors.

In her later years, she became a person of particular significance to others and indeed a kind of model, especially to her younger friends. They respected her combination of advanced age, emotional equanimity, and ability to listen patiently, and came to depend on her soundness of judgment.

The youngest in a family of six siblings, Dora was born in Bratslav, Ukraine in 1908. Her family immigrated to New York City when she was 3 or 4. Yiddish was her first language. She finished Hunter College with a major in math in 1928 and for many years taught in the NYC elementary schools. She married Elias Picheny in 1934 and moved with him in 1951 to Chicago, where he was transferred. She and Eli had two children, Jacob Joel, the eldest, and Lionel Harry. Lionel died in an auto accident in 1959, when he was 19.

Together with Eli, Dora was active in social justice causes. The couple strongly supported the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, welfare rights organizations, and defended civil liberties for all, most notably through activism in the Committee Against Repressive Legislation. It was in part due to Eli’s union activity in the Association of Jewish Center Workers that, during the height of McCarthyism, he was removed by the National Jewish Welfare Board from New York to Chicago, where he became Midwest Field Secretary. In addition, the two were ardent and long-standing supporters of the magazine Jewish Currents. Eli died in 1981, shortly after they had moved to Berkeley to join Jacob.

In Berkeley Dora was a supporter of Women for Peace. She volunteered as a literacy tutor and assisted seniors in income tax preparation. She excelled as a Scrabble player and became renowned for her hamantaschen, which she prepared each year for the holiday of Purim until well into her nineties.

Dora will be remembered for her practical turn of mind, her ability with complicated accounts and figures, the clarity of her thinking, and her active interest and concern for the welfare of humans everywhere, as well as for the lives of those close to her.

Interested persons are invited to make donations in her honor to Jewish Currents, www.jewishcurrents.org, 45 E. 33rd St., New York City 10016.

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