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1970

Class Notes Archives


(Click on Pdf links ("related downloads") to the right, bottom, for more photo archives, and yearbook pictures)

----- From December 2011 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Videos of LFNY alumni on the internet:
Jacques Luben is interviewed and talks about incorporating a business in the USA
Philippe Dauman accepts 2010 Golden Heart Award
(click on links below)

Rabbi Suzanne Singer shared with us a very touching article she wrote about child slavery in Ghana, and about her experience there helping to build a computer center for children along with 15 other rabbis. Click on Pdf file below to read the article.

Carole Hanania Pinto wrote that she "moved back from Paris where she lived for over twenty years, to New York where she currently works as an art dealer and advisor, specializing in late XIXth and XXth century paintings. She has remained in close contact with Laurence Falzon and Sabine Hugueny, both classmates from the lycee. She can be contacted by email, pintocarole@aol.com."

Hester van Heemstra (BFA Pratt Institute, class of '74) told us that she "has been living in Tucson, AZ since 1987 and just began a new job as art specialist for an elementary school."

George Skibine joined the law firm SNR Denton in October, 2011. "Skibine is an enrolled member of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma and his practice focuses on gaming and tribal land acquisitions including compliance with a broad range of National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC) and DOI regulations. He is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Management (Indian Affairs​) at the Department of the Interior, and also served as the Acting Chairman of the National Indian Gaming Commission, Director of the Office of Indian Gaming, Deputy Associate Solicitor for Indian Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Economic Development and Acting Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.
Skibine received his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School, his B.A. from the University of Chicago and a baccalaureate degree from Lycee Francais de New York." (http://dc.citybizlist.com/5/2011/10/12/SNR-Denton-Bolsters-Indian-Law-and-Tribal-Representation-Practice-in-Washington-DC.aspx)

● "(MAHWAH, NJ) – Dr. Sylvia Flescher, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst in private practice in Ridgewood, N.J. and a faculty member at Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York City, [spoke] at Ramapo College of New Jersey in September [2011] at the invitation of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies of Ramapo College. Her talk, “Googling for Ghosts: A Meditation on Writer’s Block, Mourning and the Holocaust,” [described] her decades-long struggle with writer’s block and how her voice was overshadowed by her analyst father, a writer and Holocaust survivor. Themes of survivor guilt, incomplete mourning and the transmission of trauma to the second generation [were] discussed."
(http://www.ramapo.edu/news/pressreleases/2011/08-22-2011.html)

Dr. Polly Estabrook "is Deputy Section Manager of the Communications Architectures and Research Section [at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology]. She is interested in the development of new telecom architectures and networks for future space exploration missions and the application of new communication technologies to space exploration. She was the Lead Telecom System Engineer for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) project, responsible for the performance of the entry, descent, and landing telecommunications system and for the overall design and performance of the direct-to-Earth and relay communications system.......Polly received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University; she received a B.S. in Engineering Physics and a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley." (http://descanso.jpl.nasa.gov/DPSummary/bios/estabrook.cfm?force_external=0)

Dr. Philip (Leahey) Dreyfus "is an Associate Professor of History at San Francisco State University. He received his Ph.D. in American History from the Graduate Center of CUNY in 1993. He did not follow a direct academic path from college to the doctorate, but spent years working alternately as a baker, an electrician, and a community advocate for the elderly poor. As the first American-born in a family of post-World War II French immigrants, he has always been a gatherer of stories. In graduate school and for years thereafter, Dr. Dreyfus focused primarily on labor militancy, political radicalism, and the intersection of ethnic, national, and class identities. After leaving New York City for the San Francisco Bay Area, he offered courses in US labor history and African-American history at San Francisco State University and the California State University at Hayward, respectively. By the end of the 1990s, his intellectual interests had migrated to the young field of environmental history. He began offering courses in American environmental history and the environmental history of California cities at San Francisco State University, and has received several meritorious teaching awards.....His recent book is Our Better Nature: Environment and the Making of San Francisco....." (http://bss.sfsu.edu/dreyfus/philip_j_dreyfus_brief_bio.htm)

----- From November 2010 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Karin Link shared this news with us: "Historic Preservation's work honored at Historic Seattle awards ceremony: Seattle Department of Neighborhoods' Historic Preservation Program and the City's Landmarks Preservation Board, along with Katheryn Krafft, Karin Link and Mimi Sheridan, project consultants, were honored at Historic Seattle's Second Annual Preservation Awards Ceremony at the Women's University Club on May 11. The Downtown Historic Resource Survey and Inventory was recognized for "Excellence in Preservation Planning" and was honored along with a range of projects in downtown Seattle....."
(http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/news/newsletter2010summer.htm)

Cyril Pervilhac wrote: "I work on HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva and live in France."

● “David Rosenthal has been the principal percussionist of the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra since 1982. He has also played with the San Francisco Symphony and Opera, the Chamber Symphony of San Francisco, The San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and the Cabrillo and Ojai Festival Orchestras, as well as many other performing organizations. He has recorded for CRI, Columbia, and Reference records.” (http://www.sfsu.edu/~music/bios.htm)

● "Gilgian Gelzer is a Swiss artist, born in Bern (1951). He lives and works in Paris, where he also teaches at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
He is engaged in the concurrent exploration of three media: drawing, painting and photography. The specific features of these practices are rigorously adhered to, and all of them produce – and are produced by – an asynchronous experience of duration. Through an approach that is both active and contemplative at once, his work questions the definition of space and the way form takes place within it. Language, translation, idiom, awkwardness, failure, instability, arrhythmia, barbarism, etc.: these are all reflected in work that is fundamentally hybrid, as if involved with the expression of an abstract Unconscious mapping its collective reach......" (http://www.gilgiangelzer.com/)

Videos of LFNY alumni on the internet:
Gilgian Gelzer discusses art
Philippe Dauman interviewed at the Web 2.0 Summit
William (Bill) Kristol interviewed on the Jon Stewart show
David Rieff talks about his new book A Bed for the Night at UC Berkeley
(Click on links below)

----- From December 2009 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Suzanne Singer sent us an article that was written about her recently in the The Press-Enterprise (Friday, October 16, 2009)
"Riverside rabbi took nontraditional path:
Rabbi Suzanne Singer spent 20 years as a television programming executive and an Emmy Award-winning producer. She didn't grow up in a religious family and rarely attended synagogue. When she was in her 30s, Singer began reading the Bible and pondering what it means to be a Jew. That was the beginning of a journey that led her to rabbinical school and later to Riverside's Temple Beth El, which last year named her its rabbi. Today, at 56, Singer is more content than she's ever been. She feels fulfilled being able to dedicate her life to helping others, reading sacred texts and preserving Jewish traditions. 'It's not entirely different from TV,' Singer said. 'I went into TV to make the world a better place. And that's why I became a rabbi.'..............."
(http://www.pe.com/localnews/religion/stories/PE_News_Local_S_rabbi17.3c7dc81.html)
[To read the full article, click on link below]

----- From January 2009 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Suzanne Singer wrote: "My husband, Jordan and I, just moved to Riverside, CA (about 50 miles east of Los Angeles) where I am serving as rabbi/educator at a synagogue of 230 families. I am very much enjoying my congregation. In addition, I am working for my seminary, Hebrew Union College, on an initiative to train rabbinic students in the areas of leadership, outreach and social responsibility. I am delighted by the US presidential election of Barack Obama, and have hope again for this country."

● "George T. Skibine, Acting Assistant Secretary, US Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs is currently the Director of the Office of Indian Gaming, a position he has held since 1997 and Acting Assistant Secretary of the BIA since June 2008. He is also serving as the Acting deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and Economic Development. Before that he was the Deputy Associate Solicitor for the Division of Indian Affairs. He has been employed by the Department of the Interior for the past 30 years, serving in a variety of positions relating to American Indian issues. He is a member of the Minnesota and District of Columbia bars, and has a law degree from the University of Minnesota law school and an Economics degree from the University of Chicago." (http://www.legalspan.com/)

----- From July 2008 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Avis de Décès: Mr. Brian Saltsburg informed us that his cousin, Dr. Peter (Vladislav Gociar) Fleming ('70) passed away in 2005. (See In Memoriam section of this newsletter for further details, or click on link below.)

● From Jill Weingarten and Patricia (Clark-Corsini) Passarelle: "Jill and Patty had not seen each other since Jill left the lycee in 1966. They were re-united on March 14, 2008 after four decades! Their rendez-vous was in Ft. Lauderdale. Patty lives in the Boca area, and Jill still lives in Manhattan. 'We had a great dinner, laughed, reminisced, talked about boys. We looked at old yearbooks and remembered good times with friends. And, of course, the teachers who tortured us!' "

Philippe Sommer shared this with us: "After many years in the Life Sciences investing for Booz, Allen, Pfizer, and then Oppenheimer, in venture capital, as well as being an entrepreneur, I am now teaching at UVA's Darden Business School. Life in Virginia is good. Two sons 21 and 24, and an ex-wife. Marie-Christine Malvoisin is the only person I keep in touch with from the Lycee and Jean Marc Caute sporadically. Very sad to hear of Vladislav Gociar's death. I am sure he was a great physician and terific with patients. I have a big house in Charlottesville, so anyone coming through to visit Mr. Jefferson is welcome."

● "Both a memoir and an investigation, David Rieff's tribute to his mother, writer Susan Sontag, explores her final battle with cancer and looks at the state of medical science and leading cancer physicians who combine treating patients with pursuing the cutting edge of research. David Rieff is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine. He is the author of six previous books, including the acclaimed A Bed for the Night: Humanitarianism in Crisis and Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West. He is a contributing editor to The New Republic and a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times Book Review, as well as a frequent contributor to many other newspapers and magazines in the United States and Western Europe." (From: Artsopolis, http://www.artsopolis.com/event/detail/26763)

----- From December 2007 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Romana Lowe told us that she is still teaching Spanish and French at Boston University.

Karin Link wrote that she "was reappointed by the Mayor’s office as a Commissioner on Seattle’s Pike Place Market Historical Commission in early 2007. The Pike Place Market has been listed as an historic district on the National Register of Historic Places since 1971. It was the second National Historic District in Seattle listed on the National Register and is a major local tourist attraction. It was founded in 1907 to allow farmers to sell their produce without the intervention of middlemen, who were often engaged in dishonest business practices. If only they had had a Lycee education, they would have been more honest!! (Please discuss this in a ten page dissertation)."

● For news on William Kristol, click on link below.

● "With his trim dark suits, gold cuff links and erect bearing, Philippe P. Dauman projects a sense of dignity and reserve that some in Hollywood regard as just this side of pompous. One industry insider called him 'the quintessential New York suit.' Dauman, 53, who just finished his first year as chief executive of the entertainment conglomerate Viacom Inc., is such a Manhattanite that he doesn't drive; he never even applied for a license ........Under his mother's firm tutelage, Dauman was well advanced in reading and math by age 6 when his family enrolled him in Lycee Francais, a New York institution that emphasized rigorous, rote instruction of math, science and the classics of French literature and philosophy. It was a mecca for the children of Francophone diplomats as well as for American children whose parents wanted them immersed in French language and culture. In a class behind Dauman was future French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin ['71]. A few classes ahead was romance novelist Danielle Steel ['65]......." (Los Angeles Times, October 7, 2007, by Thomas S. Mulligan; http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-dauman7oct07,1,3468781.story?page=2&cset=true&ctrack=1&coll=la-headlines-business)

----- From June 2007 AALFNY Newsletter -----

● Click on link below for news of Ann Malester.

Joelle (Sirgant) Tisseyre nous écrit: "Bonjour à tous et merci pour ce site. Sur cette année 1970, amical souvenir à SABINE, VLADIMIR et tout particulièrement à VICTOR...de France (tout près de Deauville)"

● "George Foy is a writer and journalist. He has published a number of novels, including Challenge, Asia Rip, and The Shift. He has worked as a commercial fisherman, a vacuum-molding machine operator, and a paralegal in New York City law firms. He has travelled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan with an arms-smuggling caravan, acted on network television, and participated in the creation of a CD-ROM game. He lives with his wife, children, and cat in New York City and Cape Cod." (From SF Site, http://www.sfsite.com/02b/gf75.htm)

Suzanne Singer wrote: "I moved back to Los Angeles in July of 2007 and am currently engaged in several projects: I serve as Director of the Introduction to Judaism program for the Pacific Southwest Council of the Union for Reform Judaism; I teach several of the Introduction classes; I am directing a project for Hebrew Union College to connect Jewish and Christian seminary students with internships at various social justice organizations; and I am planning an interfaith social justice conference in Los Angeles slated for November of 2007. I moved to LA with my husband who is an actor and has greater opportunities here than he had in the SF Bay Area where we lived for three years while I served as a rabbi at Temple Sinai in Oakland. I also wanted to move back to LA because my two sisters live here and I have many nieces and nephews with whom I like to spend time."

----- From December 2006 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Karin Link recently co-authored Pioneer Square: Seattle's Oldest Neighborhoodand told us: "I wrote several sections, contributed
several of the non-historical photographs and also provided preliminary
editing help (credited in the preface) on all the chapters I did not
write. The book concerns what later became the Pioneer Square Historic
District, much of which was built soon after a great fire destroyed the
area on June 6, 1889. The area became a national historic district in
1970 and also became City of Seattle historic district in the same year." (click on link below to access her book's website.)

● "NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2006 --Viacom Inc. announced today that its Board of Directors has appointed Philippe P. Dauman, 52, President and Chief Executive Officer......Mr. Dauman will report to Sumner M. Redstone, Viacom's Executive Chairman and Founder, and to the Board of Directors of Viacom......Mr. Dauman, who has been a Director of Viacom since 1987, served from 1994 to 2000 as a member of Viacom's Executive Committee and as Executive Vice President in charge of strategic transactions, legal and government affairs, human resources and administration, with supervisory responsibility for Paramount Entertainment, Showtime Networks and Simon & Schuster. From 1993 to 1998, he also was General Counsel of Viacom."

Carole (Hanania) Pinto told us that she "got her BA in Architecture and Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by an MBA from Columbia. Her work at the Metropolitan and Brooklyn Museums in New York was followed by a job in Corporate Finance at Salomon Brothers, where she met up with fellow lyceene Sabine Hugueny , also class of 1970. She later headed up the Art Investment Division at Sotheby's, and was a regular contributor to Art and Auction magazine. She now spends her time between New York and Paris as an art dealer and consultant, specializing in late XIX and early XX century paintings. Her current email is (available upon request from AALFNY)."

● "Eva Tabor has worked as international consultant for Kvindeligt Arbejderforbund i Danmark (KAD) since April 2000. Previously she was stationed as regional co-ordinator in southern Africa, based in Mozambique and in Johannesburg, by the General Workers Union in Denmark (SiD). She has worked with international affairs for both the Labour Movement’s International Forum (AIF) and SiD, where she has also been editor of a number of magazines and pamphlets on international union affairs. She formerly worked as a translator and project staff member in the LO/FTF Council, from the Council’s formation in 1987. Eva Tabor has many years’ experience with international union affairs and the trade union movement. She trained as an interpreter in Spanish and French in 1986, subsequently studying International Development at Ålborg Open University, focusing especially on women and development." (LO/FTF Council, http://www.ulandssekretariatet2.dk/siteen/projekt_information/projektledere_dk.php?projektleder_idx=6)

● Click on link below for news of Elizabeth Danto

----- From February 2006 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Jill Weingarten wrote: "After six long years of attending, I left the Lycee in 1966 after 8th grade (4eme ). I went to The Dalton School and graduated from there in 1970. I was THE BEST french student at Dalton!!! Maybe I learned something at the Lycee!! Even though the Lycee was not the right school for me, I have fond memories of the other students and have been in touch with many of you in the past few years. My french was never great, but laughter and friendship and growing up and learning -- there is a universal language for all those things! I am a graduate of Washington University in St Louis. I have been an executive recruiter in the adverising business forever. Divorced, no kids, still trying to get it right...."

----- From June 2005 AALFNY Newsletter ------

Karin Link wrote: "After studying classical languages, in addition to history, art history and architecture at Barnard and Columbia, in 1977, I moved to the Pacific Northwest of the United States, where I more or less have “gone native.” I obtained a Master of Architecture and an M.S. in Historic Preservation at the University of Oregon; but I have mainly lived in
Seattle, where, for several years, I worked as part of the
architectural staff of a number of architecture firms. For the past
four years, I have been an independent historic preservation consultant
and currently, most of my projects are historic district and historic
neighborhood studies for the City of Seattle. Some of this work also
involves city politics, which, even in Seattle, (as opposed to New
York), can be surprisingly lively. I recently co-authored a book on
Seattle’s Pioneer Square Historic District. It is being published by
the University of Washington Press and is supposed to finally make its
appearance this fall, (after all sorts of Hollywood behind the scenes
mishaps)."

Carole (Hanania) Pinto wrote: "We just had a Lycee reunion at Louis Le Grand in Paris which was attended by quite a few lyceens from my class including some from former classes; among the attendees were Roger Liwer ('68), Laurence Falzon ('70), Francois Bosson ('70), Maria van Heemstra ('70), Sybille Wieser ('70), Corrine Poujol, Jean Francois Galy ('69), and Jean Noel Marescot ('70)."

----- From November 2004 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Dr. Debbie (Heller) Lifschitz wrote: "[I have] terminated 12 years as chair of the English Department and 10 years as Assistant Dean at Michlalah-Jerusalem College. [I am] currently, Chair of the Research unit. Two of my 5 children are married and we have 7 grandchildren. My husband is a Senior orthopedic surgeon at Sha'are Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem. We will be happy to host any alumni visiting Israel."

----- From Winter 2003-2004 AALFNY Newsletter -----

● "NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, Jan. 2004 /PRNewswire/ -- Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, one of the world's leading law firms, continued the expansion of its highly regarded global competition practice with the announced hiring today of Ann Malester .....[a] former senior Federal Trade Commission official.....As a partner in Weil Gotshal's Washington, D.C., office, Malester will draw on her extensive experience in mergers and joint ventures for the pharmaceutical and defense industries. She was most recently the deputy director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, where she helped supervise the agency's antitrust enforcement activities. Before being appointed deputy director, she oversaw the Mergers I Division, where she supervised the investigation and litigation of hundreds of mergers in the pharmaceutical, defense and a wide range of other industries. Malester is the recipient of the FTC's Brandeis Award for best litigator and the Presidential Rank Award, the highest honor given to a federal government executive. She is a graduate of the Lycee Francais de New York, Bryn Mawr College and George Washington University National Law Center."

----- From Winter 2002/2003 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Carole (Hanania) Pinto, currently living in Paris, has established herself as an art dealer, « specializing in late XIX and XX century oils and works on paper by lesser known European artists. The works include colorful seascapes, intimate portraits, provincial landscapes as well as scenes of Paris; many of the artists have extensive bibliographies, and are represented in museums and collections throughout Europe. » Carole writes: “It's rather fantastic to run into old school friends half way round the globe, thirty years after graduation! That's just what happened last week, when I heard someone call my name at the Hotel Drouot in Paris. I turned around and recognized Sabine Hugueny ‘70, who was not only at the Lycée with me but also worked on Wall Street with me after we both finished Business School. She is now running an antique business out of London. We got together with a third alumnus, Laurence Falzon ‘70, who lives in Paris and spent the evening talking about so many things - it was amazing how much we had to catch up on!»

Debbie (Heller) Lifschitz writes : « Married To Dr. Moshe Lifschitz (Orthopedics) for 27 years. 5 children (2 married), youngest 12 yrs. 5 grandchildren. We host tourists and lecture on current events. I am heavily involved in teacher training,TESOL, Holocaust studies(including group trips to Poland),and Midrash.»

Philip Haentzler perished in the WTC tragedy 9/11/01. For further information, please see Deces below.
Décès: Through the “Staten Island Advance” newspaper, the AALFNY, Inc. learned that Philip Haentzler ’70 , « a legal administrative for Kidder Peabody/UBS Paine Webber on the 101st floor of Tower 1 » perished on September 11th, 2001- he left behind his companion Patricia Thompson and his mother Madeleine Debolt.

-----From March/April 2002 AALFNY Newsletter -----

Sylvia Flescher writes: “I have made the transition to suburban life happily. My daughters, Rebecca, 14, and Sophia, 11, keep me busy and challenged. As a mother I have come to appreciate more fully the excellent education I received at the Lycée. I am a psychoanalyst in private practice in my town (my office is 2 blocks away from my home). My husband, Tom Marcyes works as a film editor for ABC-TV's news show, 20/20."

Suzanne Singer writes: “After earning a Masters' degree in Journalism, I spent 20 years as a television producer and programming executive, primarily for PBS (public television). I produced and programmed news and public affairs shows, as well as a series for pre-school children. My last television job was as executive producer for the documentary series, POV, for which I won two National Emmys. Five and a half years ago, I decided to leave television and pursue a different life path. I am currently attending Hebrew Union College, the seminary for the Jewish Reform movement, where I am studying to be a rabbi. If all goes well, I will be ordained in May of 2003. Aside from taking classes, I am also working on a thesis and serving as a rabbi for a small congregation in Victoria, BC, which I visit for one weekend a month. I currently live in Los Angeles with my husband, Jordan Lund, an actor and a Web producer. We have no children aside from our two cats, but are very fortunate in having seven nieces and nephews, to whom we are very close, living nearby. I hope that some of my classmates who graduated in 1970 will send in some news as well. Our year seems to be the only one without any Class Notes."







TOP (left to right): Romana Lowe ('70), David Rosenthal ('70), Margeurite Yates ('71) [Paris, July 2010]; BOTTOM: Eva Tabor ('70
TOP (left to right): Romana Lowe ('70), David Rosenthal ('70), Margeurite Yates ('71) [Paris, July 2010]; BOTTOM: Eva Tabor ('70

TOP: Cyril Pervilhac ('70); BOTTOM: Karin Link ('70)
TOP: Cyril Pervilhac ('70); BOTTOM: Karin Link ('70)
TOP: Eric Stoclet ('70); MIDDLE: Martine (Benjamin) Larche ('70); BOTTOM: Xaypladeth Choulamany ('70)
TOP: Eric Stoclet ('70); MIDDLE: Martine (Benjamin) Larche ('70); BOTTOM: Xaypladeth Choulamany ('70)
TOP: Francois De Nervaux Loÿs ('70); BOTTOM: Nicholas Rafael ('70)
TOP: Francois De Nervaux Loÿs ('70); BOTTOM: Nicholas Rafael ('70)
TOP: Rabbi Suzanne Singer ('70) in Ghana; BOTTOM: Romana Lowe ('70) and daughter Rafaela
TOP: Rabbi Suzanne Singer ('70) in Ghana; BOTTOM: Romana Lowe ('70) and daughter Rafaela
TOP: Sylvia Flescher ('70); BOTTOM: David Rosenthal ('70)
TOP: Sylvia Flescher ('70); BOTTOM: David Rosenthal ('70)
TOP: Polly Estabrook ('70); BOTTOM: Olivier Steigel ('70)
TOP: Polly Estabrook ('70); BOTTOM: Olivier Steigel ('70)
Philip (Leahey) Dreyfus ('70) and his latest book
Philip (Leahey) Dreyfus ('70) and his latest book