Rabbi Herbert Bronstein, z''l, a native of Cincinnati Ohio, served for over a quarter of the century as Senior Rabbi and later as Senior Scholar at North Shore Congregation Israel of Glencoe, IL. He was known for his erudition, work with youth, warm pastoral style, and abiding love of Jewish liturgy, ritual, and study. His rabbinate combined congregational leadership alongside scholarly achievements and active participation in American public life, especially as an advocate for many social justice efforts in the greater Chicago community. He is a former president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. He was a graduate of the University of Cincinnati, receiving his BA in 1952 and MA in 1954. After attending the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion, he was ordained rabbi in 1957. Scholarship was a lifelong endeavor. He engaged in many years of graduate study in History of Religions at the University of Chicago and at Oxford University. He was named a Life Member of the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Divinity School. A prolific writer, Rabbi Bronstein contributed to journals as wide-ranging as the Journal of Religion, the American Jewish Archives, CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly and the Shakespeare Quarterly. He is best known for editing the 1974 Reform Movement's A Passover Haggadah, which was translated into many languages. Rabbi Bronstein served as Chair of the Central Conference of American Rabbi’s (CCAR) Liturgy Committee and was also a member of the Executive Board. A renowned teacher, he was a lecturer at numerous colleges and universities, and at the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He served as an adjunct professor of World Religions at Lake Forest College for more than a decade. Prior to his many years in the Chicago area, Rabbi Bronstein served for fifteen years at Temple Brith Kodesh in Rochester, NY. Beyond the synagogue, his involvement in the Rochester community included service on the board of the Jewish Community Relations Council, as a civilian member of the Police Advisory Board and on the Metropolitan Housing Committee of Rochester. A life-long activist for civil rights, anti-war efforts, and American democracy, Rabbi Bronstein was also deeply involved in furthering interfaith relations. He served on the Boards of the Chicago Council of Religious Leaders and the Parliament of World Religions, also pioneering and fostering Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Leonard Baskin, z"l, was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. While he was a student at Yale University, he founded Gehenna Press, a small private press specializing in fine book production. From 1953 until 1974, he taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Subsequently, Baskin also taught at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He lived most of his life in the U.S., but spent nine years in Devon at Lurley Manor, Lurley, near Tiverton, close to his friend Ted Hughes, for whom he illustrated Crow. Sylvia Plath dedicated "Sculptor" to Leonard Baskin in her famous work, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960). His public commissions include a bas-relief for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and a bronze statue of a seated figure, erected in 1994 for the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His works are owned by many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art, and the Vatican Museums. The archive of his work at the Gehenna Press was acquired by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, England, in 2009. The McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario owns over 200 of his works, most of which were donated by his brother Rabbi Bernard Baskin. In 1955, Leonard Baskin was one of eleven New York artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery. In 1966 he was featured in the documentary, "Images of Leonard Baskin" by American filmmaker Warren Forma. He is the beloved illustrator for both A Passover Haggadah and Haneirot Halalu, published by the CCAR Press in 1974 and 1989, respectively. He died at age 77 on June 3, 2000, in Northampton, where he resided. The Art Institute of Portland has a memorial to him.
