Hadassah

At the Baltimore Chapter of Hadassah's "Women of Distinction Gala," the tribute to the evening's three honorees went beyond cocktails, dinner and a nice award presentation. Baltimore gynecologist Dr. Ellen Taylor, Public Policy for Advocates of Children and Youth founder Susan Leviton, and author / reporter Dr. Ruth Gruber also found themselves serenaded as pianist and composer William Goldstein performed some of the tunes from his musical, "Oswego." The Broadway-bound show centers on the efforts of honoree Gruber in bringing some 1,000 World War II refugees to the United States.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Every New Year's Eve, Joseph I. and Hadassah Lieberman get together with three other couples, longtime friends from Connecticut. Till way past midnight, they catch up with each other's lives and talk of their hopes and predictions for the coming year. This year, someone predicted the senator would become Al Gore's running mate. That prospect dominated much of the evening. Hadassah didn't think it would happen. The religious issues, she felt, the fact that she and her husband are Orthodox Jews, would prevent it. So when she stood before a wildly cheering Nashville audience Tuesday, after her husband had indeed been tapped for the Democratic ticket, Hadassah Lieberman could barely contain her emotions.

THE SILENT side-effects of the Israeli-Palestinian power struggle over Jerusalem still spawn behind-the-scenes dramas that jeopardize everyday life 33 years after the entire city came under Israeli control in the Six-Day War. One is that of the family of 17-year-old Yasser Abu Halaf, a Palestinian who suffers malignant brain cancer. Ninth out of 13 children, Yasser left school after the sixth grade. Since age 14 he has worked as a dishwasher and odd-job boy in a Jerusalem restaurant. Yasser hid the bump growing on his head as long as he could.

Walter A. Pilachowski, 72, Coast Guard employeeWalter A. "Scotty" Pilachowski, who spent more than three decades with the Coast Guard at Curtis Bay, with tours in two other branches of the military, died of lung cancer Wednesday at Franklin Square Hospital. He was 72.Born in Baltimore and a lifelong resident of the Canton area, he served in the Navy in the latter years of World War II, including a stint in the South Pacific on the destroyer USS Nicholas. He was discharged in 1946 and went to work for the Coast Guard in Baltimore.

A Westminster man was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty yesterday in Carroll County Circuit Court to theft in seven burglaries and to one attempted burglary.Prosecutors said John W. Hopwood, 27, robbed businesses mostly in the Westminster area last spring, including stealing football jerseys belonging to the Baltimore Ravens from a dry cleaners.According to the plea agreement worked out in the eight cases involving 81 counts, Judge Raymond E. Beck Sr. sentenced Hopwood to 30 years in prison before suspending all but 15 years and placing him on five years of probation after his release.

JERUSALEM -- Dressed in a prim cotton dress and a wide-brimmed straw hat, Henrietta Szold left her native Baltimore in 1909 on a difficult journey to Palestine.What the 48-year-old unmarried teacher found when she arrived -- severe poverty, rampant disease and poor medical care -- inspired her to find a way to combat the problems in the future Jewish homeland.Two years later, with the help of 14 like-minded women, Szold founded the Hadassah Women's Organization in Baltimore in 1911. Today, Hadassah is the largest women's volunteer organization in the world with more than 300,000 members.

Rebecca Shulman,100, a leader of the women's Zionist group Hadassah who helped bring medical services to Israel, died March 30 at her home in New York. She was national president of Hadassah from 1953 to 1956.Robert Wentorf Jr.,70, a retired inventor who helped create the man-made diamond, died of a heart attack Thursday at his home in Easton, N.Y. In the early 1950s, he was a member of a General Electric team that worked on the conversion of graphite to diamond by subjecting it to high pressures and temperatures.

Frieda Sandberg Lewis,85, a champion of Jewish causes and past national resident of Hadassah, the Women's Zionist Organization of America, died Feb. 29 in Deerfield Beach, Fla. She was a former resident of Great Neck, N.Y., and Manhattan. Her association with Hadassah went back four decades. She served as national vice president and treasurer and headed its Nassau and Suffolk region as well as a number of its divisions. She was national president from 1980 to 1984. During her tenure, she presided over the launching of Hadassah International, which now has branches in some 30 countries.

Lillian KoganReal estate executiveLillian Kogan, a retired real estate executive and connoisseur of the arts, died Friday of complications from a stroke at the North Oaks Retirement Community in Pikesville. She was 91.Mrs. Kogan, who was known as "Lilly," was a voracious reader who also enjoyed going to the ballet and symphony, relatives said.A regular theatergoer, she often took her sons to the old Ford's Theater on Fayette Street in Baltimore.She also liked to travel, and she visited many museums in Israel and Europe.

When Bess Fedder died Saturday at 90, she left behind memories that spanned most of the 20th century -- from selling shoes in her father's store on Broadway as a little girl to writing poetry and touring the world on the Queen Elizabeth II after her husband died."