SAN DIEGO (SDJW) — Two honorees of the Women’s Museum of California died on March 15.
One was author and columnist Natasha Josefowitz who was 96. Lucid until the end, she had been writing columns for La Jolla Village News and San Diego Jewish World through the end of February. An archive of her articles that appeared on this website may be accessed here along with a list of the many books she has written.
Born in Paris, she immigrated as a child to the United States in 1939, a year before the Nazi Germans invaded and occupied that city. As a trailblazing woman in the field of management and a poet with a tremendous sense of humor, she was inducted as an honoree of the Women’s Museum of California.
Along with her late husband Herman Gadon, she was a member of the downtown Rotary Club, where on occasion she read selections from her works, including Too Wise to Be Young Again. A resident in her later years of the White Sands in La Jolla, many of her columns reflected on the process of growing old. She enjoyed intellectual discussion topics throughout her life.
“Receiving Natasha’s columns would always bring a smile to my face,” commented Jacob Kamaras, San Diego Jewish World’s editor and publisher. First, because the themes of common humanity that she covered resonated so strongly. Second, because of her impeccably clean copy. To have written until the age that she did is a truly remarkable feat. San Diego’s journalistic community has lost a treasure.”
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Professor Rosalie Schwartz, who earned a doctorate in Latin American history and worked as an advisor to Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana) on Latin American issues, died March 15 at the age of 87. Inducted in 2021 as an honoree of the Women’s Museum of California, Dr. Schwartz taught Latin American history at San Diego State University. She was the widow of Larry Schwartz, a history instructor for whom Schwartz Square at San Diego City College, was named.
In a 2022 interview with San Diego Jewish World, Rosalie Schwartz told of her life with her husband, who became the president of Local 1931 of the American Federation of Teachers.
Emeritus Prof. Joanne M. Ferraro who was a colleague of Rosalie Schwartz at San Diego State described her as “a skilled, insightful scholar who wrote three highly influential and engaging works: Lawless Librators: Political Banditry and Cuban Independence … Pleasure Island: Tourism and Temptation in Cuba …[and] Flying Down to Rio: Hollywood, Tourists, and Yankee Clippers. She also authored an historical novel, A Twist of Lemon… Dr. Schwartz was a valuable, scholarly mentor, generous with her time, to many publishing academics, including myself.”
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San Diego Jewish World staff report.