Women’s health activist Jill Lafer honors the strength and empathy of her Eastern European family.
I can trace my ancestry to the mid-nineteenth century when my family emigrated from the Austro Hungarian Empire, Belarus, and Russia. Similar to other Ashkenazi Jews, they were fleeing repression and rampant anti-Semitism; they sought freedom and economic opportunity in America for their families. My great grandparents settled in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, and in Utica and Brooklyn, New York.
Town Hall of Glace Bay, Nova Scotia
Postcard of Utica, NY, 1934
Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, 1918
A sign from my great grandparents’ store: Rosenblums
Around the turn of the twentieth century, my great grandfather Simon Rosenblum opened a dress shop in Glace Bay, Max Benjamin toiled as a peddler in Utica, Joseph Weinstein opened a tailoring shop in Brooklyn, and Jacob Stober, the last to arrive in about 1910, was a peddler who eventually owned several fine dress shops in Montreal. These peddlers and shopkeepers watched their families flourish; their children and grandchildren became doctors, lawyers, engineers, judges, hoteliers, songwriters, and entrepreneurs. They became part of the fabric of the United States and Canada like so many other immigrant families from all over the world.
The stories of the women in my family have strongly influenced my life and my values.
My maternal Grandmother, Miriam Weinstein Benjamin
My maternal grandmother, Miriam Weinstein Benjamin, born in 1908 in Makow Poland, sailed on the SS Rotterdam in 1918 to New York. She lived with her father, ailing mother and five siblings in a small apartment behind her father’s tailoring shop in Brooklyn. She studied accounting while employed by an Investment Advisor for the Brenner Brothers, who were fur traders. Years later, when her mentor retired she became the Brenners’ sole financial advisor and one of the first women on Wall Street. The Brenners sold fur skins, and my grandmother issued credit and was integral to the founding of Alixandre and other prominent furriers. As the first woman President of an American Technion University chapter, she also raised my mother and aunt. According to my mother, she never spoke of her childhood in Poland-- she only wanted to be American. However, she once told me that she had borrowed a dress for her passport photo from her cousin, who subsequently perished during the Holocaust.
My Canadian great grandmother, Ethel Rosenblum, operated the store in Glace Bay. The eldest of her eight children, my grandmother Sarah was born in 1900, raised four sons, and also worked with her husband, Jacob, in Montreal. They instilled a deep love of learning, family, and hard work to their children and grandchildren. Until my grandmother passed away in 1990, we spoke regularly, visited each other in New York and Montreal, went to theater and museums together and discussed life, family and values.
Jacob & Sarah Stober and their four sons, approx. 1940
My great grandmother, Esther Rosenblum with her children and some sons and daughters in law, 1938. My grandmother, Sarah, is top row far left.
Lou and Miriam Benjamin, My mother, Ruth, far left and her sister.
I was fortunate to have two loving grandmothers who had a tremendous impact on me as a young woman, but my father had the greatest impact of all. He was my life champion.
My father, Dr. Gerald S. Stober
My father, Gerald Stober, was the only one of Sarah’s four sons to leave Montreal. In spite of the Jewish quota he graduated McGill Medical School and selected New York City for his residency. He met and married my mother Ruth; they moved to back Montreal where I was born. In 1958, they returned to New York for better economic opportunity. My father was an OB/GYN, a founder of New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital and was the first to permit fathers to be present during Caesarean sections, a right for which he vigorously fought. My mother managed his practice for 30 years and, like generations before them, they worked together to create a good life for their three children.
Ruth and Gerry Stober dancing, circa 1975
He was always a champion of women. Prior to Roe v. Wade my father witnessed women dying and irreparably damaged from botched illegal abortions. He understood the difficult choices women made between their families and careers. His patients included women of color and immigrants who were primary breadwinners—similar to so many women I have spent decades advocating for at NARAL and Planned Parenthood. He often spoke to me about the difficult daily lives of his patients as compared to my life of privilege, and he opened my eyes to the lives of others less fortunate. Although I didn’t know it at the time, this message was the beginning of my political awareness.
The aspirations and dreams of my relatives who arrived here 150 years ago have been fulfilled. Like so many immigrants to this country, they were industrious women and men. They were fortunate to be accepted at our borders. America gave them the freedoms and opportunities to flourish and in turn, they became proud, engaged, and productive Americans.
About the Author:
Jill Lafer has been a leader in the women’s reproductive rights and health movement for over 35 years. Jill is the former board chair of Planned Parenthood (“PP”) Federation of America and currently serves on the PP Action Fund Board, the PP PAC and the Tri State Women’s Maxed Out PAC. Previously, Jill served as board chair of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, was a board member of the National Institute for Reproductive Health and was treasurer of The No Bad Apples PAC founded by New York State Senator Liz Krueger.
Since 2009 she has served as a mayoral appointee (Bloomberg, DeBlasio) to the Central Park Conservancy Board. She has also served on the boards of The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, New York City Opera and Guild Hall in East Hampton.
She is a fellow at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute. Jill has been a guest speaker at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Columbia business School and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Jill’s background is in the business sector. She was an auditor for Arthur Young and Company, worked in strategic planning for Citibank and co-founded a consumer licensing business, Hoffman/Lafer Assoc. L.L.C. In June 2020 she founded Bandon Partners LLC, a consulting firm for not for profit organizations. She is currently consulting to rePRObymama.film, a Midwest based film festival dedicated to women’s health, rights and justice. She is married to Barry Lafer and has three children and two granddaughters.
