Rebecca Camhi Fromer, a poet, playwright, historian, and co-founder of the Judah L. Magnes Museum of Berkeley, died in San Francisco on January 1 with her family by her side. She was 84.

Fromer and her husband, Seymour, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 87, started the Magnes Museum in 1960 in response to what they saw as California’s lack of knowledge of its Jewish heritage.

Starting with a few objects and a display case in the Oakland Museum in Seymour Fromer’s office at the Bureau for Jewish Education in Oakland, the Magnes grew to become the country’s third largest Jewish museum with more than 10,000 objects ranging from paintings, photographs, rare books, archival material, and Judaica.

Situated in a historic home on Russell Street for more than 40 years, the Magnes Museum merged with UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library in July 2010. Now renamed the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, it is scheduled to open in a remodeled building at 2121 Allston Way on January 22.

Fromer wrote, or co-wrote, numerous nonfiction books, including The House by the Sea: A Portrait of the Holocaust in Greece, The Holocaust Odyssey of Daniel Bennahmias, Sonderkommando, Rumkowski and the Orphans of Lodz, and Bridge of Sorrow, Bridge of Hope. Her poetry and prose were collected in Out of Silence, Into Being and One Voice, Many Echos. … Continue reading »