Her legacy will live on in a beit midrash, a women’s group — and one of the Bay Area’s largest synagogues.
Bernice Whitman, a founding member of Los Altos Hills’ Congregation Beth Am, died Thursday. The Atherton resident was a few weeks shy of her 89th birthday.
“She lived a good, long life, when you look it all over,” said her only child, Zach.
Whitman was born in New Haven, Conn. She married Irving Whitman in 1954, and the pair settled in Menlo Park. Irving died in 1990.
Beth Am was forming when the young couple arrived in Northern California. With all their relatives back on the East Coast, they were especially eager to affiliate with a religious community, and quickly became involved in the start-up synagogue.
“My mother was always happiest when she saw other people having a good time,” Zach Whitman said of his mother’s involvement with the congregation’s Sisterhood and other committees.
Bernice quit her job at a publishing company when she had Zach. After a few years, she and Irving jointly started the Surrey Shop, a women’s dress shop in Menlo Park. The business stayed open as a family business for 37 years, closing in 2003.
“She worked side by side with my father,” Zach said. “He had the foresight and business experience, and she had exquisite taste and an ingratiating personality.”
Whitman enjoyed playing bridge, traveling, baking, crossword puzzles and playing piano.
For the last eight years of her life, she worked with geriatric exercise specialist Jocelyn Blum. The two became dear friends, almost like mother and daughter. Although no one could replace her own mother, Bernice came close, Blum said.
“She was a courageous woman with a fine character,” she said. “She really looked for the best in people. She was a woman of valor.”
Whitman is survived by her son, Zach, and two grandchildren, Adam and David Marash-Whitman.
Memorial contributions to benefit pain management research by the Interventional Spine Center may be made to Stanford Medical Development, 2700 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025.