Jennifer Miller, 56; fostered growth of the Rashi School
Email|Link|Comments (0) Posted April 17, 2009 07:54 AM
By J.M. Lawrence, Globe Correspondent

A powerful public speaker and educator in Jewish schools most of her life, Jennifer (Gordon) Miller could not walk or speak when she went back to visit the greater Boston reform Jewish day school she had headed for 10 years.

It was Hanukkah 2007, and Ms. Miller was determined not to lose a minute of her life to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease. She used a PowerPoint show to tell her story to scores of students and friends gathered at the Rashi School in Newton.

"I may be silenced but never unheard," she said in words she typed through a sensor on her nose. "Be reassured, I am experiencing joy beyond your wildest imagination."

Ms. Miller, who lived in Cleveland, died April 4 at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center during a visit to Boston to celebrate Passover with her children. She was 56.

"She grew the Rashi School to what it is today," said her friend Anne Puchkoff, admissions manager at the school. "She was a wonderful leader and beloved by all."

Born in South Africa, Ms. Miller was an educator her entire adult life. She graduated from the University of Witwatersrand in 1974 and earned her teacher certification from the Johannesburg College of Education in 1975.

She immigrated to the United States in 1978 and lived in Pittsburgh, where she taught English and social studies in Jewish schools. She divorced in the early 1980s and moved to Providence, where she raised her twins, Carla and Greg.

"She worked twice as hard," said Greg of Boston. "She played the mother and the father role."

From 1984 to 1992, she was an administrator at the Alperin Schechter Day School in Providence, where she helped increase enrollment from 7 students to 50 in three years.

She also earned her master's in education administration from Providence College in 1991.

In 1992, Ms. Miller was recruited to head the Rashi School, which was founded in 1986. Passionate about Jewish education, she boosted enrollment from 50 students to more than 300 over the next 10 years and shepherded the growing school through three moves.

Ms. Miller inspired her staff, Puchkoff said. "She made you reach for the bar. She was a workaholic, and the only thing that came before her work was her children."

In 2002, she moved to Cleveland to head the private Pardes High School in Beachwood, Ohio, until it closed in 2004. She also worked as a marketing consultant for Boston-based Partners for Excellence in Jewish Education and was director of marketing for the Jewish Education Center in Cleveland from 2004-05.

Ms. Miller met her second husband, Jack Cohan, in Cleveland. They were married four years.

In fall 2006, Ms. Miller began having symptoms of ALS. She had just started as head of the primary school at an all-girls prep school in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

By July of 2007, she was in a wheelchair and could not talk. She resisted despair and plunged into several projects, including fund-raising for ALS and a documentary of her life by Cleveland filmmaker Kidist Getachew called "Voiceover: The Challenge of Silence."

"She never stopped," said her friend Barbara Ekelman, a speech pathologist at Case Western Reserve University, who was traveling with Ms. Miller when she died. "She was a woman of incredible vision who knew how to bring people's strengths together to accomplish a goal."

Ms. Miller did not want to miss a moment of her life even as her body shut down. "She had a passion for living," said her daughter Carla Miller-Kopikis of Needham. "She was full of love and joy on a daily basis."

Her mother's life inspired her to become a special education teacher, and she now works in Newton schools.

In addition to her husband, daughter and son, Ms. Miller leaves her brother, Alan Gordon of Barrington, R.I.; her sister, Lorraine Podolsky of Toronto; her step-daughters Andrea Cohan of San Francisco and Ilene Cohan of Columbus, Ohio.

Services have been held. Burial was in Swan Point Cemetery in Providence.