Dr. Mona Hersh Cochran

 

Dr. Mona Hersh CochranMona Hersh Cochran was born in 1934 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Atlantic City, New Jersey. After high school, Mona went to Rutgers University, where she got her degree in economics and attended Temple University  to work on her Master’s. Then, she moved to Dallas in 1960, and eventually became the first female recipient of a Ph.D. from SMU, successfully defending her doctoral dissertation in the economics department. She began a long career as a professor of economics at Texas Woman’s University, where she had begun teaching during her last year of Ph.D. studies. Mona was a 1991 recipient of TWU’s most prestigious award for faculty, the Cornaro Outstanding Professor Award, and received SMU’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 1995.

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Rosalie Budnoff

Rosalie BudnoffRosalie Budnoff was born in 1928 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her father was a printing salesman and her mother, born in Russia, came to America at age three around 1897. Rosalie attended Girls’ Latin School in Boston. She moved to Dallas in 1967 and met her late second husband, Irving z”l, at a Jewish-sponsored dance. Rosalie has been a very active member in Dallas’s Jewish community and has found that the Jewish community provides opportunities to meet new people. She belonged to the National Council of Jewish Women and Hadassah while simultaneously working and has been an active member of Congregation Tiferet Israel.

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Moises “Maurice” Bramnik

Moises “Maurice” Bramnik

Moises “Maurice” Bramnik was born in 1924 in the Ukraine. When he was one, his family left Russia and moved to Havana, Cuba, in order to move away from the communist regime. Maurice met his wife, Esther, in 1956, and they had two children together while still in Cuba. He attended the University of Havana for two years studying civil engineering before he and his family left Cuba to come to the United States. After a brief time in Miami, they finally settled in Dallas with the help of Jewish Family Service and have since fallen in love with the country they now call home.

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Esther Bramnik

Esther BramnikEsther Bramnik, the oldest of four children, was born in 1934 in Havana, Cuba. Esther’s father came from Syria to Cuba at age 13 and became a jeweler. Esther is a very musical woman who loved playing piano and singing as a young girl. She met her husband, Maurice, at her home during a party that her parents had put together, and they married in 1957. She moved to the United States in 1961 with her husband and two children and eventually her whole family moved out of Cuba. They settled initially in Miami but ended up in Dallas. Appreciative of her new life in America and the welcome she received from the Dallas Jewish community, Esther has always been interested in giving back to the community.

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