Allison Feldman, 31, a Minnesota native whose family still lives here and belongs to Bet Shalom, was found dead in her Scottsdale, Arizona home on Wednesday afternoon...
The loss of a loved one–a daughter, a sister, a girlfriend–is impossible to comprehend for anyone who hasn’t gone through it. That much is clear. Her father Harley could barely summon words when reached over the phone yesterday. Her sister Kelly Feldman Weinblatt said that she “lost it” when she heard the news as she was trying to put her kids to bed. “I started screaming my head off,” she said. Allison’s mom Elayne had to be taken off the airplane–where she works as a flight attendant–on a stretcher. It is just incomprehensible, inconsolable, omnipresent grief. Allison Feldman was not a member of this community at the time of her death, but her death still impacts this community and we want to honor her memory...
And while formal Judaism didn’t play a big role in Allison’s life–she didn’t belong to any synagogues in Arizona–Jewish culture and tradition were still very important to her. She wanted to raise her kids in a Jewish home, her sister said. She poked around on JDate, and at the time of her death had been seeing a Jewish guy for about eight months. It was the first time she found someone she could relate to, her father said. “He’s Jewish, and tall, and they had bonded. They were very, very close. And we found out from him that he was going to propose to her in Israel in July, when he was over there for a family bar mitzvah.”
