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Anita Altman | |
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Born | June 2, 1945 (age 78) |
Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur and city planner |
Anita Altman (born June 2, 1945) is an American social entrepreneur and city planner. [1] Anita Altman co-founded ReelAbilities, the largest film festival in the United States dedicated to showcasing films by or about people with disabilities. [2] Altman is an active Jewish feminist, [3] and a member of New York's B’Nai Jeshrun synagogue. Altman is the mother of Sascha Altman DuBrul, who co-founded the Icarus Project.
Altman was raised in a working-class Greek Jewish community in East Bronx. Her Romaniote Jewish grandparents, Anna and Zadick Coffino, emigrated from the Ottoman Empire to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, before settling in Hunts Point [4] [5] Her father, Jack Altman who was an Ashkenazi Jewish plumber, married their daughter Sarah.[ citation needed ]
Altman attended the all-girls Hunter College High School. [6] She received a B.A. in Political Science from The City College of New York in 1967, and a Master of Professional Studies in Health Services Administration from the New School for Social Research in 1982.
In 2014, Altman was awarded the City Colleges' Alumni Association's Townsend Harris medal for outstanding post-graduate achievement. [7]
Altman has one older brother, Stanley Altman, who is a professor at Baruch College. [8]
While working at New York City's Planning Department, Altman participated in developing the Master Plan for the city. [9]
While working in New York's Health Services Administration, she focused on improving prison health services.[ citation needed ]
Altman worked as the Director of Community Development for Co-op City, organizing human service providers and an array of cultural programs. [10]
As Deputy Director of Montefiore Medical Center's Building Program, Altman worked with hospital administrators, architects, the City Planning Commission, and community representatives to help plan the reconstruction and expansion of its physical plant.[ citation needed ]
Altman served on Manhattan's Community Board 7 for ten years from 1973 to 1983 and was the co-chair of its Social and Health Care Services sub-committee for several of those years. [11]
In 1987, Altman began working at the UJA-Federation and spearheaded the first grant proposal to fund “A Jewish Response to the AIDS Epidemic,” which helped establish training and educational programs and create service programs linking hospitals and community-based agencies. [12] UJA-Federation became one of the five founding members of the New York AIDS Coalition, which emerged as the largest AIDS advocacy organization in New York State.
Altman worked to raise support for Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) as environments to organize communities with substantial senior populations. [13] Altman believed an increasing number of seniors must be enabled “to age in place.” [14] [15] [16] [17] Altman helped execute the program concepts pioneered at Penn South, a union-sponsored, moderate-income housing co-op in Manhattan's Chelsea community, [14] including a program with the express goal of helping senior residents to remain living in their own home. This supportive service program (SSP), mobilized the community and built partnerships between senior residents, housing management, and health and social service agencies to achieve that end. [18] With the support of the Robert Wood Foundation, the program was successfully replicated and in 1994 the New York State Legislature passed the first NORC-SSP legislation in the country, providing matching grants to an original 10 programs. This was followed in 1999 by the establishment of the New York City NORC funded by its City Council. [15]
In 1993, Altman convened a group of authorities in related fields to address the question of domestic violence in the Jewish community. This resulted in her founding the UJA-Federation Task Force on Family Violence, which, in 2001, received the New York State Governor's COURAGE award. [19] In 2008, Altman received the Woman of Valor award from the New York Board of Rabbis for her work with the Task Force.[ citation needed ]
Altman also founded the UJA-Federation Task Force on People with Disabilities, which focused on serving disabled people and their families throughout the New York metro area. [20]
During her work with the UJA Task Force on People with Disabilities, Altman decided that films could be an effective medium to help create wider public awareness about people with disabilities. [2] In partnership with the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, she founded ReelAbilities: New York Disabilities Film Festival. [21]
ReelAbilities is now the largest film festival in the country dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of people with different disabilities, with 13 cities currently sponsoring festivals in their own communities. Altman herself has said, “It is a festival with a social mission, namely to change public perception and understanding of who people with disabilities are.” [22]
The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven senior colleges, seven community colleges, and seven professional institutions. The university enrolls more than 275,000 students and counts thirteen Nobel Prize winners and twenty-four MacArthur Fellows among its alumni.
Hunter College is a public university in New York City, United States. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also administers Hunter College High School and Hunter College Elementary School.
The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York is a public research institution and postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Division of Graduate Studies at City University of New York, it was renamed to Graduate School and University Center in 1969. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, CUNY Graduate Center is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity".
Baruch College is a public college in New York City, United States. It is a constituent college of the City University of New York system. Named for financier and statesman Bernard M. Baruch, the college operates undergraduate and postgraduate programs through the Zicklin School of Business, the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, and the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs.
The City University of New York Athletic Conference is an intercollegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division III. Its member institutions are all located in New York City and are campuses of the City University of New York. The CUNYAC also has a community college division, affiliated with the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA).
The Jewish Federation (JFED) is a secular Jewish non-profit organization found within many metropolitan areas across the United States with a significant Jewish community. They provide supportive and human services, philanthropy, financial grants to refugees around the world, humanitarian and disaster relief, host leadership conferences and fellowship opportunities for women and youth, charitable drives, help those in need navigate comprehensive resources, and provide outreach to at-risk Jewish populations in 70 countries worldwide, and more. While the Jewish Federation was created to primarily service Jewish communities, they also provide for other communities. All federations in North America operate an annual central campaign, then allocate the proceeds to affiliated local agencies. There are currently 146 Jewish Federations, the national umbrella organization for the federations is the Jewish Federations of North America, in the United States.
A naturally occurring retirement community is a community that has a large proportion of residents over 60 but was not specifically planned or designed to meet the needs of seniors living independently in their homes.
The City College of the City University of New York is a public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, City College was the first free public institution of higher education in the United States. It is the oldest of CUNY's 25 institutions of higher learning and is considered its flagship institution.
Sascha Altman DuBrul, a.k.a.Sascha DuBrul or Sascha Scatter, is an American activist, writer, farmer and punk rock musician known as the bass player of the 1990s ska-punk band Choking Victim.
Suzanne "Suzi" Oppenheimer is an American politician from New York, who served from 1985 to 2012 in the New York State Senate.
The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council) is a New York City-based non-profit social services organization. It offers many services to help hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in need.
John S. Ruskay, is executive vice president emeritus of UJA-Federation of New York and a senior partner of JRB Consulting Services. He served as a commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from May 2016 to May 2018. Ruskay is an author and lecturer on issues affecting the Jewish people.
Lisa Frances Staiano-Coico is an American microbiologist. She served as the 12th president of the City College of the City University of New York from 2010 to 2016.
UJA-Federation of New York is the largest local philanthropy in the world. Headquartered in New York City, the organization raises and allocates funds annually to fulfill a mission to “care for Jews everywhere and New Yorkers of all backgrounds, respond to crises close to home and far away, and shape our Jewish future.”
ReelAbilities is the United States' largest film festival dedicated to showcasing films by, or about, people with disabilities. It was founded by JCC Manhattan in New York City in 2007.
The CUNY School of Medicine (CUNY Medicine) is the medical school of The City University of New York (CUNY). Founded in 2015 on The City College of New York (CCNY) campus, CUNY Medicine became the only public medical school in Manhattan and the first medical school to open in New York City since 1860.
New York City was affected by the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s more than any other U.S. city. The AIDS epidemic has been and continues to be highly localized due to a number of complex socio-cultural factors that affect the interaction of the populous communities that inhabit New York.
The New Jewish Home is an American nonprofit older adult health care system based in New York City. The organization serves older adults of all religions and ethnicities at its three campuses in Manhattan, The Bronx, and Mamaroneck in Westchester County. It provides rehabilitative services, skilled nursing, senior housing, and numerous home health programs, including a certified home health agency and a home care agency. The organization was founded in 1848 by Hannah Leo of the B'nai Jeshurun Ladies' Benevolent Society.