Geffen, Rela M. (Personal Name)

Crawford, A. G. Academy and community, c1980 (a.e.) cover (Rela Geffen Monson)

Celebration & renewal, 1993: CIP t.p. (Rela M. Geffen) data sheet (b. 1943)

Tel. call to D. Zuckerman, Jewish Pub. Soc., 2-12-93 (name has been changed as result of divorce to Rela M. Geffen)

Conservative movement in Judaism, 2000: CIP t.p. (Rela Mintz Geffen) data sheet (b. 2/10/43)

Philly.com, via WWW, viewed Feb. 5, 2019 (in obituary dated Feb. 4, 2019: Rela Mintz Geffen, 75, of Philadelphia, a noted sociologist who used the phases of her life as a catalyst for studying the life cycle of Jewish women and families in American society, died Sunday, Feb. 3, at Pennsylvania Hospital [Philadelphia, Pa.]. Dr. Geffen joined the faculty of Gratz College in the late 1970s and was a professor of sociology. For five years, she was Gratz's dean of academic affairs, before leaving in 2000 to become president of Baltimore Hebrew University. She stayed there until 2007. Her major studies focused on Jewish women "on the way up, breaking the glass ceiling, in dual-career families, and as grandparents," said her son. She was also intrigued by Jewish rites and how American Jews had adapted them to everything from birth and marriage to divorce. Born in Troy, N.Y.; Dr. Geffen earned two bachelor's degrees in 1965, one from Columbia University, the other from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. She completed a master's degree at Columbia, and a doctorate in sociology at the University of Florida in 1972. he wrote some of the chapters and edited Celebration and Renewal: Rites of Passage in Judaism; coedited Centennial Volume of Gratz College: Freedom and Responsibility; and coauthored Conservative Judaism: Dilemmas and Challenges. Dr. Geffen was married to Rabbi Michael Monson. They divorced two decades ago)