Temple Israel News - Dorothy Serotta in The Miami Herald today

Whether fighting against anti-Semitism or poverty, or fighting for civil liberties or women's rights, Dorothy Levin Serotta was ready to march, write letters to the editor or lend a hand.
Serotta led PTAs and Cub Scout troops and countless projects for her beloved Temple Israel, which recently named its social-action committee in her honor.
Serotta died of cancer Monday in hospice care at her Miami Beach home, said Rabbi Gerald Serotta of Chevy Chase, Md., one of two sons who joined the clergy. She was 88.
His brother, Rabbi Isaac Serotta, leads a synagogue in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park.
Another Serotta son, Richard, a music producer, and daughter Carla Neufeld, an accountant, live in Miami-Dade County.
Also surviving is her husband of 66 years, Dr. Maurice Serotta, a retired dentist.
From the pre-feminist generation that disapproved of married women in the workplace, Serotta never drew a paycheck, but she gave endlessly of her time.
She also worked in her husband's office for 15 years, Gerald said.
``She led efforts to establish home rule in Dade County as well as public television in this area,'' he said. ``Being a volunteer was her career.''
LESSONS OF TORAH
He said that her world view ``was very strongly related to her sense of what Judaism teaches and requires. She learned it from her study of Torah and from her rabbis.''
Dorothy Levin was 4 in 1925 when her parents brought her and her late brother, Robert, to South Florida from Baltimore ``by coastal steamer,'' she once told The Miami Herald.
Her parents, Eastern Europe immigrants, were early members of Temple Israel -- the 1920s-era Reform congregation north of downtown -- and lost it all in the 1926 hurriane.
Later, as a University of Miami student in English and journalism, the Miami Beach Senior High School graduate wrote a play about the hurricane's devastation that was staged by UM's Ring Theater.
She graduated in 1943 as ``the first female editor in chief of the Ibis'' yearbook, her son said. That year, too, she married Maurice, of Saratoga Springs, N.Y., a U.S. Army Air Corps lieutenant.
In 1950, they bought the Miami Beach house where Maurice still lives.
SERVICE
Temple Israel's long tradition of social-service and social-justice ministries profoundly influenced Dorothy Serotta.
``Our faith has always been important in our lives,'' she told The Herald.
In a recent note to her family, former Temple Israel Rabbi Steven Jacobs said Serotta ``influenced her Rabbis [sic] as she influenced her sons and daughter. . . . In the '60s she was my encouraging mentor . . . standing side by side with me as I was asked to organize a protest march against the War in Vietnam.''
She became a charter member of the Commission on the Status of Women of the City of Miami Beach -- which she later chaired, successfully battling a proposed, 1977 topless-bathing ordinance that she found ``degrading to women.''
She headed PTAs at Ida M. Fisher Junior High and North Beach Elementary schools, served on the Haitian Refugee Center's board, co-founded the Interfaith Coalition for Immigration, and led the Miami Beach League of Women Voters.
PUBLIC TELEVISION
As chairwoman of the Dade County Council of PTAs' educational television committee, she ``created and staged the first live production on the countywide public television station,'' called The Parent Explores, Gerald said.
In 1968, she resigned from the council after its executive board opposed a teachers' walkout that she supported.
When draft-age Gerald protested the Vietnam War, she gladly backed him. ``She went on many marches and protests here and in Washington,'' he said.
Through it all, Serotta remained a proud member of Temple Israel, 137 NE 19th St.
Memorial donations may be made to the Dorothy Serotta Social Justice Forum at the temple, or to Key Clubhouse, a supportive community for people with mental illness -- one of Serotta's more recent causes: keyclubhouse.org.