Obituaries

Rabbi Morris Goldfarb, Cornell chaplain emeritus and director of Cornell Hillel from 1948 to 1980, died June 9 in the Queen's Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. He was 90 years old.

Goldfarb is credited with expanding Jewish religious services at Cornell, in particular High Holy Day services, from a basic one aimed at Orthodox Jewish students to three different services that attracted Reform and Conservative Jewish students as well. He also brought important speakers to campus, including writer Isaac Bashevis Singer and philosopher Martin Buber. In addition, he encouraged Cornell faculty to take part in Jewish community activities and strengthened ties to other religious groups at the university and in the community, said Rabbi Edward Rosenthal, the current director of Cornell Hillel.

Scott Glass, rabbi of Ithaca's Temple Beth-El and a close friend of Goldfarb's, said: "Morris was an extraordinary man who touched the lives of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. The impact of his life will be felt long after his passing."

Goldfarb attended the joint program sponsored by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America and Teachers College at Columbia University and taught at the Central Jewish Institute in New York City before studying for the rabbinate. In 1944 he was ordained as a rabbi at Stephen S. Wise's Jewish Institute of Religion. After establishing a Hillel chapter for Jewish students at Lehigh University, he came to Ithaca in 1948 to assume the directorship of Cornell Hillel. Following 32 years as the university's Jewish chaplain, he became interim director of Cornell United Religious Work after the Rev. Jack Lewis, a close friend of Goldfarb's, retired from that post.

"Morris, along with his beloved Helen, warmly embraced generations of students and faculty, making Ithaca feel like home," said Glass. "He held his own with the greatest of scholars and brought humanity and sensitivity to the academy."

When Goldfarb moved to Hawaii in retirement, noted Glass, Temple Emanu-El in Honolulu, Hawaii's largest congregation, named him their resident scholar. Returning to Ithaca frequently through his 80s, "he remained deeply interested in Cornell and gloried in the development of the Yudowitz Center for Jewish Campus Life-Cornell Hillel," noted Glass. Its continued success "is a fitting tribute to his early efforts."

Goldfarb is survived by his two daughters, Judy Weinberg '65 of Toledo, Ohio, and Deborah Washofsky '69 of Kailua, Hawaii, and their families.

Contributions in Goldfarb's memory can be made to the Yudowitz Center-Cornell Hillel. For information, contact Rabbi Ed Rosenthal at 255-4207.

Joseph T. Rogers, associate professor of physics, died May 25 of neuro-endocrine cancer, diagnosed in July 2003. He was 46.

Born in Chicago, he lived for most of his childhood in the western suburb of Glen Ellyn. His parents were artists who had studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. He attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook, earning a B.S. in 1980. After working as an engineer for a laser optics company for two years, he returned to school, earning a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Rochester in 1987. His dissertation, "Limits on the Electromagnetic Coupling and Density of Galactic Axions," was directed by Professor Adrien Melissinos. For part of 1987, he and his wife, Rene, lived in Frascati, Italy, near Rome while he was a visiting scientist at the Italian national laboratory Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario. He was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Rochester from 1987 to 1989 and associate physicist at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y., from 1989 through 1992.

Rogers and his wife moved to Ithaca when he joined the faculty of Cornell's Department of Physics as an assistant professor in 1992. He thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of work at Cornell -- accelerator physics research, teaching undergraduates, guiding graduate students and working with the international community of physicists. His research focused on the physics contributing to the design of future high-energy particle accelerators and tuning and exploitation of existing accelerators, such as Cornell's Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory. Particular research areas included computational physics for particle beams; collective instabilities in particle accelerators due to electromagnetic fields, particularly those of background ions and electrons; the beam-beam interaction; accelerator feedback systems; and diagnostic instrumentation, as well as physics pedagogy. He was a National Science Foundation Young Investigator 1993-98 and a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. He served as director of Undergraduate Studies in Physics in 1998, 1999 and 2000 and subsequently on the graduate admissions committee.

He is survived by his wife and two young sons: David, 4, and Michael, 6 months. He also is survived by his father, Joseph W. Rogers, and brother, Steven Rogers, both of Glen Ellyn, Ill.

Memorial contributions can be made in his name to the Sciencenter in Ithaca or to the David and Michael Rogers Education Fund, c/o Sandy Grooms, Tompkins Trust Co., P.O. Box 460, Ithaca, N.Y. A memorial service is planned for the fall. For details, contact the physics department after Aug. 1.