RACHEL AUSPITZ

AUSPITZ, RACHEL Rachel Auspitz, beloved granddaughter of Gabriella Auspitz Labson of La Mesa, died on September 5, 2010, in Boston, after a brief illness. Rachel was born in Boston and educated at the Cambridge Friends School, the Commonwealth School and the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She shared her grandmother's love of theater, and she believed that drama could advance social justice. She performed with Youth Expression Theater and later worked with Class Act, an improvisational troupe. In the last decade of her life, she devoted herself to public health, passionately committed to human rights and the dignity of all persons. Her warm, lively, humorous nature made her an exceptionally effective outreach worker and educator. She was employed by Cambridge Cares About AIDS. She educated service providers, state officials and community members in venues from homeless shelters to the Massachusetts State House. She had been chosen to speak at the National Harm Reduction Conference in Texas this fall. Rachel is survived also by her parents, Josiah Lee and Katherine Auspitz; her brother Ben Auspitz and his wife Deborah, her nephew Jacob Auspitz; uncles Stanley and B. Reuben Auspitz, and aunt Pat Heidel.