Susan L. Mednick

Susan L. Mednick

Journalist, Writer. Ray of Sunshine

Susan Lee Mednick died on July 1, 2025, in Chicago, IL. Susan (Susie) was born on Chicago's West Side on July 28,1940 to Sydell and Milton Levinson. She attended Austin High School (class of 1958) where she was senior class president. Susan started college at the University of Michigan before graduating from Northwestern (1962) with a degree in English Literature. Later, she received a Master's in Judaica from Spertus Institute and a Master of Social Work from Loyola.

Like her mother, Susan was a gifted, independent thinker who had a lifelong love of reading. Like her father, Susan was courageous and optimistic, with a can-do spirit. As a teenager, Susan learned to fly airplanes; at 21, she became a reporter for the Chicago Tribune-one of only a handful of women reporters at the time. In the mid-1960s, Susan was head copywriter for English and Social Studies textbooks at Scott-Forsman. In the 1970s, she was a feature editor for Pioneer Press's Highland Park News. From 1985 to 1990, she was the Public Relations Director for the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Susan was also a freelance writer and long-time contributor to JUF News.

Susan was committed to social action-serving as a board member and writer for Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry, a founding member and Chair of the Chicago Jewish Women's Foundation, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Friends of Robert Emmet School (her grammar school) which provided school supplies and support to underserved students.

Susie married her high school sweetheart, Robert (Bob) Mednick, in October 1962. Susie and Bob were married for 62 years and were a couple for over 70. They first met at age 13 on the steps of Austin Community Center on Rosh Hashanah in 1953 and went to their first dance ("Smoke Dreams") at age 14. Throughout their marriage, Susie and Bob loved to spend time with their extended family and many good friends. They especially loved to travel-visiting over 60 countries-aided by Susie's press credential and Bob's senior management position at Arthur Andersen worldwide.

Along with Bob, Susan was dedicated to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. They were members of Congregation Solel in Highland Park from 1970 to 1990, and the Lake Shore Drive ("Elm Street") Synagogue for the past 35 years. In the 1980s, Susan and Bob visited and worked to secure exit visas for Refusniks (Jewish dissidents) from the Soviet Union. The two visited Israel numerous times beginning in 1973 and lived in Jerusalem for two months a year between 1999 and 2022.

Above all, Susan loved people. She was especially fond of her paternal grandfather, Charlie Levinson, who, like Susan, was a kind soul with a sunny disposition and a beaming smile. Susan was a beloved mother, Safta (grandmother), and aunt. She cared about and was genuinely interested in everyone she knew or met-friends, strangers, people from all walks of life-asking them questions, giving them compliments, and making them feel special. She was a ray of sunshine to everyone who knew her, and to the countless others she met along the way.

Susan was preceded in death by her parents Sydell and Milton Levison and is survived by her husband Robert; children: Michael, Julie (Russell) Mednick-Simmons, and Adam (Aphra); and grandchildren: Talia, Eli, and Daniel Simmons, and Eliza and Simon Mednick.

Service Thursday 11AM at Chicago Jewish Funerals, 195 N. Buffalo Grove Road (one block north of Lake Cook Road) Buffalo Grove. Interment Shalom. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Jewish Women's Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago (JWF), 30 South Wells Street, Chicago, Illinois 60606, www.juf.org/jwf/ or Chicago Jewish Day School, 3730 North California Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60618, www.chicagojewishdayschool.org. To attend the funeral livestream, please visit our website. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Buffalo Grove Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com