Tamar Kaplan

Kaplan, Tamar 20, passed away January 6, 2013 due to injuries sustained in a tour bus accident in Bolivia. Tamar was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1992 and moved with her family to St. Paul in 1996. She attended Horace Mann Elementary School and Twin Cities Academy before graduating from Highland Park High School in 2010. As a high school senior she was a National Merit Scholar and the state champion in policy debate. She was a junior at Claremont McKenna College where she majored in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. While at Claremont, she was deeply involved in student organizations and managed SOURCE Consulting, a student-run organization that works with local non-profits. She had just completed a semester of study abroad in Quito, Ecuador and was traveling in Bolivia with a friend when the accident occurred. Tamar was a beautiful, happy, highly intelligent young woman. She was fearless, adventurous, confident, and independent. She had a strong sense of self, loved life and was generous with her many talents. She was preceded in death by her maternal grandfather, Eliahu Hanna and her paternal grandfather, Alan Kaplan. Tamar is survived by loving parents, Daniel Kaplan and Maya Hanna; sisters, Liat and Netta; grandmothers, Marta Kaplan and Rena Hanna; aunts and uncles, Judy Kaplan, David (Julia) Kaplan, Lara Hanna, Avner (Yaffa) Chen, and Udi (Margie) Bendror; many cousins in the U.S. and Israel, and many friends from St. Paul, California, and across the country. She will be deeply missed. There will be a memorial to celebrate Tamar's life on Monday, January 14th at 11:00 am in the Alexander Hill Ballroom at Macalester College in St. Paul.