Odeda Rosenthal

Odeda Rosenthal, educator, artist, author, scholar, mentor, poet; mother of two and parent of a third, died Monday, June 25, 2007 of cancer. Born Nov. 5, 1934, and raised in Jerusalem during the British Mandate years, Mrs. Rosenthal grew up speaking three languages amidst a mŽlange of cultures. It became the pattern of her life as an artist and educator to see things in varied ways and from multiple perspectives, and to introduce others to those new perspectives as well. After her family moved to New York City, she attended The City College of New York, receiving a Bachelor of Arts and teaching certification, and meeting her husband-to-be, Abner Rosenthal. Two children later, while teaching a mix of three subjects - Art, English, and Hebrew, first in New York City and then in New Jersey, Mrs. Rosenthal attended Hunter College for an MA in Comparative Languages. The untimely death of her husband Abner after 21 years of marriage changed her perspective yet again, ending 30 years of living in New York City and taking her to a more rural life on Long Island's East End. There she changed from painting to ink drawing, from teaching high schoolers to teaching college students, and from writing college papers to writing articles and poems for the East Hampton Star...except for the six months she spent in New Zealand fulfilling a childhood dream and writing a book on the Jewish history of New Zealand, for which she was named a Fellow of the American Jewish Archives. A bitter winter chased her south, and the call of family brought her to Greenville in 1993. Starting over in a new place yet again, Mrs. Rosenthal explored and wrote about her surroundings. Drawing on past experiences of her husband's reaction to medications, she researched and wrote about color vision issues, culminating in the publication of Coping with Color Blindness. With her artistic and educational training, she became an adjunct professor at Pitt Community College and a lecturer at ECU. Keeping fit as she had since college athletics, she joined a badminton program and participated in the Senior Olympics, even up to a few months before her death. Odeda Rosenthal is mourned by son Harlan and his wife, Nanette; grandson, Oren; daughter, Heidi; granddaughter, Jenniffer and grandson, Joshua; Alex and his wife, Diane.