Sandra Golden

Sandra Golden died peacefully on May 9^th, 2023 just after her 86th birthday. She was born in 1937 in Brooklyn, New York to Eli Pergam, an immigrant refugee from Eastern Europe who came here as an early teen. Her mother Celia (Sylvia) was born in New York. They moved to Philadelphia when Sandra was a few years old, so poor they had a garden to supplement their food supply. Her father went to school in electronics and got a job as a civilian in the Navy working on an electronics trouble shooting team, including working on the B17 bomber communications system. Eli and Sylvia also opened an electronics repair shop in the front of their house. Sylvia, in addition to raising three children, helped run the shop and Eli worked in the shop after his full time day in the Navy. Sandra Graduated from Temple University with a degree in Education. A highlight of her young life was living in Israel on Kibbutz Kfar Blum at age 18 when Israel was a new nation. She told us stories of here experiences there for years. She married Marvin Golden (deceased) just after her 20^th birthday. They moved to the Midwest so that Marvin could sell for his father's company Amburgo, an agricultural nutritional supplement company. Sandra chose Madison, Wisconsin thinking it was a center of education where her children would grow up and go to college, as she highly valued education. Sandra earned two masters degrees and was “all but dissertation" for her PhD at UW Madison. She continuously took courses loving the process of learning. She worked in the maximum security facility at Mendota Mental Health and then for UW, Madison, in the Educational Psychology Department. She was an activist in human rights beginning in the 1960’s. She was a long time member of a women's consciousness raising group in the 1970s’, and was among the first outspoken women to push for the egalitarian participation for women that exists today at Beth Israel Synagogue in Madison, Wisconsin. She had four children and four grandchildren which she made clear were the most important things to her in her life. She is survived by David Golden, Robert Golden (wife Sue and their children Leah and Sarah), Ruth Bittorf ((Previous husband Todd) and their children Emily and Caroline), and Jonathan Golden. We are forever grateful for her love, wisdom and, kindness she gave us during her life.