Merle Goldman
Age - 92
November 19, 2023
. . .
Noted China scholar and family matriarch, Merle Goldman, died peacefully in her Cambridge, Massachusetts home on November 16, 2023. She was 92 years old.
A few years ago Merle was given a coffee mug decorated with the quote, "Proceed as if success is inevitable. " Rarely has a mug so perfectly captured someone's approach to life. Despite growing up at a time when most women did not pursue careers, Goldman proceeded to distinguish herself as an academic heavyweight and powerful human rights advocate. She lived life with an eternal optimism and joy that seemed to prevent her from seeing barriers, a trait that was particularly valuable for a woman of her generation.
Merle Dorothy Rosenblatt was born March 12, 1931 in New Haven, Connecticut. Her parents Jacques and Rose Rosenblatt were immigrants from Romania and Belarus. Like many Jewish immigrants of their time, they opened and ran a small business. Her parents, along with most of their siblings, worked together to open independent stores in different American cities that they called the Mill End Shop. Most of them focused on selling fabric remnants and offering upholstery - a great Depression-era business.
After graduating from The Gateway School in New Haven, Merle distinguished herself and trained as a scholar at Sarah Lawrence College, where she later became a trustee. Merle enrolled at Radcliffe in 1953 in pursuit of an M. A. in Chinese area studies, followed by a Harvard PhD focused on Chinese history. The field of East Asian Studies was just emerging at American universities, and Merle studied with and alongside some of the giants of the field, including John K. Fairbank, Ben Schwartz, Henry Rosovsky, Roderick MacFarquhar and Ezra Vogel. For six decades, she was a vibrant and creative affiliate of the Fairbank Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University, where she wrote her books and nudged an incredible community of scholars and colleagues to join together for lively lunchtime discussions of China, Japan, and the world beyond.
She became a tenured full professor at Boston University where she taught from 1972-2001 and was noted as a leading thinker in the field of Modern Chinese history. Her research focused on the relationship between China's intellectuals and the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party. Her 1967 book, Literary Dissent in Communist China, made her one of the first American scholars to highlight the lack of intellectual freedom that existed in China at a moment when many academics glorified China's attempt to reinvent society. Her subsequent publications China's Intellectuals: Advise and Dissent (1981), Sowing the Seeds of Democracy in China; Political Reform in the Deng Xiaoping Decade; (1994), and From Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in Communist China (2005) further solidified her reputation as the go-to expert on the struggles of China's intellectuals. She served on the board of Human Rights Watch and was a member of the U. S. delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in 1993-1994. In 1998, she became the co-author of China: A New History with her predeceased mentor, John K. Fairbank. In the course of her work, she met with U. S. Presidents as well as Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping.
Merle was married for 64 years to Marshall I. Goldman, who was a noted authority on the Soviet economy. The two met in the summer of 1950. Merle naturally asked what Marshall was reading and was impressed to hear that he was studying Thorsten Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class. After Marshall received his draft notice on their honeymoon, Merle ended up spending almost a year with him at Fort Hood in Texas, where Marshall served in the Army. The couple then moved to Cambridge for their graduate work at Harvard and remained in the Boston area for the rest of their lives.
Merle and Marshall traveled extensively through China and Russia, often leading alumni trips for Harvard University and Wellesley College, and always comparing notes on the tensions between economic reform and political freedoms. They were a rare couple for their generation - two high-powered academics who advised presidents and policymakers. But nothing gave Merle more joy than time spent with her family. She relished the opportunity to share a shabbat meal with children and grandchildren and remained a spirited Jewish soul through her last hours.
Her partnership with Marshall was an inspiring model of a mutually supportive marriage, with high expectations for themselves and their children. Though she wasn't heavily invested in preparing the Thanksgiving meal, Merle loved taking her grandchildren to the Wellesley Booksmith afterward to pick out any book they desired.
Merle is predeceased by Marshall as well as by her beloved brother, Adolph Rosenblatt, both of whom died in 2017. She leaves behind four children, Ethan Goldman of West Hartford, CT, Dr. Avra Goldman of Cambridge, MA, Dr. Karla Goldman of Ann Arbor, MI and Seth Goldman of Bethesda, MD. She loved being with her 12 grandchildren and was thrilled to meet her four young great-granddaughters.
Merle Goldman lived her life as if success was inevitable. And it was.
Funeral Service will be on Monday, November 20, at 10:30am at Temple Beth Elohim, 10 Bethel Road, Wellesley. Burial will follow at Beth Israel Memorial Park, 190 South Street, Waltham.
Registration for the live stream can be accessed here, http://www. tinyurl. com/MerleGoldman
After interment at Beth Israel Memorial Park (190 South Street, Waltham, MA), family, friends, and community are invited to join the family at Merle's apartment, 975 Memorial Drive, #501, Cambridge, MA (GPS for Charles Hotel at 1 Bennett Street). We can provide two hour parking stickers at the neighboring Charles Hotel garage. Brief shiva minyan will be held at 5 pm.
The family will be gathering for shiva and welcomes visits at 975 Memorial Drive, Apartment 501 on Monday afternoon until 7 pm. , and on Tuesday, November 21 and Wednesday, November 22 between 4 and 7 pm with a brief service at 5 pm on each day.
We invite those who would like to make a donation in her honor to contribute to The Merle and Marshall Goldman Endowment Fund for Jewish Campus Life (supporting seven different Hillels connected to the Goldman family) c/o CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies), 126 High Street, Boston, MA 02110 or the Jewish Women's Archive (https://jwa. org).Show more
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