Long-time faculty member Aliza Mizrachi Keddem passed away in her home on July 19, 2012. A celebration of her life will be held at Marylhurst University on Saturday, August 11, at 1 pm.

Aliza was born in Jerusalem to Sarina Laniado-Perera and Isaac Mizrachi. As a teenager, Aliza was active in the Gadna – the Hagannah's youth corps. Later in New York City she helped obtain needed supplies for pre-independent Israel under the direction of Teddy Kollek, who later became Jerusalem's mayor. Following Israel's independence, she worked in the Israeli Consulate in New York City. She later worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Aliza commenced her graduate studies at the University of Oregon in 1973. She earned a MA in Political Science in 1975, and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1984. Her doctoral research was on The Integration of Wives into Wage-work and the Working-class' Struggle to Maintain its Standard of Living. She next moved to Portland, where she taught mathematics at Roosevelt High School from 1984 to 2000.

Before her retirement from Portland Public Schools, Aliza began teaching night courses in sociology at Marylhurst University. Her course subjects included critical postmodern theory, gender, family, and inequality. She continued teaching at Marylhurst until last spring. Her "third career" was her most rewarding, and she reveled in engaging her students in thought, analysis and discussion.

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