Alan Rabinowitz

Rabinowitz—Alan Rabinowitz, 90, on November 29, 2017, in Seattle, Wash. Alan was born in New York City on January 18, 1927, the youngest of Clara Greenhut and Aaron Rabinowitz’s three children. He graduated from Yale with wartime service in the Navy and earned a master’s from Harvard Business School and a doctorate in urban studies from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He married Friend Andrea Wolf in 1951, and during their years in Cambridge, Mass., where he worked with several institutions, he regularly attended Friends Meeting at Cambridge with her. He became chairman of the Urban Planning Department at University of Washington. Though he did not join Friends until 1991, when he joined University Meeting in Seattle, he served on the Personnel and Finance Committees and along with Andrea worked out details for the meeting’s QuEST program, which brings recent college graduates to Seattle to live cooperatively and compare ideas as they apprentice with social service agencies.

He and his family returned to a home on Martha’s Vineyard for parts of most summers. He wrote seven books on urban economics, worked with the American Civil Liberties Union, served on the boards of Town Hall and the Burke Museum, and supported personally and financially several burgeoning social justice organizations, many of which benefited children and youth.

His memorial service in the Rainier Arts Center was overflowed by a standing-room-only crowd of more than 300 friends and admirers from University Meeting and the wider Seattle community.

Alan was predeceased by his son Eric’s former wife, Caroline Rabinowitz; his daughter Martha’s life partner, Joe Earle; and a granddaughter, Anna Lytton. He is survived by his wife, Andrea Wolf Rabinowitz; four children, Eric Rabinowitz, Peter Rabinowitz, Martha Rabinowitz, and Katherine Rabinowitz; five grandchildren; and many nieces and nephews, step-grandchildren, and step-great-grandchildren.