With sadness and sympathy, we inform you of the passing of Barbara Frommer (1938 - 2018), beloved mother of Cantor David Frommer (Carla) and Katharine Frommer Cik (Peretz), and loving grandmother to Aaron, Eliana and Talia Frommer, and Ezra and Ilana Cik.

 

Born in Evansville, IN on August 18, 1938 and raised in Lexington, KY, Barbara was the daughter of the late Evelyn and Maurice Hymson, founders of Hymson's Tots and Teens department store. She received her BA in French from Sarah Lawrence College and her JD from Brooklyn Law School, and served as assistant attorney general of Kentucky, specializing in criminal appeals. She had a passion for history and politics and was honored to be a guest of Eleanor Roosevelt on several occasions at Vall Kill Cottage at Hyde Park and in New York City. She enjoyed travel, visiting the World's Fair in Brussels, and loved folk crafts, dance, literature and theater, particularly the works of William Shakespeare. A woman of strong Jewish affiliation from her earliest years, she always remembered listening to the live radio broadcast of the United Nations General Assembly vote to establish the State of Israel in 1947. Throughout her life she supported numerous Jewish charities as well as synagogues in Lexington, New York and St. Louis.