Marilyn Ziering

She is a co-founder of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.^[4] She was also the founding president of the Women's Group at the Friends of Sheba Medical Center, a hospital based in Tel HaShomer, Ramat Gan, Tel Aviv, Israel, from which she is the recipient of the Woman of Achievement Award.^[4] She has endowed the Sigi and Marilyn Ziering National Center for Newborn Screening at the Sheba Medical Center.^[5] Additionally, she has served on the Board of Directors of Temple Beth Am in Los Angeles, where she is a Hall of Honor inductee and recipient of the Torah Fund Award.^[4][6] She served on the board of trustees of the Venice Family Clinic.^[4] Moreover, she serves as one of four co-vice presidents on the board of directors of the American Friends of the Israeli Philharmonic.^[7] She also serves on the Honorary Board of the World Alliance for Israel Political Action Committee (WAIPAC).^[8]

She served as the chairman of the board of trustees of the American Jewish University (AJU) in Bel Air.^[4] Shortly after her husband's death, she established the Sigi Ziering Institute Exploring the Ethical and Religious Implications of the Holocaust at AJU.^[9] In 2008, she sponsored the "Symposium on Holocaust Education: A Tribute to the Voices Lost" at Syracuse University, her alma mater, co-organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Syracuse University School of Education and the Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Educators.^[3] In 2011, she sponsored the Alternative Spring Break to Montevideo, Uruguay, of students associated with Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).^[4] She has also donated to the Dortort Center for Creativity in the Arts at UCLA Hillel.^[4]

In February 2013, she established the US$1 million Marilyn and Sigi Ziering Endowment for the Arts at Shalem College in Jerusalem, Israel.^[10] The endowment led to the hiring of Roy Oppenheim as Professor of Music and Music Theory.^[10] She also established the Sigi Ziering Fund for Philosophy and Ethics at Shalem College.^[10] The fund endows the research of Asa Kasher, a co-author of the Israel Defense Forces's Code of Ethics, and Ruth Gavison, a human rights legal scholar.^[10] She has also donated to Camp Ramah, a summer camp.^[11]

She serves as one of five vice chairmen on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles Opera, where she has been a major donor.^[12][13] In 2006, she made a US$3.25 million charitable contribution to the L.A. Opera for the performance of works by artists assassinated by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.^[11][14] The program, known as 'Recovered Voices,' was first suggested by conductor James Conlon.^[14] However, it was discontinued in 2010 due to financial constraints.^[15] In 2013, she revived the program at the Colburn School in Downtown Los Angeles, by donating US$1 million.^[15] It came to be known as the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices.^[15]

In 2014, she was a Gold Sponsor of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival.^[16]

She married Sigi Ziering in 1953.^[17] They joined Temple Beth Am, a Conservative Jewish congregation in Los Angeles in 1969.^[18] The couple had two sons and two daughters: Michael Ziering, Ira Ziering, Rosanne Ziering, Amy Ziering.^[17] Their daughter Amy is married to Gil Kofman and works as a documentary filmmaker.^[19][20]