My Most Intriguing People of 2023 ABOULAFIA, Rita

Columnist releases his annual list following his 36th year at the Journal.

RITA ROSALIE ABOULAFIA, loving mother, wife, sister, grandmother, aunt and greataunt, died on December 4, 2023, at her home in Hartsdale, NY. She was 95. Her husband, Albert Aboulafia, pre-deceased her in 2006. The youngest of three powerful, independent sisters, Rita was a voracious reader of mystery novels. She loved puzzles and chocolate. She had a deep affection for dogs, and a love affair with the husband she married on Christmas Day that lasted for over half a century. Every year, until 2005, the entire family would gather at her home for her annual “Christmas-Hanukah” parties.

She was born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of a union organizer. She obtained two degrees and worked as a dental hygienist and school secretary. She was intensely political, and famously liberal, and worked on several political campaigns. She was asked by her local Democratic party to run for assemblywoman in the 1960s, but she declined the offer because the position would have required long absences from her family.

Rita was beautiful, vivacious, brilliant, stubborn, and quietly confident in all ways. When you were with her, you felt compelled to make her laugh. It was impossible to dislike her. She didn’t judge anyone, and accepted people as they were, with all their blemishes.

She had few herself. She was loving, and giving, and had little use for material things. When a charity solicited her by mail, she would write a check.

She was a feminist. She had a talent for writing. She would open her home as easily as she would open her heart to anyone who needed her. She acknowledged the evil in the world, but somehow remained the eternal optimist. She believed there was a solution to all problems, and she never hesitated to offer herself as part of the solution. She took tremendous joy in her children and grandchildren and all the puppies that came with them.

Rita was a grand, beloved matriarch in all respects, a woman of unimpeachable character and temperament, whose heart was pure, and whose name was love, and who can never be replaced.