Rose Art Museum Welcomes New Board Members

The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University has named five new members-Lazar Fruchter, Anita Hill, Cynthia Reed, Rivka Saker, and Carey Schwartz-to its Board of Advisors, a group that includes international leaders in the worlds of art, education, philanthropy, business, and academia.

"As momentum grows for the Rose Art Museum, we are thrilled to welcome five new board members with global and local connections," said Christopher Bedford, the Henry and Lois Foster Director of the Rose. "This is an exciting time for the Rose. We have ambitious goals for the museum, and I am a grateful to work with a board of this caliber to achieve our collective vision for the Rose as one of the premier university museums in this country dedicated to 20th and 21st century art."

Lazar Fruchter is a Belgian citizen residing in Israel. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Business Administration from the Bar Ilan University in Israel and is active in the steel industry, real estate business, and entrepreneurial startup world, as well as in a variety of philanthropic organizations in Israel. Fruchter is on the board of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where he is a member of their acquisitions and exhibitions team. Together with his wife Chami, he endowed the Chami Fruchter Video Prize in 2014, a joint initiative between the Rose and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Lazar named the prize in honor of his wife, whom he credits with opening his eyes to contemporary art. Fruchter and his wife are parents of a Brandeis graduate and a current student.

Anita Hill is an American attorney and academic. In April of 2015, the Brandeis Board of Trustees voted to recognize Anita Hill with a promotion to University Professor, one of Brandeis' most prestigious academic honors. Hill's faculty appointment is in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, where she teaches courses on social policy, gender, race and legal history. After receiving her Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1980, she worked in private practice and with the federal government before becoming a law professor in 1983. Her testimony at the 1991 Senate confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas is credited for raising the issue of sexual harassment to public consciousness.

Anita Hill has authored and contributed to numerous scholarly articles and books on issues ranging from commercial law to gender discrimination. Hill's latest book is Reimagining Equality: Stories of Gender, Race and Finding Home, which analyzes the discriminatory impact of the foreclosure crisis and the Recession of 2008. Hill has written widely on issues of race and gender in publications such as The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Fortune, Time, Ms. Magazine and others, and has offered commentary on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Today, 60 Minutes, Meet the Press, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Anita Hill was born in Lone Tree, Oklahoma, the youngest of farmers Albert and Erma Hill's 13 children. Her family hailed from Arkansas, Texas and North Carolina, where her ancestors, including her maternal grandfather, Henry Elliott, were enslaved.

Cynthia Reed currently serves on the board of Le Laboratoire in Cambridge and on the Council of the Arts at MIT. In 2010, she became the chair of the MIT Corporation Partners Program on which she served until fall 2014. For the past nine years she has been a member of the MIT Humanities Visiting Committee. From 2006 - 2011, she was an Overseer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and then became a Trustee from 2011 to 2014. In 2013, Reed joined the board of The Trustees of Reservations and is a member of their Art in Landscape committee. In 2014, she organized an extremely popular series of panel discussions for the Boston Athenaeum on The Future of the Museum. She received her BA from Northern Illinois University, and has studied and lived in France and Belgium, and is fluent in French.

Rivka Saker is a philanthropist and art collector. Based in New York and Tel Aviv, she serves as a chairman of Sotheby's Israel. In 2004, Saker founded Artis, a non-profit art organization to support Israeli artists and to create opportunities for their exposure abroad, where she continues to serve as board chairman. She helped support projects by Israeli artists including Yael Bartana, Gilad Ratman, Naama Tsabar, and Ariel Schlesinger.

Saker was born in Tel Aviv, Israel. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Art History from the University of Haifa, and an Urban Planning Master of Arts degree from Haifa's Technion Institute of Technology. In 1982, Saker joined Sotheby's and established the first Sotheby's office in Israel. In 2006, Saker was appointed chairman of Sotheby's Israel. She is also currently acting as a director of Sotheby's Europe. Saker serves on the board of various cultural institutions, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Association of Israel's Decorative Arts, the Center of Contemporary Israeli Art and on the board of governors of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. In 2013, Saker was named one of the top 10 influential people in Israel's art scene by Haaretz newspaper.

Carey Schwartz has a Bachelor of Arts from Brandeis University, as well as a Master of Science in Mass Communication and a Master of Education in Counseling from Boston University, and currently works as an editor. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Boston's Jewish Community Day School and Summer Ink. Carey collects paintings and photographs with a focus on Israeli artists. Her interest is in bringing art into the daily lives of Brandeis students.