Naomi Feldman

Naomi Goldstein Feldman, of New York City and Lakeville, CT died peacefully at home on February 18, 2026. Naomi was born in 1932 in New York City. She grew up on the upper East Side, spending summers exploring nature in then-rural Mahopac, New York. After graduating from Julia Richman High School at age 16, she attended Vassar College (class of 1952) and then New York Medical College, where she earned her medical degree in 1956.

Practicing under her maiden name, Naomi Goldstein, she had a long and distinguished career as a forensic psychiatrist—an unusual achievement at a time when professional women were still rare. She worked in the New York criminal courts, then in Bellevue Hospital’s forensic psychiatric services, and later at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. Her professional duties often involved interviewing criminal suspects and prisoners, some of whom were implicated in highly publicized crimes. She was the first psychiatrist to interview Mark David Chapman (who murdered John Lennon), an experience about which she was interviewed for a 2023 documentary. Later she held a variety of leadership roles in multiple organizations including the American Psychiatric Association, and taught forensic psychiatry at New York University Medical School. She published scholarly articles, often writing passionately about the failure of the US prison system to address the psychiatric needs of inmates. After retiring, she volunteered for many years at the American Museum of Natural History, showing butterflies to children and teaching them origami.

She was an avid photographer, specializing in abstract compositions drawn from natural forms she encountered on walks near her beloved summer home in Lakeville, and evocative and moody portraits of strangers she encountered in her travels. She was also a talented paper and fabric artist, combining paper and textiles in endless combinations. When her grandchildren were young she often guided them through elaborate crafts in every imaginable medium. She was married for 65 years to Franklin Feldman (who predeceased her in 2021), and in their later years they often collaborated on artistic creations, combining her photographs, paper and fabric art with his illustrations into imaginative multimedia creations.

She is survived by her children Sarah, Eve, and Jacob Feldman; son-in-law David Scharfstein, daughter-in-law Karin Stromswold; grandchildren Rebecca Scharfstein, Ben Scharfstein, Eliza Scharfstein, Hannah Feldman, and Sophie Feldman; grand-daughter-in-law Sigalit Perelson Scharfstein; and great-grandson Gabriel Perelson Scharfstein.