Ludmila Pomerantsev

She was born in Armenia in 1943, in the middle of WWII, to a wounded veteran Joseph Gluskin and his wife Hanna Frimerman. She survived the aftermath of the war, the frequent family moving from place to place, the ani-Jewish purges of early 1950s. She grew up to be a talented mathematician, completing her B.S. and Ph.D. education in Moscow, Rostov, and Odessa.

Upon graduation, Ludmila decided to devote her career to improving middle school and high school education by teaching future math teachers how to explain math to their students. This has become her life-long goal, both in Ukraine, at Cherkassy Pedagogical University, and in California, at California State University Long Beach and several colleges. She became legendary for teaching math education techniques and improved education in both Ukraine and California by making school teachers better prepared to meet the challenges of explaining math to kids. She wrote a book “Algebraic Language: A Structural Approach” about the techniques of teaching middle school math.

Ludmila was very devoted to her family, to her husband Simon, son Michael, sister Larisa, and all the members of the extended family. She was very generous, always eager to help. She was a devoted mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and grandmother. Each and every member of her extended family was precious to her. Her devotion that knew no bounds and her selflessness will always be remembered.

Ludmila was also a very active member of the community. Immediately upon the collapse of Soviet Union she created the first Jewish school in Cherkassy, Ukraine. It’s difficult to explain these days how much courage and energy that required. Anything Jewish was frown upon in Soviet Union; one could be jailed for teaching Hebrew or for contacting Israeli organizations. Therefore Ludmila, born and raised in Soviet Union, didn’t speak Hebrew. However, in 1991 she reached out to Jewish organizations in Israel that donated Hebrew and Jewish History textbooks, traveled to Israel to learn Hebrew, and created from scratch a Jewish school in Cherkassy where she started to teach the language she just learned as well as Jewish History. The Jewish school in Cherkassy quickly became the cultural center for Jewish youth, and it is still thriving today. Because of the Jewish school she created Ludmila is included in the book “Famous Jews of Cherkassy City.”

Ludmila’s generosity continued after her immigration to USA: she was always generously donating for various causes.

Ludmila was a wonderful person. She will be missed by her family, by all her relatives and friends, by the students whose lives she touched, and by the Jewish community she built.