On Passover, Natalie Levine Brenner loved watching her grandchildren giggle as they hunted for the afikomen in the living room. “Being Jewish was very important to my mom,” Jon Leibowitz said. “She loved the traditions, from lighting the candles on Shabbat to celebrating the holidays with family. Passover was her favorite because she loved spending time with her children and grandchildren.”
Brenner, a Bethesda resident whose life combined Jewish tradition, union advocacy and a love of the arts, died on Sept. 1. She was 93.
Born and raised in working-class Bridgeport, Connecticut, Brenner grew up in a kosher home just a few doors from the family shul. She attended cheder, and much of her childhood unfolded in her parents’ neighborhood store in Bridgeport’s East End, a hub that sold candy, cigarettes, stationery and toys.
“Natalie and I probably spent more time in our parents’ store than at home,” her brother, Arthur Levine, recalled. “We met people of different races and backgrounds. It taught us how to deal with people and gave us a sense of the city’s richness, warmth and struggles.”
The store was more than a business; it was a meeting place for the neighborhood. Levine said he and his sister came to know regular customers well, and those relationships impressed on them a respect for working people of all kinds.
Brenner was the first in her family to attend college. Accepted to both the University of Connecticut and Smith College, she leaned toward UConn because it was far less expensive. “She told my father she didn’t want him spending the money,” Levine said. “She went to bed, and the next morning my father said, ‘I sent the money to Smith.’” The decision, he added, “changed her life.” Smith’s friendships and intellectual energy stayed with her for decades, and she often spoke about how the college opened new worlds of literature, music and culture.
After marriage in 1954, Brenner moved to Boston. She had trained to teach, but when she applied for a classroom job, she was told that Boston schools would not hire married women if their husbands were employed. She turned to the labor movement instead, beginning with the International Union of Operating Engineers in Boston’s Back Bay and later working in Washington, D.C., including years as the administrator of a collectively bargained pension and employee benefits fund. Levine noted that their father admired labor leader Eugene Debs and that the family store served a neighborhood of working people. Those experiences, he said, influenced his sister’s career in the labor movement.
The Washington years began in 1964, when her first husband accepted an academic position at the University of Maryland and the young family moved from Pittsburgh to Bethesda. Her children, Jane and Jon, were raised in a Jewish home and celebrated the holidays. Jane was confirmed and Jon was bar mitzvahed at Temple Sinai in D.C., where the family belonged. In later years at Maplewood Park Place in Bethesda, she regularly attended Shabbat services. “She was Jewish through and through,” Levine said. “It was part of who she was.”
At Passover Seders, she also made sure guests unfamiliar with the traditions felt welcome, often preparing small gifts so they felt included.
Music was central in Brenner’s life. As a girl, she placed 78s on the home Victrola, operas foremost, and kept that habit of listening and attending concerts for the rest of her life.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, she spent summers in Aspen, Colorado, where she became a regular at the Aspen Music Festival and on the town’s hiking trails. In Washington, she was a constant concertgoer: the Kennedy Center, symphonies and Washington Concert Opera. She served for years on the board of Washington Concert Opera and volunteered at American University’s Katzen Arts Center. Her niece, Jennifer Levine, said, “It wasn’t just about going to concerts. She was so excited to share it with us. That excitement rubbed off on everyone around her.”
Her family remembers the way she made others feel seen. “Her superpower was listening without judgment,” said her niece, Karen Donohue. During the isolation of COVID, Donohue would bring groceries and visit outside Brenner’s building at Maplewood. “She was simply wonderful and loving,” Donohue said.
Brenner’s personal life spanned two long marriages, about 33 years to her first husband, which ended in divorce, and 26 years with her second husband, Dr. Alfred Brenner, who died in April 2020 at 88.
Natalie Brenner maintained enduring friendships, from Bridgeport classmates and Smith alumnae to concert companions, theatergoers and colleagues. “People at Maplewood Park Place loved her,” Arthur Levine said. “She was just a very good person.”
Her family and friends remember her for the rituals she cherished and the joy she found in music. “She delighted in lively conversations and shared laughter,” Jennifer Levine said. “Her caring spirit, warmth and intellect — those are what we’ll remember.”
Ellen Braunstein is a freelance writer.
