Marian Safran

Marian Celia Safran (née Folk) passed away in Palo Alto, California, on January 31, 2026. She was 86.

She was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1939, where she was among the first girls locally to celebrate a Bat Mitzvah (a Jewish coming-of-age ritual). She graduated as valedictorian from Central High School of Scranton in 1957, where she also edited the literary magazine. She got a BA in Latin at Barnard College in New York, graduating early, in February 1961, so that she could get married to Bill Safran, then a graduate student at Columbia University, in March. 

She subsequently completed an MA in Latin at Hunter College, worked for Publishers Weekly, and taught English at a public high school in Manhattan for several years.

In 1965, she and Bill moved to Boulder, where she taught composition and correspondence courses in literature for CU and worked for the Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science. For many years she worked as a copy editor, both freelance and on staff at Westview Press. She proofread books on topics as diverse as Chadian languages and feminist Talmudic scholarship and was highly regarded by both the authors she edited and her colleagues at Westview. She also co-taught a class on copyediting with her Westview colleague Alice Levine at the University of Denver.

Marian's volunteer work included editing WE magazine, a publication of student work with five annual issues marking the hundredth anniversary of Whittier Elementary School (the oldest continuously operating public school in Colorado). She also designed the curriculum for the Congregation Har HaShem Hebrew School and edited a cookbook for Congregation Bonai Shalom.

She spent periods living in Israel and France and learned both Hebrew and French. She was an avid photographer, a welcoming hostess, and a savvy thrift store shopper. She managed the family's finances and computer needs. She had an ironic sense of humor and clipped cartoons from the newspaper for friends and family.

In 2020, her husband Bill had a stroke, and the two moved to California in 2023 to be closer to their family. Although she suffered from cognitive and physical decline in her final years, she never lost her joie de vivre nor her love for Bill, who predeceased her by nine days. She is survived by her children Gabriella (Michael Kahan) and Joshua and granddaughters Eva and Frieda Kahan.