Ruth Fredman Cernea of Bethesda, a cultural and symbolic anthropologist who was a former Hillel professional and wrote a number of books on Jewish topics, including an anthropological analysis of the seder, died March 31 of pancreatic cancer at her son's home in Coral Gables, Fla. She was 74.
Born and raised in Philadelphia, Cernea earned a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1956 and a doctorate in cultural anthropology in 1982, both from Temple University. She moved to Montgomery County in 1977.
From 1982 until 1996, she was publication and research director for Hillel, responsible for internal and external newsletters, compendia and the Guide to Jewish Life on Campus, the popular directory for high school seniors looking for information on Jewish life at colleges across the country.
The highest ranking woman in Hillel at a time when it was changing from an organization dominated by male rabbis, Cernea was remembered by her colleagues.
"Ruth was quintessential Hillel: deeply Jewish and deeply curious, celebrating each Jew each day. She thought the Hillel idea was majestic, and she contributed to it with her thoughtful scholarship, her goodness, and her exploration of Jewish life around the world," former Hillel president Richard Joel, now Yeshiva University president, said in a Hillel statement.
Hillel Southeast regional liaison David Raphael remembered that "Ruth was a beautiful, elegant woman who brought class, style, good cheer and good humor to Hillel. She was grounded in the academic world and her commitment to professionalism elevated us all."
Cernea dedicated her scholarly career to the study and interpretation of Jewish culture and symbols. Her doctoral dissertation, "Cosmopolitans at Home: The Sephardic Jews of Washington, D.C.," was the product of five years of research among Jewish immigrants from North Africa living in the Washington area.
She authored The Passover Seder: Afikoman in Exile (1992), an anthropological analysis of the Passover holiday and ritual, highlighting the values of purity, freedom and celebration in Jewish culture; the book was republished in several editions.
She also edited the selected anthology of The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate (2006), a collection of "scholarly" mock-academic debate speeches by American faculty pleading the "superiority" of one or the other Jewish holiday foods -- the Chanukah potato pancake or the Purim tri-cornered pastry. The annual "debate" among faculty, initiated some 60 years ago at the University of Chicago, was replicated over time on countless campuses across the United States. In her introduction, Cernea characterized the exercise as "a unique contribution to American folkore."
With a researcher's eye, during her 1987 second honeymoon, Cernea discovered the then little known Jewish community of Burma and its historic Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Rangoon. This spurred her enduring interest in the Jewish communities of the former British colonies of South and Southeast Asia. Over the ensuing two decades, she conducted interviews and archival research in Burma (Myanmar), the United States, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. The resulting 2007 book, Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma, pieced together the information in a manner that recreated the daily life of the community.
She lectured at many universities and institutions, most recently in September at the Library of Congress, on the Baghdadi Jews of British colonial-era Burma and India. She was a former president of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists.
Cernea traveled extensively, visiting more than 60 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, South America and the Middle East, on her own and with her husband, Michael, senior social policy adviser for the World Bank.
" 'Where's Mom?' became a running joke in the family," said her husband, "because invariably she was in some far-flung part of the globe."
She was a member of Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County in Bethesda.
Cernea's marriage to Irwin Jay Fredman ended in divorce.
In addition to her husband, survivors include three children from her first marriage, Jonathan Fredman of the District, Andrew Fredman of Coral Gables and Lauren Huot of Jakarta; two stepchildren, Andrei of Bethesda and Dana of Englewood, N.J.; a sister; a brother; and 11 grandchildren.
A memorial service for Cernea will be held at Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, 8215 Old Georgetown Rd., on Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
