Hannah Combs Friedlander Genealogical Archive
Hannah Combs Friedlander
(1927-2012)
and
Bernard Zuckert Friedlander
(1927-2023)
About
…
Hannah and Bernard are survived by their three children, Matthew, John, and Julia Friedlander, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Hannah Combs Friedlander
(1927-2012)
…
Bernard Zuckert Friedlander
(1927-2023)
Dr. Bernard Z. Friedlander, Ph.D, “B.Z.” to many friends and family, was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 22, 1927 to Joseph Friedlander, a successful optician, and Estelle Zuckert, a public school teacher. He had a happy and comfortable childhood in the house that his father built in Scarsdale, NY. He attended and graduated from the local public schools.
Bernard’s undergraduate studies at Middlebury College in Vermont were interrupted by basic Army training at Fort Knox. He fully expected to ship out to the Pacific Theater, but the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war. He completed his degree in American Literature and History in 1950.
Bernard worked in local journalism and at the Cambridge University Press during the fifties and was part of the Manhattan literary scene, where he knew e. e. cummings, Marianne Moore, Bayard Rustin, George Gamow and Barbara Perkins.
He was inspired to pursue graduate studies by renowned research psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker. He received his Ph.D in Research Psychology from Case Western Reserve University in 1962.
He launched his academic career at the Case Western Mental Development Center, studying how infants come to recognize and understand language. His team developed the PLAYTEST, a system for automated electronic assessment of infant auditory preferences in their cribs. PLAYTEST was also used to evaluate severely disabled children who had previously been considered untestable and unable to learn, demonstrating that these “untestable” children could use PLAYTEST to express preferences and learn to influence their immediate environment.
Bernard died in his sleep in Madison, Wisconsin on February 22, 2023. He was 95 years old.