Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Peggy Tishman, 84, Communal Leader

Margaret “Peggy” Tishman, a communal leader and philanthropist for more than five decades, died March 5 at the age of 84 in Manhattan after an illness.

One of the guiding forces behind the merger of the United Jewish Appeal of Greater New York and the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York in the late 1980s, Tishman served for three years as the first president of the nascent entity, the UJA-Federation of New York. In so doing, she became one of the first women to serve as president of a major charitable federation. Tishman first gained national recognition for her volunteer efforts as an advocate for the low-income Jewish elderly and for assisted-living facilities.

She was married for 62 years to Alan Tishman, a scion of a family real estate empire who died two months ago. She is survived by a daughter, Pat T. Hall, and her son-in-law James Q. Hall; another son-in-law, Richard Alexander; six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Tishman was predeceased by her children, David Henry Tishman and Virginia Alexander.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.