Melanie Pell

WWFD (What Would Florence Do?)

My grandmother Florence—my mom’s mom has long since passed, 10+ years—but she was the social conscience in my life. My parents were as well, but my grandmother was the matriarch who I always looked up to. 

She was always working on a cause. She always had an issue. She was very deeply connected to the Jewish community. Whether it was support for Israel; whether it was support for Jewish communities. She was big in the Soviet Jewry movement. And that’s where I became more politically aware in the 1980s. I was a child, 10 or 11. But I thought my grandmother was a badass. I just knew that she was a fighter and she instilled that in me. There was a passionate sense of justice that she carried her whole life. Her whole universe was about that. She actually got her Ph.D. in international conflict resolution when she was 81 years old. So that’s just the kind of person she was. 

My grandmother Florence was really, really important in my formative years. She was always the one whose input I sought throughout my life as I was facing big decisions. I wanted to know what Florence thought! Like, WWFD or What Would Florence Do? She was a very important figure in my life.