Byer Mostovoy, Judith

She grew up on the North Side of Chicago and graduated from Sullivan High School and the University of Illinois.

Along with three other women, Mrs. Mostovoy started the first nursery school program for the Homewood Park District.

In 1972, she became president of the National Council of Jewish Women, South Cook section. Under her leadership, seed money was provided to Aunt Martha’s Youth Service Center to start their first group home. She was active with the South Suburban Family Shelter, where she helped initiate the community’s rape crisis hot line and served on the advisory board, and with Temple Anshe Shalom in Olympia Fields, where she taught 1st and 9th grades.

When her sons were in their teens, she decided to become an attorney, graduating from John Marshall Law School in 1980. She later became a board member of the Women’s Bar Association. “She was doing rape crisis work and after she’d go to court, she’d come home and say `I can do a better job prosecuting these people.’ And that was it,” said her husband of 46 years, Sheldon. “Once she put her mind to it, she could do anything.”

As a Homewood village trustee from 1997-2001, she made many contributions, including “Light Up Homewood,” a program to celebrate all faiths during the holiday season.