Debbie Attanasio told The Chronicle that it “meant a lot to me” that her husband, Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, spoke to the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Economic Forum on Aug. 15, which some 260 people attended.
Attanasio, nee Kaplan, is Jewish and grew up Conservative in Long Island. As an adult, she has been very active in the Jewish community of Los Angeles, the base city of her husband’s investment management firm.
She helped support the Susan S. Pritzker Series of the Women’s Division of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, and worked with the SOVA Community Food and Resource Program of the Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles, among other things, she said.
Now, she and her husband are both becoming more involved in Milwaukee, and she said she would like to start becoming active in Milwaukee’s Jewish community as well.
She said that now that they have a new home in town, she will host the MJF Women’s Division Lion of Judah/Pomegranate Event this coming October.
As a couple, the Attanasios have been activists in the general Los Angeles community. In 2006, they received the Courage to Care Award from the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
They have begun to receive recognition in Milwaukee also. In 2009, COA Youth and Family Center gave them its Parents of the Year Award.
And Debbie herself has received a Philanthropist of the Year Award from the Professional Sports Wives Association in 2007.
As well as the Brewers are doing so far — at this writing they are in first place in the National League Central Division — it is not certain they will make the playoffs.
But she joked that with her husband’s birthday being Sept. 29, and Rosh HaShanah and playoffs occurring at around the same time, they sometimes have to choose between “the ballpark or the synagogue.”
This year, Mark’s birthday is the first day of the holiday, and Debbie said they are planning to be worshipping in a Milwaukee synagogue.
Leon Cohen
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