Barbara Yaroslavsky, longtime community volunteer and activist, dies at 71

From the Pasadena Star News
December 27, 2018

The wife of former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky had been seriously ill since contracting West Nile virus weeks ago.

LOS ANGELES – Longtime community leader Barbara Yaroslavsky, wife of former Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, died Wednesday at age 71.

Barbara Edelston Yaroslavsky had been seriously ill over the last six weeks with infections after contracting West Nile virus, according to her husband’s former spokesman, Joel Bellman.

She had appeared to be on the road to a slow recovery and was discharged Wednesday from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to begin a period of recuperation and rehabilitation at another facility, Bellman said. But during a physical therapy session this morning, she suddenly collapsed, he said.

Yaroslavsky was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she died shortly after 10 a.m., according to a statement issued on behalf of her husband and children, David and Mina.

“We are shocked and devastated by this turn of events,” the statement reads. “We have lost an exceptional mother, a loving grandmother and a beloved wife and partner in life. There are no words to describe what we are feeling at this moment, but our loss is profound and the void in our lives is immeasurable.”

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