INA JAFFe (1948-2024)
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Ina Gail Jaffe, award-winning journalist, NPR Correspondent for four decades, host of “Weekend Edition” and early member of the Organic Theater Company, has passed away from breast cancer at the age of 75.
Jaffe gave her first stage performances at Chicago coffeehouses as a teenage folk singer. She began acting in high school and continued her involvement in theater in college. In 1981, Jaffe performed in Wisdom Bridge’s "One-Reel Romance", "Buried Child" at Northlight Theatre, Larry Bommer's adaptation of Henry Fielding's "Jonathan Wild" and "Campaign" with Organic Theater Company, both staged at Hull House in 1979. That same year and also at Hull House, she stage managed the Organic's production of "the Little Sister". One of the Organic’s most famously popular shows “WARP!” was written by Stuart Gordon and Bury St. Edmund, a pseudonym for Lenny Kleinfeld, who went to become Jaffe’s lifeline partner and husband. Known for her melifluous alto voice, popular with all her Morning Edition listeners, Jaffe also graced the stage of Kingston Mines Theatre singing between scenes in Cecil O'Neal's adaptation of Edward Bond's “Saved”. As side gigs to support her theater work, Jaffe waitressed and became a freelance writer for the Chicago Reader, the latter of which then led to a job at NPR, covering Chicago politics on “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition” and “Weekend Edition,” which she helped launch as the program’s first editor in 1985. Jaffe’s reporting received several journalism awards, and covered a wide range of subjects, including: a 2012 expose on illegally commercially rented land in West LA meant for disabled and homeless veterans, which resulted in two federal prison sentences; the 1991 Rodney King race riots; and the 2003 election of movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger as California’s governor. In recent years, Jaffe;s work focused on the struggles of American senior citizens confronting long-term care needs, costs that outpaced their savings, and health struggles including Alzheimer’s disease. Dedicated NPR listeners turned to Jaffe for dispatches from nursing homes during the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic. Jaffe went to undergrad at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she received a 1972 BA in Philosophy. While she was acting and freelancing, Jaffe also pursued a graduate education, receiving an MA in Philosophy from DePaul University in 1977. Jaffe was born in Chicago, one of two daughters; her father was a luggage manufacturer, and her mother was an elementary school teacher. She re-located to Washington DC with her work at NPR, and eventually settled in Los Angeles. Jaffe is survived by playwright and theater critic Lenny Kleinfeld, her husband of 55 years. Jaffe never lost her love of the stage and performing. Longtime friend and co-host of “weekend Edition” Scott Simon recalls one such time: During the Chicago mayoral race of 1983, NPR sent her to Harold Washington’s campaign headquarters the night he won the Democratic nomination for Mayor. It was so crowded, Jaffe couldn’t reach the stage. “Suddenly somebody got the idea and said, 'You know, we can lift you over there’, and Ina was lifted off the ground by Harold Washington supporters, and she was passed, hand over hand by friendly hands, over this crowd to be able to get to the podium and plug in her cable for the mic box.” Ms. Jaffe was pleased. “Now that’s an entrance!” she said. |