Mrs. Margaret Rolnick

December 22, 1944 - June 15, 2017

Margaret Kleinman Rolnick AGE: 72 Margaret Kleinman Rolnick, 72, a long-time resident of Highland Park and proprietor of Margaret’s Craft Shop on Raritan Avenue, died Thursday June 15 at St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick. Born in Manhattan, N.Y. on December 22, 1944, Margaret grew up in a garden apartment in Kew Garden Hills, Queens, N.Y., before her family moved to New Brunswick. She attended New Brunswick public schools and received her BA degree from Douglass College of Rutgers University in 1968. After graduating, she worked as a medical social worker at St. Peter’s, where she met the man who would become her husband of 46 years, Dr. Jerome Jacob Rolnick, of blessed memory. Margaret was a passionately devoted mother to her three children, a vocal advocate during their schooling. She went on to a second career as a management consultant, often working with her mother, Gertrude Kleinman of blessed memory, providing corporate executives with assertiveness training for the workplace. Margaret was an avid gardener. She built and decorated trellises and garden furniture, and delighted in showing her children her poppies each spring. She loved to take roadside saplings she discovered during family vacations and replant them at her Grant Avenue home. She was also a wonderful artist, a painter and quilt-maker, and found meaning in making Jewish ritual art such as the chuppah for her son’s and daughters’ weddings and the tallit for her niece’s bat mitzvah. She loved reading and learning about Judaism, especially Kabbalah and Jewish mysticism, and she and her family wrote their own Passover haggadah. She enjoyed making homes-away-from-home for her family in the Adirondack mountains as well as Long Beach Island, N.J. Margaret was a stargazer, who along with her father Dr. Milton Kleinman of blessed memory, loved to look up at the night sky; she frequently phoned her children ahead of an eclipse to let them know it was coming. In the 1990s, Margaret’s love of art prompted her to open her craft store on Raritan Avenue, where she sold handmade items she curated from craft shows and eclectic artisans. Among the things she sold were fine wooden boxes that her husband made and she painted. She and her husband also made a beautiful dollhouse for their niece, using decoupage and other materials to create magnificently decorated rooms. Margaret is predeceased by her beloved husband Jerry and parents Gertrude and Milton Kleinman. She is survived by three children, Joshua Rolnick (Marcella Kanfer Rolnick), Rebecca Rolnick-Fox (Brian Rolnick-Fox), and Jenn Rolnick Borchetta (Frank Borchetta); and seven grandchildren, Meyer, Heshel, Lev, Pella, Jonah, Gideon, and Kaya. She is also survived by four siblings, Dr. Jonathan Kleinman, Toby Kleinman (Bob Adler), Dr. Marsha Kleinman, and Dr. Lawrence Kleinman (Debbie Altman), nine nieces and nephews, and three great nieces and nephews. She was grateful to have lived in the final year of her life at the home of her devoted sister, Marsha Kleinman. The memorial service will by held Sunday, June 18, at 10 am at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple, 222 Livingston Ave. in New Brunswick, with interment to follow at Beth Israel Cemetery in Woodbridge. Arrangements are under the direction of the Crabiel Parkwest Funeral Chapel, 239 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Memorial contributions may be sent to The Bronx Defenders, www.bronxdefenders.org. Please specify “Impact Litigation Practice.”