Joan Sadoff

Joan Handleman Sadoff

Huntingdon Valley, PA - Joan Handleman Sadoff, a social worker and documentary filmmaker, died on August 10 at her home in the Philadelphia suburbs, following a 10-year battle with cancer. She was 81.

Mrs. Sadoff, a Detroit native who earned Master's degrees in Education and Social Work from Temple University, served for 12 years as a clinical social worker at the Northwestern Institute of Psychiatry in Fort Washington, PA.

Inspired by a PBS program on civil rights, Mrs. Sadoff and her husband, eminent forensic psychiatrist Dr. Robert L. Sadoff, traveled to Mississippi, and upon hearing one fascinating story after another, decided to make a documentary film capturing the observations and insights of the local residents.

Entitled, "Philadelphia, Mississippi" the film explored the impact on the town and its residents more than a generation after civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner were infamously abducted and murdered in June 1964.

The first documentary led to a second, based on interviews with a dozen courageous women who had stood up at great risk to the Jim Crow laws and attitudes that pervaded Mississippi in the 1960s. Entitled, "Standing on My Sisters' Shoulders," the film profiles such extraordinary women as Unita Blackwell, Constance Slaughter Harvey, and Fannie Lou Hamer. "Sisters" accumulated more than 10 festival awards and has been featured in school curricula. In 2011, Mrs. Sadoff reproduced these remarkable stories in a book she co-edited entitled, "Pieces From the Past: Voices of Heroic Women in Civil Rights."

Apart from her films and book, Mrs. Sadoff served on a variety of boards, including at La Salle University in Philadelphia; the Community Women's Education Project of Philadelphia; the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Mississippi; and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

She also was the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including the Social Worker of the Year Award in 2005 by the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Social Workers; the Gallery of Success Award in 2004 from Temple University, and the Heart of Gold Award in 2007 from La Salle University.

Mrs. Sadoff was the oldest daughter of Joseph and Sally Handleman, attended Mumford High School, and was married 58 years to Dr. Robert Sadoff whom she met at the University of Minnesota as an undergraduate. Mrs. Sadoff is survived by her four children - Debra Sadoff, David Sadoff, Julie Sadoff, and Sherry Hanck - as well as by 10 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.