Twins’ lives intertwined with a lasting impact on New York City.
Donna Polisar (1949-2019)
Jane Polisar (1949-2010)
Jane was a judge; Donna was a sociologist who specialized in gerontology and an administrator. Together they were “the Polisar twins” or simply “the sisters.”
“We shared a womb, we share a room, we shared an imaginary friend, and our own language,” Donna recalled at her sister’s memorial service in 2010. “She was my ‘partner in crime.’ A friend once asked if we ever ran out of things to say to each other. We never did.”
The twins were born in Brooklyn on December 7, 1949, to Roslyn and Robert Polisar, a physician. They had a sister, Patrice, who was a year older. Jane and Donna graduated from Lawrence Woodmere Academy on Long Island in 1967, then went separate ways. Jane received a law degree from Temple University in 1976, and Donna got her PhD in sociology from the University of Southern California in 1987.
Jane held several jobs in public service. One was chief administrative law judge for the “Taxi Court” that hears complaints submitted to New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.
“People are sort of saying they’re tired of being taken for a ride,” Jane said in a 1994 interview with the New York Daily News. “They’re being more pro-active in terms of their own rights,” especially when they’re grossly overcharged. More than 75 percent of the court’s judgments go against the drivers, she added. “If someone’s going to take the time to come forward, we figure they’re credible.”
The last position Jane held was as an administrative law judge in the Office of Disability Adjudication and Review in Brooklyn. One of her colleagues, Marc White, noted in a blog post “the way Jane prepared cases, conducted hearings and disposed of cases. . . I was thoroughly impressed with the rapidity and competence with which she did this.” In the post, titled “The Hon. JP, Fairest in the Land,” Marc recalled meeting Jane’s twin sister and accompanying them to “numerous events, including outings to ballets, films, theaters and museums ….They are quintessential New Yorkers.”
In fiscal 2010, Jane heard 476 disability cases, and of those, 54 percent, or 255 applications for disability compensation, were approved. “She was one of the sweetest judges, very thoughtful and generous toward others,” another colleague, Fatima Preston, said.
Donna, meanwhile, was administrator of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson (CGD) Center for Multiple Sclerosis at Mount Sinai Hospital. She was a frequent contributor to The Gerontologist and The Journal of Gerontology and co-authored several books on aging, including “Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?”
According to friends, Jane was an integral part of the center’s operation, volunteering, offering counsel, and supporting hospital fundraisers and events.
Jane never shared how sick she was, her twin sister said in her eulogy, and people were shocked when they learned she’d died of breast cancer on August 13, 2010. She was 61. “She [Jane] was an extended part of the CGD family, and we will all miss her,” Tova Epstein, a social worker at the center, wrote in an online tribute.
In 2012, Donna memorialized the Polisar twins with a fund in The New York Community Trust that supports dance, cancer care, theater development, public television, animals, and museums.
Donna died December 18, 2019. She was 70.