ST. MAARTEN (23 Dec 2005) -- A Hollywood Hills High School teacher was killed in a scuba diving accident while on a cruise vacation Wednesday afternoon. Harriet Kamerow, 52, of Plantation, died off the coast of St. Maarten after becoming briefly separated from her diving group, which included her college-aged daughter, Ramat Shalom Temple board member Natalie Rawlings said Friday. Ms. Kamerow's children said through Rabbi Andrew Jacobs that they declined to comment. Details of her death were not available Friday. This was Ms. Kamerow's first year teaching language arts at Hollywood Hills High School, School Board officials said. Before that, she taught various classes at Seminole Middle School in Plantation since 1998, and served as a substitute teacher in the public school system between 1996 and 1998. In Hollywood, she taught five classes, mostly 10th-graders, said Principal Joyce Ferguson. "Her students were mesmerized by her in the classroom," said Ferguson. "She always made the class interesting." For more than the past five years, she also taught various Judaic studies as a middle school Hebrew School teacher at Ramat Shalom, a Plantation synagogue. Jacobs said Friday that funeral arrangements are pending. In a memo to congregants Wednesday evening, Jacobs described Ms. Kamerow as "an extremely involved and dedicated congregant. ... Because Harriet worked with so many of our children, this will affect many of them." On Friday, Jacobs said: "We're a community that's grieving." "Harriet was the heart of our community and a woman who just took care of everyone: her students, her friends, her congregation. The family is understandably having a hard time coming to terms with this tragedy." | | Jacobs said Ms. Kamerow had been helping a friend displaced by Hurricane Wilma. "She opened her doors," Jacobs said. "That's how she was." Heidi Golovin of Weston said her daughter was in Ms. Kamerow's sixth-grade Hebrew School class last year. "She was warm and caring, friendly," Golovin said. "She really wanted to educate the kids in a way they would find interesting." Rawlings said Ms. Kamerow adored the synagogue and thought nothing of waking up one morning at 4 a.m. to help in a yard sale. Scuba was one of her favorite sports, Rawlings said. "This was something she truly loved to do," Rawlings said. "She was passionate about it." Ms. Kamerow is survived by two adult children, Adam and Marcie. |
