Anita (Rosenberg) Ross ’70

Class: 1970

Major: Anthropology, Sociology

Residence: Seattle, WA

Deceased: February 27, 2020

Alumni survivors: Ms. Elena Rosenberg-Carlson ’12 (Niece)

Anita Erin Ross, nee Anita Joan Rosenberg, ’70, Seattle, WA, passed away on March 6, 2020. Born in Chicago on February 10, 1949, she was raised largely in Washington, DC, and Bethesda, MD. Anita graduated from Carleton with a major in Anthropology and Sociology, after spending her junior year studying Arabic at the University of Wisconsin. Post-college, she worked at an underground news service illuminating the truth of the Vietnam War, traveled widely, lived in Greece, and designed and painted a mural on the walls of a children’s bomb shelter in Israel. She met her husband-to-be, Scott Hofmann, fighting fires in the Northwest woods. They married in 1982.  She also discovered what would become her lifelong passion for belly dancing. In 1983 she graduated from the University of Washington Medical School, entering family practice. She soon came to divide her work as a physician with her performances as an acclaimed professional belly dancer under the moniker Sabura, making her own elaborate costumes and championing Middle Eastern dance and culture in Seattle. Some of her favorite performances can be viewed on YouTube. Survivors include her husband, Scott Hofmann, mother Mae Stephen, sisters Lisa Rosenberg and Sharon Andrews, brothers Frank Rosenberg and Robert Rosenberg, and many other relatives and friends, including her niece Elena Rosenberg-Carlson ’12.

A small, slight woman, silvery and still
Rests her gaze in the embrace of mountains
Arrayed like an eternal necklace before her

Without a sound
Her arms lift and glide
Her fine veil sails high and floats down

Her costume echoes like rain
Now and forever
She is dancing

2/27/20