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A tribute to Isaac and Ora Prilleltensky
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Our community recently lost two remarkable voices whose work profoundly shaped community psychology conversations around well-being, inclusion, and social justice.
Isaac Prilleltensky, a distinguished colleague, educator, and former dean of the University of Miami School of Education and Human Development, passed away on May 7 at the age of 66. Just four days later, his wife and long-time intellectual collaborator, Ora Prilleltensky, also passed away at 66.
Together, Isaac and Ora Prilleltensky represented a unique partnership grounded in scholarship, compassion, and a deep commitment to human dignity. Colleagues who met them and were fortunate to work alongside them remember the couple as visionary thinkers whose personal and professional lives were dedicated to advancing community well-being, equity, and inclusion.
Isaac Prilleltensky’s work transformed the field of community psychology by emphasizing that well-being is not solely an individual matter but is deeply connected to justice, belonging, participation, and social conditions. Born in Argentina and having lived across several other countries, including Israel, Canada, Australia, and the United States, he developed an international perspective that informed an outstanding scholarship and leadership that we at ECPA are very grateful to have as a reference.
Ora Prilleltensky was an influential scholar, educator, and a tireless advocate for disability rights. Living with facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy and using a wheelchair, she brought her own lived experience into her academic and advocacy work. She co-founded the Community and Applied Psychological Studies (CAPS) program and contributed significantly to research connecting disability, motherhood, community participation, and social justice. Her work consistently bridged academic inquiry with everyday lived realities.
Together, they co-authored several books exploring well-being, justice, and the importance of “mattering” — the idea that people need both to feel valued and to add value within their communities. In their writing, they argued that mattering is fundamental to health, happiness, meaningful relationships, and social cohesion.
Beyond their academic achievements, colleagues remember Isaac and Ora for their generosity, mentorship, warmth, and ability to make others feel seen and valued. Many former students and collaborators describe Isaac as a mentor who recognized potential in others and fostered leadership with kindness and humility. Ora was remembered for her creativity, determination, and unwavering advocacy for inclusion and accessibility.Their legacy continues through the countless students, scholars, practitioners, and communities they influenced worldwide. Next, we share a few messages prepared by ECPA members that wanted to commemorate the legacy of Isaac and Ora.
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Remembering Isaac and Ora Prilleltensky
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(From Donata Francescato)
Isaac is best known for promoting wellbeing; linking personal, organizational and community change, and creating I COPPE scales to assess multidimensional wellbeing translated in several languages. He and I shared the interest in promoting organizational change, but above all we appreciated a sense of humor and laughing together. Isaac encouraged me to write in 2002 'Rir E Uma Coisa Seria'. I was very happy for Isaac when he started to combine humor with science, not only in
his talks but in the promotion of individual, organizational and community wellbeing.
The book I liked most was written by Ora and Isaac:
HOW PEOPLE MATTER WHY IT AFFECTS HEALTH, HAPPINESS, LOVE, WORK AND
SOCIETY. Mattering consists of feeling valued and adding value. Ora and Isaac underline the importance of moving from a me-centric culture to a we-culture. Me-centric culture promotes narcissism, growing inequality and
environmental entitlement. People stop caring about others and inequality and poverty grow, the environment is treated like an infinite resource and not a precious small planet. Moreover, the great presence of social media encourages especially young people to compare themselves to others who seem more popular, more beautiful, smarter than you. We-culture balances paying attention to me with paying attention to others, promoting equal opportunity for every one by finding
superordinate goals and learning to cooperate and increasing the art of listening.
Isaac and Ora showed the more people are treated with respect, the higher the level of fairness that you experience at home, at work, in the community, the more you increase the level of mattering, and your wellness which leads to pro-social behaviors, creating a positive
cycle.
(From Maria Vargas-Moniz)
Thank you for all your insights and precious writings. For over 30 years we have gained so much with your contributions for a Psychology that matters, that reminds us that we always need to understand were we come from and our capacity to integrate and regard others. Your work shall be remembered, and we will keep your legacy for future generations to remember. With profound admiration, our condolences to the family.
(From Patrizia Meringolo)
I met Isaac Prilleltensky in Italian and International Conferences and I really appreciated his contributions, focused on wellness and equity, crucial for our work in community psychology. We lose a great person, surely.
(From Agostino Carbone)
Isaac and Ora, you left us only a few days apart. It is hard for me to write this, and even harder to accept that we will never meet again. You were companions in life, in thought, in struggle, and you remain together even on this final journey, leaving us a little more alone and a little poorer in humanity.
Isaac, when I was a student I used to read your handbook of community psychology and dream of America. When we met in person, that day you told me that in my eyes you saw your own eyes as a young man searching for a place in the world. From there you invited me to join you, and a few months later, thanks to that generous and dear invitation of yours, there I was in the United States, following you for a while inside that academic world you loved so much. You gave me friendship, esteem, hope in a world full of inequalities; you gave me the people dearest to you, your family, and the American dream I had been chasing since the days I read On the Road in high school. The time in Miami marked my life and made it better. I will miss our endless quarrels about vegan food, the traffic in Naples, the next trip we were already planning. Do you remember when you were thinking of moving to live by the seafront? I will think of you there, close to the sea, carrying within me your attachment to life and the memory, always, of you as a psychologist guided by social justice. I love you, thank you for everything. You gave me a master, and that is a rare and precious thing.
Ora, what I remember of you is your rare sweetness, your quiet strength, your will to love that filled every room you walked into. The two of you welcomed me together, and in that welcome I learned what the word "family" truly means when it is offered to someone arriving from far away. I will carry with me your smiles, your care, the evenings around your table in Miami, and that way so uniquely yours of making everyone feel they were in the right place. Thank you too, Ora, for everything you gave me without ever asking anything in return.
I will carry you both with me, always: in the choices I will make, in the people I will meet, in the way I will try to be in the world. You were, and remain, a part of me.
My deepest condolences to Matan, to the whole family, and to the entire network of community psychologists around the world. We are losing two giants of our discipline, and two people who knew how to bring together intellectual rigor with a humanity that cannot be forgotten.
(Picture below: Issac, Agostino and Ora at "Capri” Restaurant, Miami, August 2010)
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