* Rabbi Alexander Shapiro; Spokesman for Conservative Judaism

Rabbi Alexander Shapiro, 63, a national spokesman for Conservative Judaism who was a leader of the successful effort to ordain women as Conservative rabbis. Shapiro, who lived in South Orange, N.J., was the spiritual leader for the last 20 years at Oheb Shalom Congregation there. In 1985, Shapiro was elected president of the Rabbinical Assembly, which consists of 1,000 Conservative rabbis around the world. That year he welcomed Amy Eilberg, a Jewish Theological Seminary graduate, into the organization, affirming her as the first Conservative woman rabbi. Shapiro taught at Temple University, at the University of Negev in Beersheba, Israel, and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In Philadelphia on Dec. 10 of heart failure.