Simone Veil, French feminist and politician who survived Shoah

Simone Veil, a well-known French politician and Holocaust survivor, died on June 30. The scholar, former judge and feminist activist was 89.

Photo via the Wikimedia Commons

A lawyer by education, Veil served as minister of health under the center-right government of Valery Giscard d’Estaing and later as president of the European Parliament, as well as a member of the Constitutional Council of France. In 1975, she led the legislation that legalized abortions in France.

President Emmanuel Macron offered his condolences.

“May her example inspire our fellow countrymen, who will find in her the best of France,” Macron said in a message to the family.

Former French President Francois Hollande presented Veil with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor at the Elysee Palace in 2012. Fewer than 70 people have received the Grand Cross since Napoleon Bonaparte established it in 1802.

Veil, a native of Nice, was imprisoned at Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen before she was liberated in April 1945. She published the best-selling autobiography “A Life” in 2007. The following year she was admitted to the Academie Francaise, a highly prestigious institution comprising individuals, often philosophers and writers, recognized for scholarly excellence.

The institution, which has 35 members, of whom six are women, was “revolutionized” by the admittance of Veil, a longtime campaigner for women’s rights, according to an obituary written about Veil by the RTL broadcaster.

The president of CRIF, the umbrella organization representing French Jewish communities, wrote in a statement that he was “immensely saddened by the passing of Veil.

“With her high standards and loyalty, this activist for women’s rights has left an indelible mark on French politics and its intellectual life,” Francis Kalifat wrote, adding that Veil had done so “with courage and dignity.”

In 2012, CRIF described Veil as “one of France’s most cherished personalities and someone who plays an important role in keeping her camp from succumbing to the temptation of allying with the Front National” nationalist party.

“Her name is associated with women’s equality, the memory of the Shoah and the European community,” CRIF added.

—JTA News and Features

Richard Catlin Baron

Richard Baron died on May 2 at home in Oakland, Calif., after a two-decades-long battle with multiple illnesses. He was 70.

Baron was born in Washington to Jeanne Isaacs Baron, homemaker and later a staff member at The Washingtonian magazine; and Theodore Baron, a communications lawyer. He attended Shepherd Elementary School, Paul Junior High School and Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington, where he was captain of the golf team and was named one of the first Presidential Scholars.

Baron went on to Washington University in St. Louis in 1968, majoring in history and earning a Phi Beta Kappa key. During the height of the Vietnam War, he enlisted in the Army, where he became fluent in Japanese at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif., and served in Korea.

After he was discharged, he received a master of sciences degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He worked as a management consultant for 11 years at Hayes and Associates in Chicago. The high-tech boom beckoned and he became a senior director of business development at Computer Systems Laboratory in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., a spin-off of the U.S. space program.

Baron continued at CSL after its acquisition by Gould Electronics, then a Fortune 200 firm. After Gould was acquired by Nippon Mining in 1998, Baron moved on to entrepreneurship as CEO of QD-Systems in Berkeley, Calif., one of the earliest and innovative Electronic Medical Record Systems. He immersed himself in this technology and was a key player in creating systems that worked for both patients and physicians.

Baron was eclectic in his interests and in his choice of friends and he gave both his full dedication, passion and concern. He read extensively on particle physics, cosmology and Jewish history.

In the late 1980s, Baron began to suffer a series of medical setbacks. He continued his career, working in various senior marketing and sales positions. By 2008, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In 2014, Baron to move to assisted living in Oakland, Calif.

Baron is survived by his sister, Dorothy Baron Schoening of Bethesda, He left behind many friends. He will be very much missed by those who understood him, loved his quick wit and unique point of view of the world and knew him well.

Jeffrey Gildenhorn

Jeffrey Gildenhorn, owner of American City Diner in Washington and the city’s one-time boxing commissioner, died on June 28 after choking at a downtown restaurant, multiple news outlets reported. He was 74.

Gildenhorn had problems swallowing due to Parkinson’s disease and had a choking episode at The Palm restaurant in Washington. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital and pronounced dead. Gildenhorn was born in

Washington and owned 11 retail businesses, including several restaurants, according to American City Diner’s website.
He was named the city’s boxing commissioner in the 1980s by Mayor Marion Barry, and successfully brought two world championship bouts to Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in the ‘90s.

He unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 1998. The Washington Post reported that signs appeared outside American City Diner during the 2016 president election and at other times referring to Gildenhorn’s political career, one of which said “I may not have been elected mayor, but I’m still serving the people.”

He was a member of B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville. Survivors include a brother, niece and nephew.

Reginald Hereford

Reginald “Reggie” Charles Hereford died on June 26 in Boca Raton, Fla.

He was the beloved husband of Zoe Epstein Hereford for 40 years; devoted father of Terri (Bruce) Wilson and Chuck Hereford, and loving stepfather to four children he raised as his own, Robert (Amy) Pepper, Lauren (Brad) Wolf, Chris (Jordan McGee) Epstein and the late Tracy (Craig) Massey; loving brother of the late Betsy (George) Pappafotis, the late Carole Arcadia and Diane (Beau) Dillion, Debra (Alan) Snyder; beloved son-in-law of Freda Epstein and brother-in-law of Michael David (Diana) Epstein. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Danielle (Adam) Hall, Melissa Wilson, Jesse Wilson, Jordan Massey, Justin Massey, Nathan Pepper, Nolan Pepper, Chava Wolf, Noah Wolf, Hailey Hall and Bodhi Bowser.

Contributions may be made to the Lewy Body Dementia Association or Hospice of Palm Beach County Foundation. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Valentin Pimstein, pioneer of Mexican telenovelas, dies at 91

Valentin Pimstein, an iconic Mexican telenovela producer whose serial dramas were dubbed and subtitled in dozens of languages and shown around the world, died June 27 at the age of 91, the “Programa Hoy” television show reported.

Born in Chile, Valentin Pimstein Wiener was the seventh of nine children of a Russian-Jewish family. His love for romantic and melodramatic stories came from his mother, an assiduous consumer of radio soap operas and Mexican cinema.

His successful telenovelas included “Maria Mercedes,” “La picara sonadora,” “Los ricos tambien lloran,” “Rosa Salvaje,” “Simplemente Maria,” “Carusel” and many others.

He is considered the “father of the pink soap opera” because most of his stories were romantic and melodramatic. In the 1980s, he discovered actresses Lucía Méndez, Verónica Castro, Angelica Aragón, Edith González and Victoria Ruffo, who were protagonists of some of his soap operas.

After moving to Mexico, Pimstein became assistant director of Televisa TV channel and later became a producer. His first telenovela, in 1958, was “Gutierritos.” Considered an icon in the history of soap operas, it was the second telenovela produced in Mexico for Telesistema Mexicano, now Televisa. n

—JTA News and Features

Alice Baum

Alice Baum, of Gaithersburg, died on July 4.

She was the loving wife of Howard Baum; devoted mother of Allen (Stacy) Baum and Sarah Baum and adored grandmother of Samantha and Benjamin Baum. Contributions can be made to the Brandeis National Committee. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Lauri Sue Weisberg Goldberg

Lauri Sue Weisberg Goldberg, of Rockville, died on June 29.

She was the beloved mother of Joseph “Joey” Harrison Goldberg; loving daughter of Gail and Charles Weisberg; beloved granddaughter of the late Norma and William Lewis and Lillian and Harry Weisberg; treasured sister of David Weisberg (Rikki Hommel) and Michael Weisberg (Elizabeth Goldberg); aunt of Marti, Oscar, William and Henry Weisberg. She is also survived by grieving family and friends.

Contributions may be made to a charity of choice.

Lillian ‘Libby’ Titlebaum Kaner

Lillian “Libby” Titlebaum Kaner, of Rockville, died at her home on June 8. She was 89 years old.

She was the beloved wife and best friend of 58 years of the late Melvin Kaner. She was the much-loved mother of Ellen and Bill Bresnick of Potomac, Paul Kaner of Sharon, Mass., Debbi and Bob Goldich of Blue Bell, Pa., and Michael and Barbara Kaner of Newtown, Pa. She was the adored “nana” of Bethany (Bresnick) and Jay Spector, Sara (Bresnick) and Adam Tennen, Matthew Goldich and Robyn Weinstein, Russell Goldich, Mitchell Goldich, Shelly Kaner, Stephanie Kaner, Jason Kaner and Joshua Kaner and the late Max Steven Kaner. She was also the cherished “GG” of Jordyn, Micah, Rylie, Blake, Liam and Graham. She was also the daughter of the late Sarah and Myer Titlebaum of Dorchester, Mass., and the sister of the late Eliot Tanner, Melvin Titlebaum and Ruth Glincher.

Kaner was an active member of Sisterhood for more than 65 years, a life member of Hadassah, a member of Eastern Star and a former president of the Parent’s League of Hebrew College. She was employed by the Beth Israel Hospital as a purchasing agent of medical and surgical supplies. She also worked for the Department of the Navy during World War II.

Contributions may be sent to Torah Fund, 3080 Broadway, New York, NY 10027; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 450 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215 or the Pennsylvania chapter of the FIDF.

Stanley Marks

Stanley Marks, of Bethesda, died on July 4.

He was the beloved husband of Carol Oritt Marks and the late Dale Holtzman Marks; devoted father of Scott (Lori) Marks, Rick (Lori) Marks and Rob (Cara) Marks; loving brother of the late Martin Marks; cherished grandfather of Dana, Alec, Danielle, Melissa, Jamie and Darren. Contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association or the Dale Holtzman Marks Memorial Fund at the Lombardi Cancer Center. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Jack Ratz

Jack Ratz, of Brooklyn, N.Y., died on July 2. He was 91 years old.

Ratz was the son of Moses and Tema Ratz, of Riga, Latvia.

Ratz was forced into labor by the Nazis and persisted through insurmountable trials over 44 months in captivity. After liberation, Ratz studied radio engineering in a German displaced persons camp and emigrated to the United States with $7 in his pocket.

He was a successful, entrepreneurial television repairman whose clients included celebrities and politicians. Later, he became an engineer and foreman for the New York City Transit System; he also taught night courses at multiple City University of New York campuses.

Ratz was a pillar of his community serving several terms as the chairman of the board of his synagogue, Flatbush Park Jewish Center. He was also a speaker and author whose autobiography, “Endless Miracles,” has been a staple of local high schools’ graduations as a gift to graduates.

Jack Ratz is survived by his children, Tevy (Toby) Ratz of North Bellmore, N.Y., Judy (Sidney) Fine of West Hempstead, N.Y., and Dr. Jeffrey (Pearl) Ratz of Woodmere, N.Y.

He is also survived by his grandchildren, Tracy Ratz of North Bellmore, Erin Ratz of Brooklyn, N.Y., Sarah Fine of Queens, N.Y., Elena Fine of Jerusalem, Aaron and Brian Fine of West Hempstead, Tara Ratz of Teaneck, N.J., Avery Ratz and David

Ratz of Israel, and Matthew Ratz of Washington.

He is predeceased by his wife, Doris Whittenberg.

Lois Sacks

Lois Sacks, of North Bethesda, died on July 2.

She was the loving wife of David; devoted mother of Darrin Sacks (Beth Dickhaus) and Jill (Jim) Hammerschmidt. She was the cherished sister of Dr. Gerry (Ellen) Resnick and Jay Resnick (Judy Sarubin); and the adored grandmother of Sophia, Emma and Zac Hammerschmidt.

Contributions may be made to Jewish Social Services Agency (JSSA Hospice) or Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Edith Landau Ziskind

Edith Landau Ziskind, of Alexandria, died on June 24 at Alexandria Hospital.

Ziskind was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1922. She and her family fled their home upon Adolf Hitler’s annexation of Austria.

In the wake of the 1938 Munich Pact, Ziskind fled across Nazi Germany to the Baltic port of Danzig, from which she traveled by ship to France. Caught in the subsequent Nazi-led/French occupation government assisted “Raffle” (round-up) of Parisian Jews, she pleaded with the Parisian authorities to allow her family a delay in being sent to the suburban Paris Roland-Garros/Drancy station for deportation to Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

Granted the exception of a delay, she and her family used the opportunity to escape to unoccupied Vichy, France. She and her family hid in a local family’s home to escape deportation. Betrayed by their landlady, Ziskind and her family had to flee a fourth time by seeking passage across the Alps to refuge in Switzerland on New Year’s Eve, 1942.

Once resettled, she was able to be trained as a concierge for Swiss luxury hotels, completing the equivalent of an associate’s degree in the field. On the Riviera after the war, she met her future husband, Samuel Ziskind, an American soldier.

The couple settled in Alexandria, Va., in 1955, where Samuel was managing editor of the Army’s magazine “Army Digest.” She spent 18 years in the Alexandria Public Schools, serving much of that time as assistant to the principal of Barrett Elementary School.

She is survived by her husband of 70 years, Samuel, of Alexandria; a son, Burton Leslie, also of Alexandria; and a daughter, Michele Jonas, of Merion, Pa.; seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren in the United States and Israel.
Contributions may be made to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Organization for Rehabilitation and Training (ORT), or Agudas Achim Congregation. Funeral arranged by Jefferson Funeral Chapel.

Martin Landau, 89, Oscar winner and ‘Mission: Impossible’ star

Martin Landau Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Martin Landau, a versatile actor who won an Academy Award for the 1994 film “Ed Wood” and played a spy on TV’s “Mission: Impossible” in the 1960s, has died.

Landau died July 15 at the UCLA Medical Center of “unexpected complications” from surgery several days earlier, his publicist told media outlets. He was 89.

He won his Oscar for best supporting actor playing the fading horror film star Bela Lugosi in “Ed Wood,” a Tim Burton film. He had been nominated several times in the same category before snagging the award.

Landau’s career took off after his appearance in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film “North by Northwest.” He appeared for three seasons as agent Rollin Hand on “Mission: Impossible” until 1969, when he and his actress wife, Barbara Bain, left over a contract dispute.

He resurrected his career in 1988 with a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tucker: The Man and his Dream,” for which he won a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor, and then starred in Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” in 1989.

Landau reportedly turned down the role of Mr. Spock on the NBC series “Star Trek,” which went to another Jewish actor, Leonard Nimoy.

—JTA News and Features

Levi Strauss heir Bill Goldman killed in crash of private plane

William (Bill) Sachs Goldman, the scion of a prominent family of Jewish philanthropists in San Francisco and himself a board member of the New Israel Fund, died in a crash of his private plane.
Goldman, 38, was piloting the single-engine craft when it crashed shortly after takeoff July 13 from an airport in Sonoma, Calif.

His two children and their nanny were on board; all were seriously injured. The children’s mother, San Francisco attorney Serra Falk Goldman, was not on the plane.

Goldman was the grandson of the late Jewish philanthropist Richard Goldman and his wife, Rhoda, who was the great-grandniece of Levi Strauss, the founder of the famed blue jeans manufacturer.

His grandparents established the Goldman Environmental Prize, often referred to as the “Green Nobel.” Before closing at the end of 2012, their foundation was among the original funders of Taglit-Birthright Israel and supported religious pluralism, environmental causes and social justice in Israel. It also contributed the lead gift in a project to rebuild the San Francisco Jewish Community Center.

The New Israel Fund, of which Goldman was a board member, supports civil and human rights organizations in Israel.

“Bill Goldman was a deeply beloved friend, board member, and part of the New Israel Fund family,” Daniel Sokatch, the philanthropy’s CEO and a personal friend, said in a statement. “Bill was fiercely dedicated to the New Israel Fund’s work to promote democracy and equality for all Israelis. His vision, idealism, and sharp sense of humor sustained us all. Our thoughts are with his family, and especially his children.”

Goldman was an assistant professor of international studies at the University of San Francisco, where he specialized in early modern Spanish history, foreign policy and political thought. He earned his master’s degree and doctorate in history at the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in history at Yale.

He grew up in Washington, the son of Richard Goldman and Susan Sachs Goldman.

He also served on the board of directors of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, a family foundation that supports economic security, education, Jewish life and the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. Walter and Elise Haas were his maternal grandparents.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash.

—JTA News and Features

Johanna Jutta Neumann

Johanna Jutta Neumann (née Gerechter), of Silver Spring, died on April 26. She was 86.

Johanna Jutta Neumann
Courtesy of U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

She was born Dec. 2, 1930, to Alice and Siegbert Gerechter in Hamburg, Germany. In 1939, after failed attempts to obtain United States visas, Neumann and her parents escaped to Albania, where they were welcomed and protected as guests in the homes of Albanian-Muslims. Neumann remained in Albania throughout the war until freed by the allies in 1945. She then went to the United States, where she met her love, David. They married on June 1, 1952. They had four children, 14 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

While living in Boston, she was active at the Young Israel of Brookline. She managed the nursery school, while raising her children. In 1969, Neumann and family moved to Haifa, Israel, where she worked for the Technion — Israel Institute of Technology. She also taught students in preparation for Jewish conversion.

In 1990, the Neumanns returned to the United States and lived in Silver Spring, where she was an active member of the Woodside Synagogue Ahavas Torah.

Neumann worked for the American Technion Society, managing the Washington office, and later joined the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as a volunteer. In 2005, she joined the Planned Giving Department and volunteered with Survivor Affairs, sharing her story at events around the United States and around the world. As part of her speaking engagements, she teamed up with ADAMS, the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, as a means to inspire others toward coexistence.

Neumann authored an autobiography, “Escape to Albania,” published in English, German and Albanian. The book describes her childhood experiences during the war spent in Albania, surviving under Italian and German occupation, protected by Albanians. In connection with her survival in Albania, she participated in several documentaries including “BESA: The Promise.”

For her book and work on behalf of the Albanian people, the city of Durrës bestowed Honorary Citizen upon her. She was also honored by the city of Tirana and by the Albanian president.

Neumann volunteered to promote the Stolpersteine Project. The organization has placed over 61,000 stumbling stones across Europe as a memorial to Jews and other victims who were deported and exterminated during World War II.

She is missed by her colleagues at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, friends around the world, and by her large and growing family. n

Esther Ticktin Photo (c) Lloyd Wolf

When Esther Ticktin’s daughter Deborah took her mattress shopping — Esther had been told by her doctor to buy a new one for her back — Esther sat on a mattress and tears formed in her eyes.

She was thinking about the victims of a recent tsunami “who had no home, no beds of their own anymore,” she told her daughter.

“That was who she was,” said her other daughter, Ruth Ticktin.

Esther Ticktin, a Holocaust survivor, longtime Washington resident and therapist, died Friday. She was 92.

Well-known for decades of dedication to the Fabrangan chavurah since she and her husband of 70 years, Rabbi Max Ticktin, who died at 94 last year, moved to Washington in 1972, she also was committed to the people and issues that were near and dear to her heart.

“She was very warm and very welcoming,” said Ruth Ticktin. “And she was very passionate about issues important to her.” She had great empathy for people in need, especially refugees, her daughter said.

She was born Esther Kelman in 1925 in Vienna. She was 13 when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 and her life, as she shared in a memoir in 2012, changed drastically. She and her brother were barred from school and her family was later evicted from their apartment. She watched life get more difficult for Jews, but trusted in her parents to get them to safety.

“I lived with all this wonderful life, receiving and giving love. … Now it’s all supposed to be over,” she had written in her diary in July 1938. “Gone are all the joys and everything really. … We want to get away, absolutely far away from here. As of now we have no news from America. We will probably go there and then we too will be refugees.”

Unlike a lot of her friends at the time who were sent away by their parents to safety, her father wanted the family to stay together. He was able to get them visas to Belgium, where they lived for about a year before they were sponsored by her father’s cousin in New York. They came to the United States in 1940.

“I know she is considered a [Holocaust] survivor, but she was always quick to say, ‘We escaped,’” Ruth Ticktin said.

In the United States, she met Max Ticktin, and by the end of 1945 they were married and embarked on an “extraordinarily close 70-year relationship filled with tenderness, respect and constant companionship,” Rabbi Gilah Langner said in a eulogy.

The couple moved to Jerusalem for about a year in 1947 to study. The state of Israel was coming into being with Arab forces descending upon the nascent country, and the couple joined the Haganah, a precursor to the Israel Defense Forces.

Her mother was always supportive of Israel, Ruth Ticktin said, but she and Max were careful to give their money to organizations like the New Israel Fund so that it would be supporting issues they cared about and not the settlements.

Returning to the United States, the Ticktins followed his job as a rabbi for Hillel, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the University of Chicago, before landing in Washington.

During that time, in her 40s, Esther Ticktin decided to get her doctorate in psychology at the University of Chicago, and she practiced as a psychotherapist for many years.

The Ticktins were “intellectual seekers,” Langner said, who “brought so much love and thoughtfulness into all of our lives.” In an interview she conducted with them in 2000, she called them “the heart and soul of the Fabrangen havurah.”

“Esther, we have so missed you these last years of your illness, and we will miss you all over again now,” Langner said during the eulogy.

She is survived by her brother, Herbert Kelman (Rose), daughters Deborah McCants (Blair Goodman) and Ruth Ticktin (Eric Rome), 11 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. In addition to her husband, a daughter, Hannah, preceeded her in death.

The family requests that memorial donations be sent to Fabrangen Tzedakah Collective, c/o Goldman, 4530 38th St. NW, Washington, DC 20016.

hmonicken@midatlanticmedia.com

Holocaust survivor Yisrael Kristal, the world’s oldest living man in 2016, died Aug. 11. Wikipedia

World’s oldest man, a Holocaust survivor in Israel, dies at 113

Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor from Haifa who was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest man in the world, has died, a month before his 114th birthday.

Haaretz reported that Kristal died Aug. 11.

Born on Sept. 15, 1903, in the town of Zarnow, Poland, Kristal moved to Lodz in 1920 to work in his family’s candy business. He continued operating the business after the Nazis forced the city’s Jews into a ghetto, where Kristal’s two children died. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz, where his wife, whom he had married at 25, was killed.

In 1950, he moved to Haifa with his second wife and their son, working again as a confectioner. In addition to his son and daughter, Kristal has numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Guiness recognized him as the world’s oldest living man in 2016.

When asked at the time what his secret was to long life, Kristal said: “I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better-looking men than me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”

Last year, when he turned 113, about 100 family members celebrated his bar mitzvah, a century after he missed it due to the upheavels of World War I.

Gerald Libman. Photo courtesy of Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care

— JTA News and Features

Gerald Libman

Gerald Libman, of Potomac, died on Aug. 8.

He was the beloved husband of Elaine Beckman Libman; devoted father of Sheryl (Davd) Friedlander, Rachel (Seth) Berenzweig and Heather (Stuart) Kafetz. He is also survived by his grandchildren Joshua, Noah, Adam, Rafael, Sophie, Eli and Ethan.

Contributions may be made to the charity of your choice.

Warren Kaplan, lawyer for civil rights, dies

Warren Kaddish Kaplan of Potomac died at his home Aug. 13. He was 82.

Kaplan grew up in Malden, Mass., attending public schools, Harvard College (class of 1956) and then Harvard Law School (class of 1959). During law school he traveled to Cuba where, reporting for the Malden Evening News, he obtained an in-person interview with Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Kaplan then took a job with the Massachusetts attorney general’s office, working for Ed Brooke. In the summer of 1965, he signed on with the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee, traveling to Bogalusa, La., to provide legal assistance for those marching for civil rights during a violent time.

He moved to Washington in 1968, to join Melrod, Redman & Gartlan, a law firm specializing in banking and real estate, where Kaplan oversaw the litigation department. During his 25-year tenure at the firm, he litigated cases pro bono for the American Civil Liberties Union. He won a landmark decision in 1972 striking down compulsory chapel services at U.S. military institutions. He was awarded the Alan Barth Service Award by the ACLU in 1981.

In 1994, Kaplan joined the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs serving as senior counsel. He litigated many cases including two class-action lawsuits against Amtrak for racial discrimination, winning relief and $24 million in damages and back pay for thousands of Amtrak workers. In another, he compelled the District of Columbia Department of Corrections to prevent sexual discrimination of its employees.

A beloved husband and father, he is survived by Carolyn Stopak, who he married in 2003, and his two sons, Jonathan (Sarah Malarkey) Kaplan and Gabriel (Emily) Kaplan. He is also survived by stepchildren Aaron (Elaine) Stopak and Kimberly (Daniel Peshkin) Stopak, and his grandchildren Toby, Jacob, Samara and Micah Kaplan; and Arielle Stopak and Avery Peshkin. His first wife, Elizabeth Raisbeck, is also surviving.

Contributions can be made to the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Tanya Rize

Tayna Rize, of Bowie, died Aug. 12 after a battle with breast cancer.

She and her husband Martin were married for 51 years until his death in 2007 and were longtime residents of Bowie. She worked for the Bowie Blade and the City of Bowie.

She is survived by sons, Greg (Sherri) and Marc (Denise), and grandchildren, Jared, Alexandra, Melissa and Rachel Ozeryan (Vladimir) and great-grandchildren, Hana and Jaxon. Contributions may be made to Children’s National Hospital. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Donald Sean

Donald Sean, of Rockville, died Aug. 14.

He was the beloved husband of Janet Sean; devoted father of Lloyd Campbell, Douglas Campbell, Michael (Catherine) Sean and Caryn (Kevin) Mitchell; loving brother of Lynda Willett. He is also
survived by grandchildren Conner, Joshua, Jessica, Jolie and Kari.

Contributions may be made to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Daniel Weiner

Daniel Weiner, of Sarasota, Fla., died Aug. 12. He was 88.

Weiner was born Dec. 15, 1928 to Max and Bessie (Charney) Weiner, in Philadelphia. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s veterinary school, he worked in the public health service with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, where he met his wife. While there, he became active in the city’s Jewish community and presided over the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta.

Before retiring, Weiner received a pilot’s license so that he could fly for pleasure. He purchased a small plane that he and his wife used to travel the United States on weekends. When he came to Florida, Weiner renewed his veterinary license and volunteered at the Mote Marine Aquarium, The Pelican Man’s Bird Sanctuary and emergency animal hospitals as a relief veterinarian.

Weiner was preceded in death by his wife of 49 years, Sheila Barskin Weiner; and brothers Dr. Raymond Weiner and Charles Weiner. He is survived by his daughter, Hilary Weiner, of Rockville; a brother, Gershon Weiner, of Savannah, Ga.; close friend and companion Muriel Shindler, of Sarasota, Fla., a stepdaughter, Janet Taylor Zwillinger (Dan); a grandson, Kent Zwillinger, of Boston; and several nephews and a niece.

Contributions can be made to Temple Beth Sholom in Sarasota or the Ryan School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Actor Jay Thomas had roles on “Murphy Brown” and “Love and War.” Wikimedia Commons

‘Cheers’ actor Jay Thomas, known for playing Jewish characters, dies at 69

ay Thomas, a character actor who said he was often mistakenly thought to be Jewish because of his convincing portrayal of Jewish characters, has died at 69.

Thomas, an actor and radio personality whose work on the television series “Murphy Brown” won him two Emmy Awards in the early 1990s, died of cancer on Aug. 24 at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., The New York Times reported.

On “Cheers,” he portrayed barmaid Carla Tortelli’s husband Eddie LeBec, a French-Canadian ice hockey player.

Thomas, who grew up in New Orleans, found amusement in the way people confused him with his television characters.

“I always seem to play the role of a Jewish person,” he said in an interview with the Times in 2000. “On ‘Love and War’ I played Jack Stein, a left-wing Jewish man. On ‘Murphy Brown’ I was Jerry Gold, a right-wing Jewish man. And I won an Emmy for that part. The trouble is, I’m not Jewish. But everyone I met in L.A. thought I was a Jewish man from Brooklyn.”

He is survived by his wife, Sally Michelson, whom he married in 1987, and their two children, Samuel and Jacob. In recent years he reunited with a son he had fathered in his 20s who was given up for adoption, the country singer J.T. Harding.

—JTA News and Features

Dorothy Silverman Pollack

Dorothy Silverman Pollack, of Rockville, died Aug. 26. She was 93. Dorothy was born in New York City and married Louis Pollack in 1945; they were married 72 years. She worked as a court transcriber for 20 years.

She is survived by her husband, Louis, and three children, Annette (Robert) Rachlin of Greensboro, N.C., Barbara Pollack Held of Belmont, Mass., and Lawrence Pollack of Springfield, Va.; her grandchildren, Aaron Held, Jordan Held, Jonathan Held, David Rachlin and Jeffrey Rachlin; four great-grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.

Contributions may be made to the Friends of the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped at friendsmdlbph.org. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Alex Stouck

Alex Stouck, of Rockville, died Aug. 20. He was 90. He was the loving husband of the late Eileen M. Stouck; devoted father of Lisa (Guy) Eslin and Jerry (Mindy Buren) Stouck; and proud grandfather of Danielle Buren Stouck, David Shai Stouck, Rachel Joy Stouck and Eileen Eslin. Contributions may be made to the Joshua Stouck Endowment Fund at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

David E. Zarin

David E. Zarin, of Silver Spring, died Aug. 28. He was the loving husband of the late Thelma Zarin, devoted and loving father of Neal (Ecaterina) Zarin, Harold (Starr) Zarin, Annette (Jeffrey) Smith; loving brother of the late Lillian (Robert) Block, wonderful and loving grandfather of Scott (Jennifer) Zarin, Stacy (Adam) Goldberg, Jordan (Mike) Lanczycki and Bradley Smith; loving great-grandfather of Madison and Dylan Goldberg and Abby Lanczycki.

Contributions may be made to JSSA, 200 Wood Hill Road, Rockville, MD 20850. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Rivkah Goli, worked with Rep. Tom Lantos

Rivkah Goli died at her home in Washington on Aug. 30. She was 61. Born in the Ivory Coast of Africa, she came to work for UNESCO in Paris.

Attracted to Judaism, she met with a rabbi there who said to her, “Rivkah, you will have three challenges. You are a woman, black and Jewish.” In 1995 she moved to the United States to open the UNESCO liaison office in Washington. She later worked in the director-general’s office.

She learned Hebrew in Israel in 1998 and converted to Judaism in 1999. She worked with U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) on a commemoration of Raoul Wallenberg, a rescuer of Jews from the Nazis. She collaborated with Lantos in the successful passage of legislation for the United States to return to full status in UNESCO.

She also participated in United Nations peacekeeping missions, traveling to Chad from 2008 to 2010. She enjoyed access to and praise from United Nations leaders and key Washington decision makers.

Mollie Rayman

Mollie Rayman, of Silver Spring, died Aug. 29. She was the beloved wife of the late Louis Rayman; devoted mother of Michael (Marilyn) Rayman and Barry (Linda) Rayman; loving sister of the late Yetta Gerkow and the late Frank Richter. Also survived by 6 cherished grandchildren Frances, Lisa, Jill, Lori, Matthew and Cassandra and eight great-grandchildren. Contributions can be made to a charity of your choice.

Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Disney chief ‘imagineer’ Marty Sklar dies at 83

Marty Sklar, who served 54 years as an “imagineer” for the Walt Disney Co. and led the creative team behind the company’s theme parks, attractions and resorts, has died.

The company announced his death in Los Angeles July 27. He was 83.

Sklar served as principal creative executive of Walt Disney Imagineering, turning the company founder’s ideas into reality.

“Everything about Marty was legendary — his achievements, his spirit, his career,” Disney CEO Robert Iger said in a statement. “He embodied the very best of Disney, from his bold originality to his joyful optimism and relentless drive for excellence. He was also a powerful connection to Walt himself. No one was more passionate about Disney than Marty, and we’ll miss his enthusiasm, his grace, and his indomitable spirit.”

Sklar was born in New Brunswick, N.J, and attended UCLA. He was the editor of the university’s Daily Bruin newspaper when he was recruited to edit a tabloid to be sold at Disneyland’s Main Street. Walt Disney liked his work on the tabloid, and eventually Sklar became Disney’s lieutenant.

In 2001, Sklar was recognized as a Disney Legend — the company’s version of the Hall of Fame — and in 2009 was honored with a window on Disneyland’s Main Street.

Sklar was the author of the 2013 memoir “Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdom,” in which he debunked a common rumor that Disney was anti-Semitic.

“I never saw a shred of anti-Semitism in him,” Sklar told the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles in an interview when the book was published. “Walt was from the Midwest, he wasn’t used to being around Jews. And then he came out here, [where] most of the people in the entertainment business were Jews, so he was the guy out in the cornfield; he was different, and I think that’s where it came from. It never came from anything he said. Not ever.”

In his final years at Disney, Sklar served as a company “ambassador,” teaching a list of Disney principles called “Mickey’s Commandments” that he had distilled from his time with the company founder. The list included “Know your audience” and “Take time to teach — mentors are mensches.”

“That was what I learned: It’s the details that make the Disney parks work, that attention to detail,” Sklar told the Jewish Journal. “And you have to make it a complete story, which means striving to be accurate about whatever story you’re telling, down to the smallest details.”

Sklar is survived by his wife of 60 years, Leah; son Howard and his wife, Katriina Koski-Sklar; grandchildren Gabriel and Hannah; daughter Leslie; and grandchildren Rachel and Jacob.

—JTA News and Features

Maurice Weisenberg, rabbi to Mishkan Torah Synagogue

Rabbi Maurice (Mayer Chaim) Weisenberg, the first full-time rabbi of Mishkan Torah Synagogue in Greenbelt, died on June 23. He was 83.

Weisenberg attended Manhattan Talmudical Academy in New York and later Yeshiva University, where he was ordained. He was a spiritual leader to five congregations, including Mishkan Torah, starting in 1966. He resided in Boca Raton, Fla. until his death.

Weisenberg is survived by his wife, Nachama, and four daughters, Ellen (Russell) Elovitz of Olney, Shira (Joe) Cohen of Boynton Beach, Fla., Atara (David) Berkowitz of West Hempstead, N.Y., and Ariela Weisenberg of New York. He was the devoted grandfather of Hannah and Maxine Elovitz, Alex and Sam Berkowitz, and Harris and Ezra Cohen, and the loving brother of the late Rabbi David Weisenberg, Sylvia Isner, Rabbi Samuel Weisenberg, and Professor Matisyahu Weisenberg.

Richard Lees

Richard Lees, of Rockville, died on July 19. He was 87.

Lees earned a bachelor’s degree at Syracuse University in New York, studied dentistry at New York University and also studied orthodontics.

He maintained an orthodontist practice in New York and Ossining, N.Y.

Lees was a guest lecturer on dentistry at New York University, a member of Kiwanis of Westchester County and a volunteer dentist at Pleasantville Cottage School in Pleasantville, N.Y.

He is survived by his children Rhonda Lees, Matthew Lees (Susan), Diana Schmidt (Rich) and Peter Lees; and grandchildren Joshua and Jacob, and Ruby and Stella.

Athlete barred from 1936 Berlin Olympics dies at 103

Margaret Bergmann Lambert, a high jumper who was barred from the 1936 Berlin Olympics because she was Jewish, died in New York at 103.

Her niece, Doris Bergman, confirmed that Lambert died July 25, The New York Times reported.

In June 1936, a month before the Olympics, Lambert, then a German citizen known as Gretel (short for “Margarethe”) Bergmann, won a meet against some of the best German high jumpers with a leap of 5 feet, 3 inches — a height tying a German record and good enough to win the top spot on the Olympic team.

The Nazis had demanded that she compete in the trials in order to appease foreign powers who suspected that the party’s race theories and anti-Semitic policies would sully the Olympics.

But shortly after her record-setting performance at the meet in Stuttgart, at Adolf Hitler Stadium, she received a letter from Nazi officials informing her that she had not qualified.

“Looking back on your recent performances,” the letter said, “you could not possibly have expected to be chosen for the team.” Her accomplishment was removed from the record books.

JTA reported on July 16, 1936, that Bergmann had been dropped from the German Olympic team. The same article noted that Helene Mayer, a fencing star who was half-Jewish, would be allowed to compete but had been demoted to 14th place on the team’s roster. The article cited a report in Der Angriff, a newspaper set up by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, which claimed that Bergmann was dropped because Germany had no chance of winning the high-jump event, “owing to the excellence of the American and Japanese competitors.”

A Hungarian athlete would go on to win the event with a jump just below 5 feet, 3 inches.

“I had nightmares about the whole thing for months before,” Bergmann said, in a 2015 interview with Newsday, about her return to Germany. “How would people on the team treat me? Maybe they would break my leg to keep me from competing. If I won, could I stand up there and salute that man? What if I lost?”

Margarethe Minnie Bergmann was born to a secular Jewish family in 1914, in the small town of Laupheim, in southwest Germany, about 65 miles from the Swiss border. As a student athlete she excelled in the shot put, the discus and other events as well as the high jump.

With anti-Semitism on the rise in Germany, Bergmann left home at 19 and moved to England, where she won the British high-jump championship in 1935. But when the Nazis pressured her father to bring her home, she returned to Germany to seek a position on the Olympic team.

In 1937, Bergmann was able to obtain papers that allowed her to immigrate to the United States. She landed in New York City, where she worked as a masseuse and housemaid, and later as a physical therapist, according to the Times. In 1938, she married a fellow German refugee, Bruno Lambert, who was a sprinter. He died in 2013.

Dagmar Freitag, a member of Germany’s parliament, attended Bergmann’s 101st birthday party in 2015 at her home in Queens, N.Y.

In 2004, HBO aired a documentary about her called “Hitler’s Pawn.”

She is survived by two sons, Glenn and Gary, two grandchildren and a great-grandson.

—JTA News and Features

Maria Slepak, former Soviet refusenik, dies

Maria Slepak, a Prisoner of Zion and Soviet Jewry leader with her husband before they were finally allowed to immigrate to Israel, has died.

Slepak and husband, Vladimir, were permitted to leave the Soviet Union in October 1987, 17 years after they first applied for an exit visa. Their son Alexander had departed for Israel in 1977, joining Maria’s mother. Another son, Leonid, came two years later.

In 1978, eight years after they first applied to immigrate, Maria and Vladimir were arrested for hanging a banner outside their Moscow apartment window that said “Let Us Go to Our Son in Israel.” Vladimir was sentenced to five years’ exile in Siberia on charges of malicious hooliganism and Maria, a radiologist, was given a three-year suspended sentence. But she volunteered to share her husband’s exile, traveling to Moscow periodically in attempts to retain her residency permit.

From the time the couple applied to emigrate — their first refusal came on the basis of Vladimir’s work as a radio engineer, which was deemed “secret work” — they were under constant surveillance and even house arrest. Their apartment was repeatedly searched and their books and belongings were confiscated on more than one occasion.

“For almost twenty years, Volodya and Maria Slepak were, without exaggeration, the undisputed leaders of the historic movement for the spiritual and physical freedom of Soviet Jewry,” former Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky and his wife, Avital, said in a statement. “They played a decisive role in maintaining strong ties between Jewish activists in the Soviet Union and the Jewish world. Their tiny communal apartment in Moscow was a true center of our movement in the seventies and eighties, hosting thousands of Jews from across the Soviet Union, as well as tourists from abroad who came to help and Western journalists.

“Maria had the spiritual and physical strength not only to welcome, host, and feed everyone, but even under the most difficult circumstances to support her friends with a kind word, open and sometimes sharp conversation, and jokes even in times of tears,” Sharansky wrote. The date of her death was available.

Upon their arrival in Israel, the couple were greeted by dozens of Soviet immigrants and officials.

Vladimir Slepak died in 2015. The date of his wife’s death was not available.

—JTA news and features

Laurrie Hofberg

Laurrie Hofberg, of Rockville, died Sept. 8. She was the beloved wife of the late Harry Hofberg; devoted mother of Julien (Linda) Hofberg and Myra (Rick) Cohen; loving sister of Elaine (the late Max) Smith, Betty (the late Al) Smith; sister-in-law of Joe (Virginia) Hofberg, Sam (Maggie) Hofberg and the late Israel and Mildred Hofberg. She is also survived by cherished grandchildren, Randy (Marcy) Cohen, Aaron Hofberg, David (Natasha) Hofberg and Jamie (Marjorie) Cohen; and great-grandchildren, Skylar, Zoe, Rhodes, and Grant Cohen, Leila and Luke Hofberg. Contributions can be made to the Harry Hofberg Community Garden at B’nai Israel Congregation. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Roberta Lehrer

Roberta Lehrer, of Potomac, died Sept. 10. She was the beloved wife of Howard Lehrer; devoted mother of Debra (Rocky) Asai and Shari (Jeff) Ploshnick. She is also survived by cherished grandchildren, Jack, Reid, Hayley and Sadie. Contributions can be made to Sibley Hospital. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Leon Reiter

Leon Reiter, of Rockville, died Sept. 6. He was the beloved husband of Harriet Reiter; devoted father of Ehud (Ann) Reiter, Dan (Carolann) Reiter and David (Alissa) Reiter and cherished grandfather of Miriam, Moshe, Naomi, Noah, Zev, Sam and Eve. Contributions can be made to Temple Beth Ami or GeoHazards International, at geohaz.org. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Calvin Kalman Chizever

Calvin Kalman Chizever, of Rockville, died Sept. 14. He was the beloved husband of the late Bobbie Chizever; devoted father of Randi Saks, Carol McDowell, Karen Askin, Ron (Debbie) Gallant and Lisa (Joe Raeder) Gallant; and loving brother of Delly Epstein. Also survived by Tony (Melissa) Busillo, Sarah (Michael) Cohen, Zachary (Katharina) Gallant, Jacob Raeder, Rebecca Askin, Sasha Gallant, Evan (Katie) Janis, Max Raeder, Corey (Ashley) Janis, Daniel Raeder, David Benko and six great-grandchildren.

Contributions can be made to Congregation Har Shalom, JSSA and NAMI. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Cheryl Granoff

Cheryl Granoff, of Rockville, died Sept. 11 at age 92. Beloved mother of Andrea (John) Hartranft and grandmother of Jacob Hartranft. Contributions can be made to the Alzheimer’s Foundation.

Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Sidney Rosendorf

Sidney Rosendorf, of Gaithersburg, died Sept. 12. Beloved husband of the late Irene Rosendorf; devoted father of Marsha (David) Goldberg and Alvin (Marilyn) Rosendorf; brother of Jennie Koff; loving grandfather of Shayne (Andrew) Friedman, Todd (Nicole) Goldberg, Daniel (Christina) Rosendorf, Melissa Hogan, Julie Goldberg, Andrew Goldberg and Karen (Dennis) McGuire; and great-grandfather to 11. Sidney served in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1946.

Contributions can be made to Jewish Social Service Agency (JSSA) of Rockville. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Lore Schneider

Lore Schneider, of Springfield, died Sept. 17. She was the beloved wife of the late Robert Schneider; mother of Valerie S. Hollmeyer (the late John Hollmeyer), Glen Schneider (Carol Denker) and Marilyn Kellam (Kevin); grandmother of Aaron Kuney (Elizabeth), Elyssa and Julia Schneider; great-grandmother of Alexis and Charlotte Kuney.

Contributions can be made to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, D.C. 20024-2126.

Ramona Blank

Ramona Blank, of Rockville, died Sept. 16. She was the devoted wife of the late Irving Blank; beloved mother of Di-Ann (Steven) Zepnick and Louise (Michael) Dreuth. She is also survived by three sisters, four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Contributions can be made to the Hebrew Home, Rockville. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

 Jeffrey Keith Lubcher

Jeffrey Keith Lubcher, of Rockville, died Sept. 23. He was 64. Beloved father of Frank Stephen Lubcher; cherished son of Pauline Lubcher-Freundel and the late Bernard Lubcher; devoted brother of Carol Minkoff (Barry). Contributions can be made to Suburban Hospital, Bethesda. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Helene Rae Rabb

Helene Rae Rabb, of Hilton Head, S.C., died Sept. 21. She was 85. She was the beloved wife of Leonard; cherished mother of Gail Wheat, Paula King (Dennis) and David Rabb (Lauren); devoted sister of Ruth Wheeler; loving grandmother of Becky Davidson (Jay), Scott Wheat (Mandy), Debra Newcomer (Eric), Bryan King, Danielle King and Marisa Plescia; and adored great-grandmother of Kaeli, Jacob, Maggie, Zachary, Nicky, Hadley and Sawyer. Contributions can be made to Washington Hebrew Congregation, The Michael J. Fox Foundation or a charity of choice. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Stanley Irving Wolf

Stanley Irving Wolf, of Rockville, died Sept. 23. He was 92. He was the beloved husband of Marcia Robinson Wolf and the late Harolyn Orleans Wolf; devoted father of Melinda Wolf, Leslie Creutzfeldt (Nikolaus), Julie Kolker (Adam) and Carole Neuhaus (Pedro); cherished grandfather of Daniel, Jonathan, Hannah, Anton, Anya, Joshua, Jonas and Clara.

Wolf was born and raised in Washington, where he graduated from Roosevelt High School, Georgetown University, and Georgetown Medical School. He interned at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and completed a pediatrics residency and an allergy fellowship at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. From 1948 to 1951, Wolf was enlisted in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps, first in San Diego, then as lieutenant in the 1st Marine Division during the Korean War, for which he received a Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Wolf practiced pediatrics and allergy medicine for 47 years until 1998. He was founder and medical director of the Jewish Foundation for Retarded Children (now the National Children’s Center). He received the Physician of the Year award from Montgomery County Medical Society for his role as director of polio and measles immunization programs and for his dedication to teaching pediatric residents in his office and at the National Children’s Center.

Contributions can be made to the National Center for Children and Families, 6301 Greentree Road, Bethesda, MD 20817. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Ruthe Zietz

Ruthe Zietz, of Tysons Corner, died Sept. 30, 2006. She was 74. Zietz attended The Ohio State University and was involved in Jewish organizations that included B’nai Brith Women and Jewish Women International. She is survived by sons Steven and Bruce Howard and granddaughter Valerie Howard.

Seymour Greene, 97, musician, entertained World War II troops

On Sept. 27, 97-year-old Seymour Greene of Potomac was buried; he died the previous day. He was an amazing musician, and a warm and wonderful mensch.

Seymour Greene
Photo by Sgt. Wally Reeves, 55th Signal Company-Combat Camera

I loved talking with him about his service during World War II as a trombone player in Irving Berlin’s band. He was a walking history lesson, and he relived those stories with such passion and humor that it was impossible not to be swept away and feel that you’re living in that historic time.

Born Seymour Goldfinger, he was drawn to music at an early age, and excelled in playing the trumpet and trombone. During World War II, he was drafted as a musician, and earned his corporal’s stripes six months into his Army service when he played first trombone in the 1942 Broadway hit “This is the Army.”

The show’s 50-piece orchestra was made up entirely of soldiers. The band’s purpose was to raise funds for the Army Emergency Relief and raise the GIs’ morale. Directed by Irving Berlin, the band toured internationally, performing before tens of thousands of soldiers who fought in the European and Pacific theaters.

Greene described vividly how the show attracted long lines and packed audiences. Though not a combat operation, the show carried its own risks. During one performance in Italy, a member of the cleaning crew discovered a bomb in the basement of the theater shortly before show time.

In another instance, Japanese snipers opened fire on band. After military police returned fire and the snipers were killed, Greene discovered that his trombone had been damaged. So he improvised by borrowing a piece from a local band, got his instrument to work, and the show resumed. The soldiers went wild, cheering and swaying to the music, and he couldn’t have been happier.

He was also a fighter for justice. During a time of segregation in America, he was proud to serve in a racially integrated unit in the Army.

He told me that everyone in the show felt strongly about this issue. If they arrived at a city or camp that was segregated, and the African-American cast members were told they would have to sleep and eat separately, the whole cast would join the African-American soldiers in the “colored” barracks. “If you’re going to separate us, then we are all black,” he told the hosts.

After his service, he became an accountant, and worked for the IRS for several decades. All the while, he continued playing the trombone in large and small ensembles, including orchestras and klezmer bands. He was proud that he had the chance to play in the inaugural balls of presidents from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.

He was the beloved husband of the late Ann Eleanor “Ellie” Greene; loving father of Robin (David) Sacks, Laurie (Joel) Dorfman and the late Jacquelin “Jackie” Fischer; dear grandfather of Aaron (Melanie), Jacob and Deborah Sacks and William and Daniel Dorfman; great-grandfather of Ethan Sacks. Contributions may be made to Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim, 1840 University Blvd. W., Silver Spring, MD 20902

-Shamai Leibowitz

Shamai Leibowitz is a Hebrew teacher and the Torah reader at Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim

Monty Hall, original host of ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ dies at 96

Monty Hall, the friendly and engaging host of the long-running television game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” has died.

Monty Hall. Wikimedia Commons.

Hall died of heart failure at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif., on Sept. 30 at the age of 96. He had a heart attack in June shortly after his wife of almost 70 years died, and had been ill ever since.

In addition to hosting, Hall was the co-creator of the game show, in which contestants vie to trade smaller prizes with the host for a chance at something bigger behind a curtain or in a box. At the end of the show, the two biggest winners of the day compete for prizes behind three doors.

Hall reportedly appeared in more than 4,500 episodes of the show, which remains on the air with Wayne Brady as host. He hosted the show for 23 years until 1986, and for a short time in 1991.

A probability brain teaser was named after the game-show host. The “Monty Hall Problem,” which ends with a counterintuitive solution, includes three doors, two goats, and a car.

Hall received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1973. He received a lifetime achievement awards at the Daytime Emmys in 2013.

Hall reportedly was a philanthropist. His family told CNN that he helped to raise close to $1 billion for charity during his life and that he spent about 200 days a year in fundraisers and charitable work.

A dual American and Canadian citizen, Hall was born Monte Halparin in the Canadian city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Orthodox Jewish parents.

—JTA News and Features

Billionaire media mogul S.I. Newhouse Jr.

.I. Newhouse Jr., the billionaire media mogul who ran dozens of magazines and newspapers, died at the age of 89.

Newhouse, the grandson of Russian immigrants who was known as “Si” but whose initials stand for Samuel Irving, died Sunday at his home in Manhattan.

Newhouse and his brother Donald owned Advance Publications, founded by their late father in 1922. Newhouse since 1975 ran the magazine division, known as Conde Nast, which publishes signature magazines such as Vogue, Glamour, Self, GQ, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker.

—JTA News and Features

Steven L. Eisenberg

Steven L. Eisenberg, of Olney, died Sept. 27. He was the beloved husband of Michele Eisenberg; loving brother of David Eisenberg. Contributions can be made to the Mayo Foundation for research of Lewy Body Disease, ASPCA, Alzheimer’s Disease Association or Women’s American ORT. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Mildred Meltzer

Mildred Meltzer, of Rockville, died Sept. 29. She was the beloved wife of the late Solomon Meltzer. Contributions can be made to Alzheimer’s Association. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Martha Koenig Bindeman.
Photo provided

Martha Koenig Bindeman, founded event planning business

Martha (Koenig) Bindeman, of Chevy Chase, died Oct. 5. She was 69.

She was born in Washington to Rose and Nathan Koenig and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1965. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1969 and from The George Washington University law school in 1972. She clerked for Judge Joyce H. Green of the District of Columbia Superior Court and later worked for Federal Trade Commission.

She then founded Finishing Touches Events and became one of the city’s leading event planners. An active volunteer, she served as president of the Sisterhood at Washington Hebrew Congregation and held various positions in the congregation’s lay leadership. She also served as president of the Jewish Social Service Agency.

She is survived by her husband of 46 years, Stuart L. Bindeman; daughters Julie Bindeman Belgard (David Belgard) and Jennifer Bindeman; three grandchildren, Nate, Jordan and Ryan Belgard; and two sisters, Judy Wolfman of York, Pa., and Susan Freed (Fred) of Hollywood, Fla. She is also survived by four nieces and three nephews.

Contributions can be made to Washington Hebrew Congregation for the Rose E. Koenig Religious School Fund, 3935 Macomb St. NW, Washington, DC 20016 or the Jewish Social Service Agency, 6123 Montrose Rd., Rockville, MD 20852. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Arthur Hart Blitz

Arthur Hart Blitz, of Bethesda, died Oct. 4.

He attended the University of Virginia and earned juris doctor and master’s degrees in law from The George Washington University. He was a captain in the Army JAG Corps.

Blitz was a partner at the law firm of Paley Rothman in Bethesda, and former president of the Greater Bethesda Chamber of Commerce, the Bethesda-Potomac Rotary Club, the Men’s Club of the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, and the Parent-Teacher Association of the Stephen Knolls School.

He was the beloved husband of Mimi Blitz; devoted father of Leslie M. (Steven) Hertz, Robin H. Blitz and Mickey Blitz; loving brother of Audrienne Levene; cherished grandfather of Sammy Hertz. He is also survived by extended family Julia, Raul and Wendy Letim, and Rosa Torres.

Contributions can be made to CHI, Inc., 10501 New Hampshire Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20903 or the Montgomery County Humane Society, 601 S. Stonestreet Ave., Rockville, MD 20850. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Colin Kahn

Colin Kahn, of Rockville, died Sept. 22 of kidney disease. He was 48.

He attended Johnson and Wales University in Providence, R.I., where he helped found the Hillel house. He spent a career in sales that included stints at Washington Jewish Week and various car dealerships.

Kahn had four kidney transplants starting in 1983, and also developed pulmonary hypertension. In honor of his 48th birthday on Aug. 27, he raised $2,500 for the American Kidney Fund, which helps dialysis patients.

He is survived by his parents, Denise and Larry Kahn; sister Nicole Allentuck (Bruce); nieces Tara and Danielle Allentuck, and Heather Davis (Taylor); he was a nephew of Deetsie Chrapaty Boginnis (John), Clifton (Terry) Chrapaty and Sharon (Jack) Peters.

Ira N. Tublin

Ira N. Tublin of Silver Spring died Oct. 2. He was 88.

He was born in Baltimore and attended the University of Maryland Medical School. He practiced in the fields of internal medicine, nephrology and geriatrics for 41 years. He was the director of the adult day care center of Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring and the camp physician at Camp Airy in Thurmont from 1959 until 2005. He also taught in the medical school at The George Washington University.

Tublin won the clinician of the year award from the Montgomery County Medical Society in 1986.

He is survived by his wife, Marilyn Scherlis Tublin; children Marjorie, Robert, Gary and Eric; and grandchildren Lila, Jesse, Zoe and Emmy.

Marc Klionsky, master portrait painter, dies at 90

Marc Klionsky, a Soviet-Jewish émigré to New York who gained worldwide prominence painting portraits of such eminent figures as Golda Meir and Elie Wiesel, has died.

Klionsky, who died last month at 90, was the youngest artist to have his paintings exhibited in the renowned Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow. His works have been exhibited around the world, including throughout Europe and in Israel, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Along with Meir, the late Israeli prime minister, and Wiesel, the late Nobel laureate, Klionsky painted portraits of musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and B.B. King, and industry titans such as Armand Hammer, among many others.

Klionsky, a Russia native who was the son of a master printer, trained in Russia’s best art schools and began working as an artist in his early teens. His family escaped the Holocaust when his father convinced 200 people from their neighborhood to travel to Kazan in eastern Russia, away from the advancing Nazi army.

He later escaped from Russia in 1974 with his family, due to anti-Semitism and lack of artistic freedom, first to Rome and then to New York.

In the forward to a book on Klionsky’s work, Wiesel, for whom Klionsly sculpted his Nobel Prize medal, wrote: “A painter on the theme of return or of memory, or both, Marc Klionsky offers us multiple faces that have haunted his past and ours. One has only to see them to understand his journey from Leningrad to Manhattan. One has only to study them to recall the events which they incarnate. For Marc Klionsky, the mystery of endurance as well as transformation is in the human face.”

Klionsky is survived by his wife of 58 years, Irina; two daughters; four grandchildren; and a sister.

— JTA News and Features

Louise Gold

Louise Gold, of Silver Spring, died Oct. 1.

She was the beloved wife of the late Elliott Gold; mother of Gary (Sherry) Gold and Toni Goldin and the late Leslie Gold; daughter of the late Fred and Rose Sanderoff; granddaughter of the late Louis Jaffe and Bessie Abramowitz; and sister of the late Colbert Sanderoff. She is survived by grandchildren Jason Turner (Erica), Amanda Tart (Julia), Kevin Gold, Genna Gold, Leslie Goldin, Corey Goldin, Tyler Dow (Chelsea), Trevor Dow, Tara Dow, Kylie Lopez and Chase Brady; great-grandchildren Gavin Turner, Madison Goldin and Sheya Dow.

Contributions may be made to the Children’s National Medical Center, 111 Michigan Ave. NW Washington, DC 20010. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Philip G. Levy

Philip G. Levy, of Washington, died unexpectedly Oct. 12. He attended Sidwell Friends School and graduated from the University of Wisconsin.

He was best known as the founder and owner of Bridge Street Books in Georgetown, referred to by George Will as “a small island of individuality” and by others as “the intellectual’s bookstore.” He was an active board member of The Play Company (New York) and the University of Wisconsin’s Department of History.

Levy was predeceased by his parents, Samuel and Gertrude Levy, and his brother, David. He is survived by his brother, Richard and wife, Lorraine Gallard; sister-in-law, Seena; nephew and nieces, Benjamin, Karena and Sarabinh; and other nephews, nieces and cousins.

Contributions may be made to The Play Company or the University of Wisconsin Foundation, directed to the Department of History. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Joel Palmer

Joel Palmer, of Potomac, died Oct. 11.

He was the beloved husband of the late Ellen Palmer; devoted father of Andrea (Rob) Green and Kevin (Amanda) Palmer; beloved Papa to Jared and Lainey Green.

Contributions may be made to Ingleside at King Farm Employee Appreciation Fund, 701 King Farm Blvd., Rockville, MD 20850. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Florence Trier

Florence Trier, of Washington, died Oct. 8. She was 96.

Born in New York City in 1921, she moved to Washington in 1940. She was a devoted, loving mother to Adrienne (Max) Chaikin and Jay Trier and a cherished grandmother and great-grandmother. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg. Funeral Care.

Keith Stephan Weber

Keith Stephan Weber, of Fairfax, died Oct. 8.

He was the beloved husband of Cheryl Weber; father of Cody and Zachary Weber; loving brother of Richard (Linda) Weber; cherished son-in-law of Irwin and Ellen Samet; and treasured brother-in-law of Stacy, Kenneth and Brian Samet. He is also survived by nieces and nephews Suzanne Weber, Michael Weber, Lauren Samet and Jordan Samet.

Contributions may be made to the charity of choice in memory of Keith Weber. Arrangements by Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care.

Joel Markowitz. Photo courtesy of Bruce Markowitz

Joel Markowitz, a connoisseur of and tastemaker for the Washington region’s theater scene who founded and edited the DC Metro Theater Arts website, died on Nov. 7 in Bethesda. He was 60. His brother Bruce Markowitz, said the cause of death was ALS — also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. The theater writer was diagnosed in March.

Much of Markowitz’s professional life was dedicated to the promotion and criticism of the area’s performing arts, from the time he began freelancing after college in the 1980s to 2012, when he and his older brother Bruce founded DCMTA as a hub for theater news and reviews that ultimately expanded to cover New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The fourth son of Cantor Morris and Faye Markowitz, Joel Markowitz grew up in Buffalo, N.Y., where he took to the arts at a young age with the encouragement of his father. He went on to attend Syracuse University, majoring in English and journalism, before moving to Washington in 1983 and making a name for himself initially as an interviewer of prominent theater personalities and the founder of Ushers Theater Group, which organized theatergoing trips up and down the East Coast.

But his interest wasn’t only in large productions. He was a champion of the entire form, promoting everything from high school productions to dinner theater, his brother said.

“He was a real champion of what he called the little guy,” Bruce Markowitz said. “He worked 18 hours a day, every day. And he kept working almost up until the last day of his life. He was totally dedicated to the site.”

Joel Markowitz’s passion for the performing arts was rivaled only by his love for his hometown Buffalo Sabres and Buffalo Bills. He played goalie for his high school’s hockey team and remained a devotee of the sport through his adult life. And he and his brother attended the Super Bowl together in California in 1993, watching the Bills fall to the Dallas Cowboys, 52-17.

“We had a great time together, even though we wound up crying in our soup,” Bruce Markowitz said.
He described Joel Markowitz as a “loving and loyal brother” and a “tremendous uncle” to his nine nieces and nephews.

Joel Markowitz was an avid listener of cantorial music, and amassed a collection of cantorial recordings, according to Bruce.

Ari Roth, founding artistic director of Washington’s Mosaic Theater Company, described Joel Markowitz as a voracious student of Jewish culture and tradition.

“What I’ll always remember is Joel’s enthusiasm as a theater goer and in Jewish culture in general,” Roth said. “Joel was a very learned person, and his enthusiasm was completely non-elitist. There was no snobbishness and no hierarchy. He saw the theater as a pure value.”

Joel Markowitz also helped to launch the careers of numerous writers and performers, his brother said. DC Metro Theater Arts’ oldest writer is 90-year-old Richard Seff, a retired stage actor whom Markowitz had encouraged to write four years ago.

After Joel Markowitz’s diagnosis and was given DC Theatre Scene’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Seff wrote him a letter. “He said that Joel had given him a whole new career and made him feel young,” Bruce said.

The next day, a 23-year-old actor whom Joel Markowitz had pushed to move to Washington and pursue his career, came by to thank him for his encouragement.

“I said, ‘Joel, in 24 hours you’ve had a man who’s 90 thanking you for everything you’ve done for him and a young man who’s 23 doing the same,’” Bruce Markowitz said. “How many people can say that?”
Joel Markowitz is survived by his five brothers: Rabbi Chanan Markowitz, Bruce Markowitz, Stuart Markowitz, David Markowitz and Saul Markowitz.

jforetek@midatlanticmedia.com

Jordana “Jojo” Greenberg (Photo from Facebook)

Remembered by friends and family as a vivacious and friendly young woman, Walt Whitman High School sophomore Jordana “Jojo” Greenberg, of Bethesda, died Nov. 27. She was 16 and had battled depression.

According to a death notice The Washington Post, she had a strong sense of adventure and “whacky” sense of humor. She would wear “intergalactic space kitten shirts” and wanted to be a paratrooper in the Air Force after graduation.

Greenberg had been battling depression for years, but “her heart was simply too big to hold the pain of life,” the death notice said. Services were held Dec. 1.

Greenberg was also a vegetarian and passionate about animal rights — she would have been heading up Whitman’s Animal Rights Club next year, according to an email to the school from Principal Alan Goodwin.

She had an artistic flair — painting and acting were her chosen methods of self-expression — and her favorite class was Arabic. She was also on the junior varsity volleyball team and a cheerleader.

“Just everyone in their own way was touched by Jojo,” Olivia Tello, a friend and classmate at Whitman, told Bethesda Magazine. “Everyone at school was just really devastated.”

A vigil for Greenberg was held Nov. 30 at the school. Students were asked to wear jeans to school the day before and pink to the vigil in her memory. A memorial with signs, balloons and flowers was created by her fellow students along the Capital Crescent Trail bridge.

Though few students used a locker at Whitman, according to Bethesda Magazine, Greenberg did and it is now decorated with letters, cards and signs of support and commemoration. Classmates describe her as a good student, and the school is making counselors and other mental health professionals available to students and staff to help them grieve the sudden loss.

“Her family would like to ask that we all reach out in a loving way every day to those who may be silently suffering, and help raise awareness for teen depression,” the death notice said.

Greenberg is survived by her parents, Sonya Spielberg and Jonathan Greenberg; and sister Carina.

Contributions can be made to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

hmonicken@midatlanticmedia.com

Stella Bernstein speaks with Fred Cantor at the dedication of the Bronfman Center in 2009. (Photo courtesy of Jewish Council for the Aging)

With her warm smile, generous nature and unrivaled Rolodex, Stella Bernstein knew how to get things done in the Washington-area Jewish community — and did, serving on the boards of numerous community organizations. The Columbia resident died Dec. 26 at the age of 81.

“She was a community person, in all caps,” said David Gamse, CEO of Jewish Council for the Aging, who was hired in 1990 when Bernstein took over as president of the JCA board. “She had a Rolodex that was unrivaled,” he added, which she used to build bridges and connect people and organizations “to the benefit of everyone.”

Those who knew her say Bernstein was dedicated to people and serving the community. She was interested in individuals — always asking how a person was doing, how was her family, is her parent feeling better — and remembered birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates.

Gamse said she would tell him: “A community is a collection of individuals, and to create a community you have to value the individual.”

But she was especially known for her hand-written thank you notes, Gamse said. With her trademark purple pen in hand, Bernstein wrote thank you notes to volunteers, employees and anyone else she felt deserved one. Gamse said he has no idea where she found the time, because she took on everything like it was a full-time job.

Along with JCA, Bernstein was a past president of Service Guild, Jewish Home for Retarded Children, Brandeis University National Women’s Committee, National Council of Jewish Women and American Israel Cultural Foundation, among others, according to an obituary that appeared in several locations. She also served on several boards, including for the Jewish Social Service Agency.

“She was a very warm and generous woman and cared very deeply about the Jewish community,” said Sylvia Raphael, who took over from Bernstein as JCA president.

During her tenure as president of the board at JCA, Bernstein helped boost the senior helpline and invested in outreach so that those in crisis knew they had somewhere to turn.

“She knew it was not only important to provide services, but make them accessible at the right time to the right people,” Gamse said.

She was a very immediate person, he added, and would call him — this was before the era of email — several times a day either to check in on someone she had referred to JCA or to refer someone she had talked to she thought could use the agency’s help.

The agency grew under their tenures, Raphael said, calling Bernstein one of the founders of “a new JCA.”

“She deserves to be applauded for all the work she did,” Raphael said

Along with her service work, Bernstein was chair of the Goldman Art Gallery at the Bender Jewish Community Center and worked at the Ratner Museum in Bethesda.

Phillip Ratner of the Ratner Museum knew Bernstein to be very “take charge” and always “dressed to the nines” while she worked there, greeting guests and providing information.

Those who knew her expressed a sentiment similar to this, which appeared in her obituary:

“Stella always left things better than she found them.”

Bernstein is survived by her husband, Paul; children, Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein (Dr. Judith Chernoff), Ellin Allin, Mark Bernstein and Julie Bernstein (Steven Weinstein); six grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

hmonicken@midatlanticmedia.com

Rabbi Leonard Cahan. Photo courtesty of Congregation Har Shalom.

Jackie Haynes remembers the months leading up to her daughter’s wedding. Rabbi Leonard Cahan of Congregation Har Shalom was to officiate. As part of the process, the rabbi was leading conversion classes for Haynes’ daughter’s fiancé.

Cahan crafted the lessons with his student’s learning disability in mind, eschewing dense reading for video and other visual prompts. A reading specialist herself, Haynes was struck by how digestible Cahan was making the lessons,

“I asked him one day, ‘Where did you learn that? How did you come up with these ideas?’” Haynes said. “He said to me, ‘Jackie, a rabbi’s first job is a teacher, and I aim to be the best teacher I can.”

Cahan, a gregarious, larger-than-life figure with a booming voice who led the Conservative congregation in Potomac for 27 years and served as its rabbi emeritus since 2001, died Jan. 17 at the age of 83.

Haynes joined Har Shalom in 1976, two years after Cahan became senior rabbi. One of the major selling points for her was the congregation’s unflinching egalitarianism, which she said wasn’t common at the time.

“A lot of the things that we think of today as the liberal, progressive issues, including women’s rights and reproductive rights, he was out in front of that 30 years ago. He was truly ahead of his time,” said Haynes, who was synagogue president from 1993-’95.

But Har Shalom under Cahan was also a place of serious study and discourse. “Intellectual sounds too stuffy, but it was a great place that really challenged you,” she said.

Sermons were meant to prompt discussion — a democratic philosophy that permeated almost everything Cahan did at the synagogue and remained after he stepped down as the full-time rabbi in 2001, according to Adam Raskin, Har Shalom’s senior rabbi since 2011.

Cahan’s legacy can be found in the semi-circular orientation of the sanctuary and how the bima is nearly level with the pews.

“It’s always been an unpretentious congregation,” Raskin said. “He was ahead of his time in many ways because the Conservative movement in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, and even in some places today, had a very formal, detached kind of clergy style. He eschewed all that. He was really into a kind of democratic, accessible, participatory style of synagogue experience.”

Over his tenure, Har Shalom grew from about 300 to 1,100 families, according to Raskin, who said there were families for whom Cahan performed life cycle events for multiple generations.

Leonard Cahan grew up in a middle class family in Philadelphia before enrolling at the University of Pennsylvania to study psychology. He simultaneously attended Gratz College for Jewish studies with an eye toward the rabbinate. After finishing his undergrad work, he moved to New York to enroll at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he spent his free time working at the school’s bookstore.

It was there that he met Elizabeth Peilen. The two married in 1960 and set off to pulpits as far as Japan, where Rabbi Cahan served as a naval chaplain. They made stops at congregations in Detroit and Oakland before finally settling in Potomac in 1974, where Rabbi Cahan took the helm of a young but growing flock in the rapidly expanding Jewish community of the Washington suburbs.

Elizabeth was nearly as much of a presence at the congregation as he, said Raskin.

“Elizabeth is a woman who’s extremely Jewishly knowledgeable and pious and she was fully his partner in everything in the rabbinate,” Raskin said. “She’s so educated and sophisticated, she was very much a part of everything that did Jewishly.”

One of Cahan’s proudest moments occurred in 1985 when, as the president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, he led 25 area rabbis to demonstrate at the Soviet Embassy protesting the treatment of Soviet Jews.

“For God’s sake, for the sake of our oppressed brethren, let us sound the call that will be heard from here to the Kremlin,” The Washington Post reported Cahan declaring, “as members of the group blew a loud blast on shofars.”

Police charged the group with violating the prohibition of demonstrating within 500 feet of an embassy. Cahan and four others refused to pay the $50 fine and spent two weeks in jail, fulfilling their mission of drawing attention to the plight of Soviet Jews.

“It was a galvanizing moment,” Cahan told the Gazette in 2001 on the eve of his retirement. By that time he was ready to step away from being a pulpit rabbi.

“You get a little weary of the technical details that as rabbi of a congregation, you have to worry about,” Cahan told the Gazette. “There’s never a free night. There are meetings, classes to teach and counseling. It’s almost seven days a week.”

Retirement would allow him time to enjoy his hobbies. “I’ve been a stamp collector since I was a teenager,” Cahan said. “And I like wine with dinner, but you can’t do it when you have a meeting.”

But Cahan did not simply recede into the background at Har Shalom.

“He’d never been a shrinking violet,” Haynes said. “He was always a presence.”

Cahan continued to lead a weekly Talmud class as well as an interfaith Bible study with nearby Emmanuel Lutheran Church.

About two years ago, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Still, he regularly came to Shabbat services.

Last November, Har Shalom celebrated the 70^th anniversary of his bar mitzvah. A letter from the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly noted his work as chairman of the editorial committee of the prayer books “Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals” and “Siddur Shalom for Weekdays.”

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Peilen Cahan, and their children Jonathan and Benjamin Cahan, Dr. Sara (Dr. Kenneth) Helms Cahan and Rabbi Joshua (Dr. Tamar Gordon) Cahan; a sister, Naomi Katz; and grandchildren Elisha and Yair Gordon-Cahan.

Contributions may be made to Congregation Har Shalom, JSSA Hospice or to the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

In his eulogy, Raskin said that the last time Cahan he came to Har Shalom was in late November for his 83rd birthday. He gave a speech before reading the haftarah, calling his wife his “Eshet Chayil, his pillar of strength, the inspiration of his rabbinate, the love of his life.”

jforetek@midatlanticmedia.com