Robert E. Simon Jr.
Photo via Reston Historic Trust and Museum

Real estate entrepreneur Robert E. Simon Jr., who in the early 1960s created the planned community of Reston in Northern Virginia, died Sept. 21 at his Lake Anne home, according to the Reston Association. He was 101.

In an interview last year with The Washington Post on occasion of the town’s 50th anniversary, the self-described “Jewish guy from Manhattan” talked about his original vision for the 6,750 acres in Fairfax County he bought in 1961 and named Reston (the first three letters R.E.S. are his initials) three years later when the first residents started moving in.

“Everything I could think of that I’d seen in the world that appealed to me,” Simon said of what he worked out on a yellow pad. That vision for America’s first modern, post-war planned community, according to The New York Times, “blended the serenity of an Italian hill town, the urban attractions of San Francisco’s Embarcadero and the social equality of a utopia in Finland.”

The community that was purchased by Simon for $800,000 in cash and a $12 million mortgage, has grown to include nearly 60,000 residents and around 60,000 workers. Metro finally reached Reston last year with the opening of phase one of the Silver Line that included the final stop at Wiehle–Reston East within the median of the Dulles Toll Road. When phase two is expected to be completed in 2019 there will be a station also located within the median of the Dulles Toll Road that will be situated approximately 2,000 feet south of Reston Town Center. The station will be named Reston Town Center.

“I was extremely saddened to learn of the loss of our beloved Bob Simon,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) told Reston Patch. “To the end of his 101 years, he was a grand man of extraordinary vision, heart, and charm. Most people know Bob as the founder of Reston, but his insistence on making Reston the first racially integrated housing development in Virginia also made him a civil rights pioneer. He was an environmentalist before the term was invented, a patron of the arts, and passionate advocate for social justice. The Northern Virginia region owes much of its character and success to Bob. I feel this loss sharply and shall miss his dedication, his laugh and his friendship. A local giant is gone from our midst.”

Simon was born in New York City on April 10, 1914, one of four children, to Robert Sr. and Elsa Weil Simon. His father was a real estate investor who purchased Carnegie Hall in 1925 from the widow of Andrew Carnegie, according to The New York Times. After graduating from Harvard in 1935 and the death of his father that same year, Simon became president of Simon Enterprises and president and part owner of Carnegie Hall.

Married four times, survivors include his fourth wife of 11 years, Cheryl Terio-Simon of Reston; his daughter, Margo Prescott-Morris; four other stepdaughters, Dr. Karen Terio, Betsy Schulberg, Deborah Lesser and Lucinda Zilk; two stepsons, Tom Langman and Adam Terio; and many grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

As of publication, memorial services were still being planned. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Cornerstones (www.cornerstone-sva.org), 11150 Sunset Hills Road, #210, Reston, Va., 20190.

— Josh Marks with additional reporting from The Washington Post, The New York Times and Reston Patch.

Jackie Collins, whose steamy novels sold more than 500 million copies, has died following a six-year battle with breast cancer that she never divulged to the public.

Collins, the daughter of a Jewish father and an Anglican mother, died Sept. 19 in Los Angeles. She was 77.

Her best-selling novels, mostly depicting the lives of women in Hollywood, have been sold in 40 countries throughout the world. Her 1983 novel “Hollywood Wives,” which sold more than 15 million copies, spawned several sequels and a television miniseries.

Collins’ work spawned controversy. Her first novel, The World Is Full of Married Men published in 1968, was banned in Australia and South Africa. Romance novelist Barbara Cartland called it “nasty, filthy and disgusting.”

Collins had her last interview with People magazine, which first reported her death, a week ago. She said her breast cancer diagnosis came more than six years ago, but she only told her three grown daughters, Tracy, 54; Tiffany, 48; and Rory, 46 about it.

“Looking back, I’m not sorry about anything I did,” she told People.

She was the younger sister of actress Joan Collins of Dynasty fame.

Collins “lived a wonderfully full life and was adored by her family, friends and the millions of readers who she has been entertaining for over four decades,” the family said in a statement posted on the novelist’s website. “She was a true inspiration, a trail blazer for women in fiction and a creative force. She will live on through her characters but we already miss her beyond words.”

Collins was born in London and moved to the United States in the 1980s.

— JTA News & Features

On Sept. 17, Sarah Kattan, 32, of Silver Spring. The cause of death was SUDEP – the sudden, unexpected death of someone with epilepsy. Kattan died on a cruise with her beloved mom in Venice, Italy. Kattan had developmental disabilities and epilepsy. She attended Ivymount School and graduated from Rock Terrace School. She worked at ROI (Rehabilitation Opportunities Inc.) in Germantown. Kattan is survived by her loving parents, Susan and Joseph Kattan, her younger sister Ilana (Washington, D.C.) and her grandmother Daisy Kattan (who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio).

Sarah Landesman

Sarah Landesman, who with her husband, Avrom Landesman, helped start the Woodside Synagogue Ahavas Torah, died Sept. 22. She was 78.

“My mom had the unique ability to make everyone feel special and loved. My mom was an integral part of this community for over 50 years,” said her daughter, Yocheved Landesman. “She was a true paragon of chesed.”

Sarah Landesman was born in Poland. Her family left when she was 3 years old, after the invasion of Germany. The family fled to Lithuania and was soon forced to leave home again. This time, they headed for Japan via a long train trip through Russia.

About nine months later, the family settled in Shanghai and lived in the Jewish ghetto there, escaping the worst of the Holocaust.

Believing she had been rescued for a reason, Sarah Landesman made sure she did something good with her life, her husband said during the funeral. He said she had three loves that guided her life: “Love of God, love for people, love for life.”

Rabbi Moshe Walter of Woodside Synagogue called her “a righteous woman and a great woman.”

The Landesmans were one of a few families in the early 1960s to meet for worship services in the Summit Hill apartment complex’s party room in Silver Spring. They converted the party room into Summit Hill Shul, paying $1 a year in rent. Avrom Landesman was its first president.

Many of the original families moved to nearby Woodside, and the Landesman basement became an auxiliary Woodside minyan for Shabbat.

Sarah Landesman was described by many as the mother to all the children of Summit Hill and Woodside synagogues. “She was the mother of the greater community,” said her son, Uri Landesman, during the funeral.

In her later life, Sarah Landesman suffered many illnesses, but continued to look on the bright side, her husband said.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by children Uri and Deborah Landesman, Devorah and Dean Grayson, Nisonel and Chani Landesman, Yocheved Landesman; and eight grandchildren.

Sarah Landesman was buried in Beit Shemesh, Israel.

spollak@midatlanticmedia.com
@SuzannePollak

Sondra and Howard Bender

From the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to the Embassy of Israel to the American University sports arena bearing the family name, the legacy of Howard Bender can be found in buildings of note across the Washington area.

Bender, of Bethesda, died Sept. 28 at the age of 84 at Suburban Hospital. The cause of death was a heart attack, after he was diagnosed with cancer.

In addition to helping construct many prominent places in the nation’s capital, Bender gave his time and money to build the local Jewish community. The Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, Jewish Social Services Agency and the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes were among the institutions that benefited from his philanthropy and service, along with Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, where he and his wife, Sondra, were longtime members.

“Howard Bender was a pillar of our community,” said Steven A. Rakitt, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. “He, along with his wife, Sondra, and their family, were philanthropic leaders whose commitment and vision for the future immeasurably strengthened the fabric of the Greater Washington Jewish community.”

“Howard played a pivotal role in encouraging the Greater Washington community to participate and to become engaged philanthropically with Jewish Foundation for Group Homes as pertains to philanthropic support of homes and other major programs,” said Vivian Bass, executive director of Jewish Foundation for Group Homes.

Michael Feinstein, CEO of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington called Howard and Sondra Bender “a special team. I remember that Howard was moved to tears when he saw how children in our special needs inclusion camp were benefiting from the program. Their response was to create an endowment to help make sure the program was funded on an ongoing basis. The children in our early childhood program [now called the Sondra and Howard Bender Early Childhood Center] and special needs camp have, and will continue to benefit from their legacy of chesed.”

Bender served as president and chairman of ADL. David Friedman, ADL’s Washington region director, said Bender “was part of this generation that considered it their duty, their responsibility to engage in philanthropy and to support the Jewish community and he never questioned that.”

Bender was also president and chairman of Israel Bonds.

Rabbi William D. Rudolph, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County, delivered the eulogy at Bender’s memorial service on Oct. 1. He remembered Bender as “a unique person who accomplished so much in his life, but was as humble and simple and fun as anyone I have ever known.”

Bender visited the rabbi’s home every Thursday to learn more about Judaism, Rudolph recalled. They studied Pirkei Avot and the weekly Torah portion, and they also talked about life and the issues of the day.

Howard Bender was born on Nov. 10, 1930, in Patterson, N.J., to Jack and Dorothy Bender. He was the middle child of the couple’s three children.

His family moved to the Washington area in the 1930s due to the declining New York textile business.

His father started a painting business; clients included the White House. That company turned into Blake Construction, which was co-founded by his father and Paul Blake in 1947. The third-generation business is now known as Blake Real Estate and is run by Bender’s son, David, one of his four children.

Bender graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, excelling at football and baseball while there. He attended the University of Maryland for two years, and he was a center on the university’s football team. He left when the family business beckoned.

In 1951, he married Sondra Dosik; the couple honeymooned in Miami Beach, Fla., and settled in Washington. She died in 2012 at 78; the couple had been married 60 years.

As chairman of the board of Blake Construction, Bender led the building of the Israeli Embassy, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the FBI Building, Bethesda Naval Hospital, Walter Reed Hospital, San Diego Army Navy Hospital, the Jack & Dorothy Bender Library at American University and The Bender Arena at American University.

He and his wife owned and operated Glade Valley Farm in Frederick.

“He was transparent and incapable of malice, deceit or envy,” said David Silver, who married Bender’s daughter Julie.

Patricia Silver, a board member of Jewish Social Service Agency and sister-in-law of Julie Silver, called Bender “unassuming and down-to-earth.”

Bender’s grandson Jason Belinkie recalled his love of family. Bender enjoyed family gatherings and led annual family trips to Florida and the Caribbean. Belinkie said Bender was an enthusiastic participant in the family fantasy football league, even if he never quite mastered the technology involved.

“Once, when I couldn’t be there to play, I talked him through it on the phone for two hours. The family connection was important to him,” Belinkie said.

“Howard died on the first days of Sukkot, the feast of booths, during which we construct sukkot, man-made shelters that represent God’s presence above and, when we fill them with people, warm community below,” Rudolph said in his eulogy. “How perfectly fitting that is. Howard made buildings. He and Sondra were community builders — through the family they created, and through their philanthropy that helped keep roofs over the heads and walls on the sides for countless organizations and charities here and around the world.”

In addition to his son David, survivors include his younger brother, Morty (an older brother, Stanley, died); daughters Barbara Bender, Julie Silver and Eileen Greenberg, 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Interment took place at King David Memorial Gardens in Falls Church. There was no official shiva because of the Sukkot holiday. However, the family welcomed visitors to his home.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the JCC of Greater Washington’s Sondra and Howard Bender Early Childhood Center, Jewish Social Services Agency or Jewish Foundation for Group Homes.

jmarks@midatlanticmedia.com
@JoshMarks78

Senior Writer David Holzel contributed to this article.

Rebbetzen Gila Landman (Freyda Gila bat Gedalya v’Chana), the wife of Rabbi Reuben Landman, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim in Silver Spring, died on Oct. 9 in Jerusalem.

Landman is survived by her husband and children Chana (Yaacov) Russ, Ely (Malka) Landman, Yaacov (Rena) Landman and Moshe Landman.

The funeral service took place on Oct. 11 at Eretz HaChaim cemetery in Bet Shemesh, Israel. Shiva was observed in Jerusalem. A community memorial service will be held at Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim, 1840 University Blvd. West, Silver Spring, Md. 20902 on Oct. 18 at 5 p.m. to commemorate the life of Rebbetzen Gila Landman, z”l, followed by services at 6 p.m.

Visit the link htaa.org/payment.php to donate to Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudath Achim in memory of Landman.

Jamie Zimmerman, a medical doctor and reporter for ABC News, drowned while on vacation in Hawaii.

She died Oct. 12 after losing her footing and being swept out to sea while trying to cross the Lumahai River on the island of Kauai. She was 31.

Her mother confirmed her death in a post on her Facebook page.

“In her short 31 years Jamie traveled the globe representing America as a caring mindfulness ambassador,” Jordan Zimmerman wrote. “Her accomplishments included helping Congolese refugees in Zambia, volunteering in a cash-strapped hospital in India, building classrooms in Uganda, and working with indigenous people on the Amazon in Peru. Jamie served as a United Nations Global Health representative in Haiti and she even taught meditation at the U.S. Capitol.”

Dr. Zimmerman, who studied at UCLA and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, also made a documentary film on Congolese refugee camps.

ABC News President James Goldston said in a statement that in addition to her work for the network, Zimmerman ran meditation sessions for the New York staff.

Dr. Zimmerman was awarded UCLA’s Charles E. Young Humanitarian Award . She also planned to collaborate with Deepak Chopra on a new project. She also worked with the (Goldie) Hawn Foundation, training educators and school administrators to teach meditation to children.

— JTA News & Features

Dr. Henry Krystal, a concentration camp survivor and Holocaust trauma expert, has died.

Dr. Krystal, a psychiatrist whose research focused on former concentration camp inmates, died Oct. 8 at his home in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., from complications caused by Parkinson’s disease, The New York Times reported. He was 90.

He was best known for his research and understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder. As a professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, he found that the major symptoms in victims of trauma were frequently overlooked. Because trauma victims most commonly complained of physical problems like headaches, they missed treatment for underlying psychological issues like depression, leaving them vulnerable to self-medication and substance abuse.

His research led to pioneering approaches to treating post-traumatic stress disorder involving biofeedback and cognitive psychotherapy, according to the Times. His findings were published in works he authored, including Integration and Self-Healing, Psychic Traumatization and Drug Addiction: Aspects of Ego Function.

His research was drawn from interviews with Holocaust survivors, examining the responses of victims of the Hiroshima atomic bomb and by drawing on his own experiences as a concentration camp survivor.

One of his studies, which he carried out in 1965 at the State University of New York Health Science Center at Brooklyn, led to the concept of “survivor guilt.”

He was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in 1925. From 1942 to 1945, he worked as a slave laborer, first in a factory operated by Siemens and later in Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen concentration camps. He was the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust.

After the war, he studied at Goethe University before immigrating to the United States, settling in Detroit. In 1950, Krystal graduated from Wayne State University before attending the university’s medical school and embarking on his psychiatric career.

He is survived by his wife, two sons and three grandchildren.

— JTA News & Features

Michael Kotzin
Photo via Jewish Book Council

Michael Kotzin, a longtime top official at the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, has died.

Kotzin, who died Sunday after suffering from a serious illness for several years, served the Chicago federation since 1988, most recently as the special consultant to the president and formerly as executive vice president from 1999 until 2011.

“Our community, the Jewish federation world, indeed the entire Jewish people have benefited in ways almost too numerous to recount from Michael’s deep knowledge, keen insight, steadfast commitment, and brilliant mind,” Bill Silverstein and Steven Nasatir, the chairman and president, respectively, of the JUF/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, said in a statement. “He was indefatigable, investing unparalleled passion, energy and focus in every facet of his work. His uncompromising fairness and decency were hallmarks of his character.”

Kotzin also formerly served as director of JUF’s Jewish Community Relations Council and, before joining the federation, was Chicago Regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. Prior to coming to the ADL, he was a faculty member in the English department at Tel Aviv University.

He was the author of the 2014 book On the Front Lines in a Changing Jewish World, a compilation of essays, opinion pieces, speeches and reviews he wrote during the past 25 years. Kotzin was also the author of a book about the novels of Charles Dickens.

“He was an innovative thinker and widely-respected authority on a wide range of issues, including global anti-Semitism, the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israel-Diaspora relations, and intergroup relations,” Silverstein and Nasatir said. “In close collaboration with lay leadership and his professional colleagues, he helped set the JUF/Federation agenda in many arenas, from public affairs, to communications, to the academic study of Israel.”

Kotzin is survived by his wife, Judy; their three children and their grandchildren.

— JTA News & Features

Frieda Gila Landman
Photo courtesy of the Landman family

Frieda Gila Landman, a poet and religious school counselor who taught all Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy students the meaning of chesed, died Oct. 9.

Family and friends also described her as a friend to all at Congregation Har Tzeon-Agudas Achim in Silver Spring, where her husband, Reuben Landman, was the rabbi for more than 36 years.

“If there was one word to describe her, it would be kindness,” said Ginger Pinchot, a friend who volunteered alongside Landman at Berman Academy. “She loved everyone.”

Landman, 70, had three sons, a daughter and 16 grandchildren. Her son Yaakov described his mother as “humble and unassuming.”

“Most importantly, she shared over 49 wonderful years of marriage with my father, her best friend,” said the son.

“She was not only my rebbetzin, she was my very, very dear friend,” said Lillian Schoem of Wheaton. “She was a wonderful, wonderful person. We can all take something from her. Going through cancer for 12 years and never complaining makes her a wonderful person.”

Schoem and Landman spoke on the phone every Friday, right before Shabbat, for many years. This practice continued after the Landmans moved to Israel two-and-a-half years ago from Silver Spring.

A child of Holocaust survivors, Landman was born in a displaced persons camp in Poland and came to America with her family when she was young, living first in Chicago and then New York.

She grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and attended Brooklyn College, earning undergraduate degrees in English and education, and then a master’s degree in English literature. At the same time, she attended the Teacher’s Institute of the Jewish Theological Seminary, earning a degree in Hebrew literature.

She continued her education after moving to Maryland, earning a second master’s degree, this one in counseling. She taught at the Chelsea School, a high school in Hyattsville for students with learning and behavioral disabilities.

She then became the middle school counselor at Berman Academy, the day school that the couple’s children attended. She worked there for 11 years, from 2001 to 2012.

“Gila was like Mrs. Chesed of the Hebrew Academy,” Pinchot said, adding that Landman started a chesed club. Her two biggest projects involved Save A Child’s Heart and Smart Sacks.

With Smart Sacks, Landman had the students fill backpacks with healthy food that were distributed to needy children at nearby Harmony Hills Elementary School in Silver Spring.

“It was such an eye-opener” for the students to see that there were hungry children living so close to them, Pinchot said.

Landman also worked to make sure the students learned about the Holocaust. Each year at Yom Hashoah, she transformed the school’s band room into a living memorial. Rather than bring a Holocaust survivor to speak, Landman had students interview a survivor and then tell their classmates about what they had learned, Pinchot recalled.

“She was loved there and had an impact on so many kids from our neighborhood,” said Yaakov Landman.

As soon as word of Landman’s death spread, her husband began receiving an outpouring of loving emails. “I can say definitely that because of your wife I still have an extreme love for praying,” wrote one woman who now is a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces.

“You and Mrs. Landman made a tremendous impact on my life — especially my Jewish life,” wrote a Har Tzeon member.

“Gila always showed a sweet, kind and friendly nature,” wrote another synagogue member. “I will always remember her kindness in my time of need.” Yet another member called her “truly a woman of valor in the best sense of the word.”

One of Landman’s students, who asked not to be identified, decided to write down her feelings after hearing of Landman’s death. In Landman’s office, she “felt more secure than the comfort of my own home.” She wrote, “My anxiety began and ended with middle school; however I’m confident that if it wasn’t for Mrs. Landman, I would still be suffering from it today.”

The student wrote that “finally, the panic attacks subsided. Mrs. Landman had cured me.”

Shortly before her death, Landman received word that her book of poetry, For the Sake of the Living and the Dead, dealing with her experiences during the Holocaust had been accepted for publication.

She was a finalist for the Anna Davidson Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience and had poems published in Explaining Life: The Wisdom of Modern Jewish Poetry, The Whirlwind Review, Poetica Magazine, Persimmon Tree and other publications.

In addition to her husband and son Yaakov, survivors include sons Ely and Moshe; daughter Chana Russ, and her grandchildren.

spollak@midatlanticmedia.com
@SuzannePollak

William F. Alterman

On Sept. 27, William F. Alterman of Rockville. Beloved husband of Sue M. Bomzer Alterman; cherished son of Toby and the late Jack Alterman; devoted father of Briana and Hershel Alterman; dear brother of the late David Alterman. Funeral services were held on Oct. 1 at Congregation Har Shalom, Potomac. Interment followed at Judean Memorial Gardens, Olney. After the interment, the family received relatives and friends at the late residence. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alterman Family Fund at SSFS Community Farm, Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington or Georgetown Lombardi Patient Assistance Fund.

Lillis Caulton

Lillis Caulton, 87, of Silver Spring, peacefully passed away on Oct. 11. Loved by son Michael (Esther), grandchildren Henry and Lucy, sister Marilyn Teitelbaum (Leonard), late husband Martin, late son David, and many nieces and nephews. She loved politics and mingling with scientists, having been the Democratic precinct chair of Leisure World, and the secretary for alumni at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. Graveside services were held at Judean Memorial Gardens in Olney, on Oct. 14.

Selma Ruskin Emanuel

On Oct. 23, Selma Ruskin Emanuel, of Silver Spring. Devoted mother of the late Judith Sheehan (Daniel), Roberta Margolies (George), and Jonathan Emanuel (Corinne); adoring grandmother, “Nanny,” of Kimberly Hudler (Jay), Nicole Sheehan, Janis Arnold (Ryan), Lisa Margolies (Sam Johnson), and Lauren Emanuel; cherished great-grandmother of Chloe, Mason, and Connor; and beloved sister of Tanya Salsitz (Richard) and the late Phillip Ruskin (Rita). Graveside services were held on Oct. 28 at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery in Adelphi. A memorial service followed at the Riderwood Chapel in Silver Spring. Family received friends at the residence of Roberta and George Margolies, starting Oct. 28 through Oct. 29. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the charity of your choice or the Holy Cross Home Care and Hospice.

Anne P. Fishman

On Oct. 20, Anne P. Fishman of Kensington. Beloved wife of Albert L. Fishman; devoted mother of Karen J. Fishman (Elliot Schwartz), Joan A. Fishman (Thomas Gutman) and the late Dr. Robert A. Fishman; cherished grandmother of Sarah Campbell, Zachary and Daniel Schwartz, Adam and Matthew Gutman; beloved sister of Kay Morrissey (James) and Joseph Partney (the late Donna Goldsworthy). Funeral services were held on Oct. 23 at Judean Memorial Gardens Chapel in Olney. Family received friends at the residence of Karen Fishman and Elliot Schwartz immediately following services through Sunday evening. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Dr. Robert Alan Fishman Memorial Fund, The School of Dentistry, University of Maryland, 650 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, Md. 21201.

Richard Lakin
Family photo

JERUSALEM — A dual American-Israeli citizen wounded in a terrorist attack on a Jerusalem bus has died.

Richard Lakin died Tuesday morning at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, where he remained unconscious since the Oct. 13 attack. He was 76.

Lakin was shot and stabbed on a bus in the East Talpiot neighborhood. Two others were killed in the attack and more than 10 were wounded. One of the assailants was killed and the other was wounded.

Lakin moved to Israel from Connecticut 32 years ago with his wife and two children. He had eight grandchildren. He ran a business with his wife teaching English and was the author of the book Teaching as an Act of Love.

His children announced his death on his Facebook page.

“After the attack Dad was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem where the incredible medical staff worked diligently around the clock for two weeks trying to save his life, but, alas, his injuries were too severe,” they wrote. “Dad was unconscious and anesthetized during the entire two weeks, so he felt no pain. This morning, with his family around him he faded gently into a permanent sleep and we kissed him goodbye. We love you Dad and will do our best to live respectful, loving lives and pass along ‘acts of kindness.’”

The funeral was scheduled for Wednesday.

— JTA News and Features

Earl Raab
Photo via Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California

Earl Raab, a sociologist, Jewish community advocate and longtime director of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, died Oct. 24 in Forest Knolls, Calif. He was 96. He was also a commentator and author on American political culture and the Jewish experience in America.

He served as director of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council from 1951 to 1987. Raab also was a co-founder of the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California. An award in his name is given annually to a community activist “who best exemplifies Mr. Raab’s high standard of communal activism and advocacy for residents of our state.”

After he left the JCRC, Raab was the founding director of the Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University.

He was raised in New York and Virginia during the Great Depression and attended the City College of New York in the late 1930s. He was an officer in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Following the war he tried dairy farming in Maine and soon after left for San Francisco.

— JTA News and Features

Esther Brenner

On Oct. 31, Esther Brenner of Rockville. Beloved wife of the late Robert Brenner; devoted mother of Rick (Lisa Newmark) Brenner, Ruth (John Brown) Brenner and Sharon (Bo Flannary) Brenner; dear sister of Moss Fairmont and Sydney Fairmont; cherished grandmother of Michael Brenner, Robert and Aaron Brown. Funeral services were held on Nov. 4 at the Chapel at Judean Memorial Gardens, Olney, with interment immediately following. The family received friends and observed shiva following the interment at The New Mark Commons Clubhouse, Rockville, and at the residence of Ruth Brenner. Contributions may be made to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, ushmm.org.

Shirley R. Cahan

Shirley R. Chahan, 91, wife of J. Leonard Cahan, passed away Oct. 31. She was born in Philadelphia and enjoyed her life in Bridgeton, N.J., and Lauderhill and Boca Raton, Fla., before moving to Washington in 2013. A devoted daughter, wife of 71 years, mother and grandmother, she is best remembered for the love and care of her family, friends and neighbors. She was an active volunteer in local civic and charitable organizations, a most gracious and insightful woman whose gentleness was matched by her enormous strength. Beloved mother of Dr. Lynda Cahan Mulhauser and Vicky (Thomas) Cahan Autrey, she was a loving grandmother of Scott (Kara Carscaden) Mulhauser, Dana Mulhauser and Rebecca Autrey. She will be missed by an extended community of family and friends. After private graveside funeral services, shiva was observed on Nov. 5, at the residence of Lynda Mulhauser in Washington. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Hadassah, The Ruth & Norman Rales Jewish Family Services of Boca Raton, Fla., directed to Senior Care Services or to Chords of Courage, 3501 Rodman St., NW, Washington, DC, 20008.

Rose Gildenhorn

On Nov. 1, Rose Gildenhorn of Washington. Beloved wife of the late Myer Gildenhorn; devoted mother of Jeffrey and Harry Gildenhorn; beloved sister of the late Bessie Siegel and Lil Scheer; cherished grandmother of Matthew and Dana and great-grandmother of Connor, Zac and Aiden. Funeral services were held on Nov. 5 at B’nai Israel Congregation, Rockville. Interment followed at B’nai Israel Cemetery, Oxon Hill. Family will be observing shiva at the residence of Harry and Arlene Gildenhorn through Nov. 8. Contributions may be made to parkinsons.org.

Holly Snider Kopit

Holly Snider Kopit, daughter of Elaine Snider and the late Jerry Snider, passed away Oct. 25. She is survived by an adoring and devoted family, her husband Neil; son Sam; siblings Bruce (Liz) Snider, Lauren (Gene) Sachs; brother-in-law Barry (Lisa) Kopit, and several nieces, nephews, aunts, and cousins. She was a talented jewelry designer and salesperson at Boone and Sons Jewelers for more than 20 years. Shiva was held at Woodmont Country Club, Rockville. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory may be made to the Jewish Foundation for Group Homes, 1500 E. Jefferson St., Rockville, MD 20852 or the charity of your choice.

Russian media mogul Mikhail Lesin, a former aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was found dead in a Washington hotel room.

Lesin’s body was discovered Nov. 5 at an upscale hotel. He was 57.

Lesin was the founder of the English-language news service Russia Today, now known as RT. The RT website reported that he died of a heart attack, citing a family member.

Tass, the Russian news agency, reported that no signs of foul play had been found and that an investigation into his death had been launched.

Lesin was the Russian minister of press and mass media from 1999 to 2004, and served as the presidential media adviser from 2004 to 2009.

He was the chief executive officer at Gazprom-Media, the largest Russian media holding company, from 2013 until early this year.

Lesin had been accused of limiting press freedom in Russia.

— JTA News and Features

Gilbert Beiser

On Nov. 4, Gilbert Beiser of Silver Spring. Beloved husband of Judy Beiser; devoted father of Susan Beiser of Charlotte, NC; dear brother of Claire Mosenthal of Washington. Graveside services were held on Nov. 6 at at King David Memorial Garden in Falls Church. The family observed shiva at his residence immediately following the interment. Contributions in his memory may be made to Shaare Tefila Congregation.

Howard Lefkowitz

On Nov. 7, Howard Lefkowitz, of Wheaton. Beloved husband of Zoe Lefkowitz; devoted father of Elliot Lefkowitz (Donna), Miriam Lefkowitz (David), Linda Keely (David), Sharon Lefkowitz, and daughter-in-law Nicci Lefkowitz; beloved brother of Stanley Lefkowitz; cherished grandfather of Cailyn and Kye Keely, Mara Myers, and grand dog Taanka. Funeral services were held on Nov. 9 at Judean Memorial Gardens Chapel, Interment followed. Family observed. Shiva was observed at the Lefkowitz residence. Contributions may be made to the Montgomery Bird Club, montgomerybirdclub.org.

Gertrude Levin

On Oct. 27, Gertrude Levin of Silver Spring, beloved wife of the late Joseph I. Levin; devoted mother of Robert (Judith) Levin and Stan Levin; cherished grandmother of Sharon Levin and Joshua Levin. She is also survived by her loving sister, Rida Silbert; adored aunt of many nieces and nephews. The funeral service was held on Oct. 29 at the Hines-Rinaldi Funeral Home, Silver Spring. Interment followed at Mt. Lebanon Cemetery. Shiva was observed at the home of Robert and Judith Levin. In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to a charity of your choice.
Thomas ‘Tommy’ S. Misler

On Oct. 18, Thomas “Tommy” S. Misler of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. and formerly of Bethesda. Beloved husband of Hal Chaikin, dear brother of Michael and Betty, son of the late Leone and Bernard Misler, son-in-law of Harriet and the late Norman Chaikin, brother- in- law of Robin and Charles Frank, loving uncle of Jennifer and Jason Karlin, great-uncle of Evan, Seth and Jillian. Graveside services were held on Oct. 23 at Judean Memorial Gardens, Olney. Memorial contributions may be made to a charity of one’s choice.

A Jewish man who as an adult reunited with a long-lost identical twin raised as a Nazi died at age 82.

Jack Yufe, who with his twin Oskar Stohr was featured in the 1997 German documentary Oskar and Jack, died of stomach cancer Nov. 9 in a San Diego hospital, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Born in Trinidad in January 1933, Yufe and Stohr were separated at 6 months old, when their parents divorced. Stohr moved to Germany with their Catholic mother, and Yufe stayed in Trinidad with their father.

According to the Times, Stohr, at the directive of family members, kept his Jewish ancestry a secret and joined the Hitler Youth “out of self preservation.”

Meanwhile, Yufe, the Times said, “didn’t feel the weight” of his Jewish identity until, at age 15, he moved to Venezuela to live with an aunt, the only European relative on his father’s side to survive the Holocaust. At her urging, Yufe moved to the fledgling State of Israel the following year, serving in the Israeli navy.

In 1954, before joining the twins’ father in the United States, Yufe traveled to Germany to find Stohr.

The two spoke no common language and were unable to communicate well. Yufe told the Times in 1979 that Stohr avoided letting anti-Semitic family members know Yufe was Jewish and had been in Israel.

Despite their differences, the two discovered they had very similar habits, mannerisms, hairstyles and style of dress.

“We had identical clothes. I got mine in Israel and he got his in Germany. Exactly the same color, with two buttons,” Yufe recalled in the 1999 film, according to the Times.

The two did not meet again until 1979, when Yufe learned about a University of Minnesota study about twins and wanted to participate.

“Jack and his brother clearly have the greatest differences in background I’ve ever seen among identical twins reared apart,” Thomas J. Bouchard Jr., the University of Minnesota psychologist who headed the study, told the Times in 1979.

Bouchard discovered the two were “strikingly similar in temperament, rate of speech and other characteristics,” according to the Times.

“I always thought I picked up my nervous habits from my father — like fidgeting with other people’s rubber bands and pads and paper clips — until I saw [Oskar],” Yufe said in The Times. “He’s the same way.”

Stohr, who had worked in coal mines, died of lung cancer in 1997.

In addition to Oskar and Jack, the twins were featured in other films about twins, according to the Times.

While participating in the twins study, Yufe told Cal State Fullerton psychology professor Nancy Segal that he did not blame his brother for participating in the Hitler Youth.

“Children have no say in what they are taught,” he told Segal. “If we had been switched, I would have taken Oskar’s place for sure.

— JTA News and Features

French political philosopher Andre Glucksmann, who began his career as a Marxist and later rejected communism and criticized Russia, has died.

Glucksmann, the son of Jewish immigrants from Hungary, died Nov. 10 in Paris at 78. He had battled cancer for several years.

His 1975 book, La Cuisinière et le Mangeur d’Hommes, criticized Marxism, which Glucksmann said leads to totalitarianism. It also drew parallels between Nazism and communism. He became known as a “new philosopher,” part of a group of philosophers who broke with Marxism in the early 1970s.

He advocated Western intervention in global conflicts, such as supporting NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the Western military intervention in Libya.

His experience during World War II as a Jewish child in France during the Nazi occupation, which he wrote about in his 2006 autobiography A Child’s Rage, shaped his view of international intervention in such conflicts.

The French-Jewish intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy said of Glucksmann, “He was the only one of my contemporaries with whom I had the feeling of sharing the same fears about the world.”

— JTA News and Features

Friends and classmates gather around the coffin of slain yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz at Ben Gurion Airport before it is flown back to Massachusetts.
Photo by Ben Sales

TEL AVIV — His best friend remembered him starting up a children’s game on their senior school trip. His teacher retold the time he made Hebrew jokes on a whiteboard during class. His rabbi recalled him committing to study the entire Bible this year. His parents wrote of him reciting whole paragraphs of Harry Potter by heart.

And they all remembered his bright eyes and wide grin.

Family, friends and classmates couldn’t help but smile as they grieved for Ezra Schwartz, the 18-year-old American yeshiva student killed by a terrorist last Thursday afternoon as he was volunteering in the Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank. At a memorial service Saturday night at Ben Gurion Airport, those who knew him described a young man with a relentless sense of humor and a magnetic personality who cheered up everyone around him.

“He was sweet, pure, very, very social — incredibly social both as a giver and as a taker,” said Schwartz’s rabbi, Yechiel Weisz. “He made everybody else happy, and he loved being around happy people.”

Schwartz, from Sharon, Mass., was a graduate of Boston’s modern Orthodox Maimonides School. He was spending the year at Yeshivat Ashreinu in the central Israeli city of Beit Shemesh, which combines Torah study with volunteering and hikes. He planned to attend Rutgers University next fall.

According to Ashreinu faculty, Schwartz and five classmates had gone to the Etzion bloc, south of Jerusalem, to beautify a nature reserve dedicated to the three Jewish teens kidnapped and killed by terrorists last year. A terrorist opened fire on them, killing Schwartz and wounding his classmates. The five wounded boys have returned to the United States; Schwartz’s body was flown home for a funeral Sunday.

Four other people were killed in terror attacks Thursday in Israel.

“We were deeply saddened to learn about the death of Ezra Schwartz, an American citizen from Massachusetts who was murdered in a terrorist attack on Thursday while in Israel to pursue his studies,” the State Department said in a statement last Friday. “We extend our deepest condolences to the victim’s family, friends and community, as well as the family and friends of the four other people killed in yesterday’s tragic events.”

As Schwartz’s coffin sat at the airport, hundreds of friends and supporters gathered in the adjacent terminal, singing and crying arm in arm. Students from Ashreinu sat in a circle, singing soulful Jewish songs — usually reserved for the end of Shabbat — focused on God’s protection. In the center of the circle lay an Israeli flag, a jersey from the New England Patriots football team and a bottle of Schwartz’s favorite drink — Schweppes Apple soda.

Schwartz’s uncle, Yoav Schwartz, spoke about when his nephew would put on costumes and goof around to entertain his little cousins. When Schwartz was 4 years old, he recalled, the child recited the Four Questions at the family Passover seder — then stayed standing atop a chair, smiling widely with his eyes closed.

“He was someone who touched people wherever he went,” Yoav Schwartz said. “People were attracted to him because of his sweet demeanor. He had a way of listening that communicated that he really cared.”

Whether as a camp counselor, athlete or student, acquaintances said, Schwartz was always happy. His 10th-grade Hebrew teacher, Efrat Lipshitz, told reporters that when he came unprepared for class once and had to complete Hebrew exercises on the whiteboard, he instead wrote sentences like “I’m cute” and “I want bourekas.”

A year earlier, Lipshitz taught a class that included Schwartz’s best friend. Though Schwartz wasn’t in the class himself, he would always pop in and say “I can’t be without him.”

Schwartz’s frivolity, said Lipshitz, ended when it came to caring for others. When classmate Caleb Jacoby went missing last year, Lipshitz remembered Schwartz being one of the most active student volunteers in the school’s search.

“He didn’t care if he had a test and he didn’t succeed,” she said. “He didn’t care about that stuff.” But when it came to finding Jacoby, she said, “He really cared about it. He took it hard.” Jacoby would turn up four days later.

Schwartz played baseball for four years at Maimonides and was an avid skier. He planned to join an Israeli baseball league in the spring. In an open letter read at the memorial service, his parents wrote that his passion for sports extended to wiffle ball, which he’d stay up playing with his three little brothers until late at night. Schwartz was also close with his older sister.

“There’s nothing more important than playing with your brothers until you’re too tired to move,” his parents wrote. “What a great kid. What a great life.”

Three months into his year at Ashreinu, Schwartz’s rabbis said he had started to channel his boisterous energy into serious pursuits. Crying, Ashreinu’s head rabbi, Gotch Yudin, recalled at the memorial service how Schwartz sat on his bed last week poring over the Bible and circling words he didn’t understand. On the morning of the day he was murdered, Yudin said, Schwartz had considered not volunteering because he was tired — but decided instead to sleep on the bus so he could contribute.

“Ezra came here to do kindness, Ezra came here to learn,” Yudin said in a tearful eulogy. “That’s what we have to do in Ezra’s memory. We have to make so much more kindness for the world here in the Land of Israel.”

The smiles accompanying Schwartz’s eulogies dissipated quickly as his close friends surrounded his coffin, walking by it one by one to pay final respects before it was loaded onto an ambulance and flown to Boston.

After the doors closed, Schwartz’s friends walked off in a column, sobbing, their arms wrapped around each other.

— JTA News and Features

Former Common Cause President David Cohen speaks at the organization’s ‘Lessons of Watergate’ conference at the National Press Club in 2013.
Flickr photo via Common Cause

Public interest lobbyist and Tifereth Israel Congregation member David Cohen died on Sunday of a heart attack at his son Aaron Cohen’s Westport, Conn., home, according to The Washington Post. He was 79.

A 1957 graduate of Temple University with a B.A. in history, since the 1960s Cohen was active in many social justice and political reform movements, including leading a fight for Congress to end its support of the Vietnam War and serving as president of good-government group Common Cause from 1975 to 1981.

Tifereth Israel Rabbi Ethan Seidel called Cohen a “calm and optimistic presence” who was respectful and an excellent listener who in turn was “very much admired” in the congregation.

“He was one of the lions of the synagogue. He didn’t have a big ego or anything but he just really stood for a lot of what Tifereth Israel is about — learning and involvement in our tradition but also consciousness and social justice,” said Seidel.

He led the Professionals Coalition for Nuclear Arms Control from 1982 to 1992. In the mid-1980s Cohen co-founded The Advocacy Institute with Michael Pertschuk. According to Cohen’s biography on his website, while at The Advocacy Institute he “pioneered the Institute’s work in its international capacity building programs.”

Cohen, a Washington resident, served on the advisory council for J Street, the self-described pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group.

“I had the chance to meet him in the very early stages of forming J Street, and it was such a privilege to be able to draw on the decades and decades of experience that David had in moving the public debate on difficult and contentious issues,” recalled J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “He was so wise and so strategic, and of all the people that I met over the course of the years as we were putting this together I found him to be one of the most insightful and valuable advisers that we had.” He said he was “deeply saddened to have lost him as a friend and adviser.”

David Pesach Cohen was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 10, 1936. His father immigrated to the United States from England and his mother was from Eastern Europe.

His wife, Carla Furstenberg Cohen, who died in 2010, was a co-owner of the independent Washington bookstore Politics and Prose. The couple had been married 52 years.

In addition to the couple’s son, Cohen is survived by a daughter, Eve Cohen of San Francisco, and grandchildren Ry and Georgia Cohen, according to The Washington Post.

In a 2013 Labor Day interview with Pacific Standard, Cohen defended the profession of lobbying the government for the public good.

“Lobbying is part of practicing democracy,” said Cohen. “My mission is to take the mystery out of its tribal rites and make it sufficiently understood that others will enter the fray to pursue public interest ends. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need to be blessed for having done what I did.”

jmarks@midatlanticmedia.com
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