“The Witness” finally closed his eyes last night OCEANSIDE, California — Rev. Samuel “Billy” Kyles died on Tuesday evening, April 26, in Memphis at the age of 81. For the last 48 years of his life, he had been both burdened and motivated by his personal witnessing of a most barbaric act. Kyles directly beheld the […]
Rev. Kyles, witness to Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder Read More »
Obituaries & memorials, USA
Popular actress Doris Roberts, who was best known for her role as matriarch Marie Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond, has passed away at the age of 90. According to a spokesperson for the family, she remained healthy and active and died in her sleep. Roberts was born to a Russian-Jewish family in St. Louis and
‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ star Doris Roberts, 90 Read More »
Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
Nobel Prize winning author of Fateless BUDAPEST (JNS.org)– Hungarian writer Imre Kertesz, a Holocaust survivor who won the the 2002 Nobel Prize in Literature for his fiction work, died on Thursday in Budapest at age 86 after a long battle with illness, the Magveto Kiado publishing firm said. Kertesz was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp
Imre Kertesz, 1929-2016 Read More »
Books, Poetry & Short Stories, International, Obituaries & memorials
LOS ANGELES (JNS.org) — Jewish actor and comedian Garry Shandling died Thursday at the age of 66, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said. Shandling is best known for working on the cable television comedy show “The Larry Sanders Show,” which aired from 1992-98. He began his entertainment career by writing for sitcoms such
Gary Shandling, 1949-2016 Read More »
Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & BroadcastBy Rabbi Ben Kamin SAN DIEGO –Eighteen years ago tomorrow, March 8, 1998, the Winter Garden Theatre in New York, then home to the mega-hit Cats, had its lights go dim. The music stopped, the dancing halted as the news spread of the death of 44 year-old artiste, Laurie Beechman. For longer than anyone, she
A tribute on the yahrzeit of Laurie Beechman Read More »
Music, Dance, and Visual Arts, Obituaries & memorialsBy Rabbi Ben Kamin OCEANSIDE, California — My father, unrealized, died forty years ago today. It was forty years ago today, March 2, 1976: he dropped dead and left no real trace of personal history. He was just 45 and painfully unrealized. I keep a graying, wood-framed picture of my long-departed father on the mantle.
Four decades gone, his memory still a puzzle Read More »
Obituaries & memorials
JERUSALEM (WJC) — Samuel Willenberg, the last survivor of the Treblinka death camp who died on Friday in Israel at the age of 93, beat the odds.. About 870,000 people, most of them Jews, died in the gas chambers at Treblinka. It was the second largest Nazi German death camp after Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Samuel Willenberg wa a hero
Samuel Willenberg, last survivor of Treblinka Read More »
International, Jewish History, Obituaries & memorials
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (WJC)– Manuel Tenenbaum, the long-time head of the WJC’s Buenos Aires office and executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC) from 1978 to 2007, has died here in his home city at the age of 81. World Jewish Congress CEO Robert Singer declared: “Manuel Tenenbaum was greatly respected and admired
Manuel Tenenbaum, 1934-2016 Read More »
International, Obituaries & memorialsBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — A few days ago I received an unusual email. It came from someone I had never met, but whom I knew was the person who was looking after an old friend from long ago. In the mail I was informed that Inge was bedridden, near to death, unable to
Bikur Cholim — The importance of a visit or a phone call Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Obituaries & memorials, USA
NEW DELHI (AJC)–Indian soldier and statesman Lt. Gen. (ret.) J.F.R. Jacob, 92, died Wednesday, Jan. 13, in New Delhi. He was for decades the most prominent member of his country’s Jewish community, whose remarkable life included service in World War II in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and command of India’s Eastern Army during
J.F.R. Jacob, India’s soldier – statesman Read More »
International, Obituaries & memorials
By Eric George Tauber SAN DIEGO — On January 14th, 1977, a great blizzard hit the northeastern United States. In Cincinnati, my brothers and I cheered it on, certain of school closures the following day. Little did I imagine that -on that very night, in a hospital in Long Island, New York- the great love
Jackie Kaufman Tauber, 1977-2015 Read More »
Eric George Tauber, Obituaries & memorials, Theatre, Film & Broadcast
SAN DIEGO–As the world celebrates the going and coming of another year, from 2015 to 2016, the occasion will be a bittersweet one for Tifereth Israel Synagogue’s former rebbetzin, Jeanne Gold, and her brother Shelly Weissbuch. It was another secular new year, in 1938, when Esther and her husband-to-be, Jule, were planning their own wedding for
Esther Weissbuch, 1915-2015 Read More »
Obituaries & memorials
JERUSALEM–Israel’s fifth president, Yitzhak Navon, died on Friday, Nov. 6, at the age of 94. He served as Israel’s president from 1978 to 1983. In New York, The World Jewish Congress issued a statement: “We extend our condolences to Yitzhak Navon’s widow, and to his children and grandchildren. His life story reflects the history of the
Yitzhak Navon, Israel’s fifth president Read More »
Middle East, Obituaries & memorials
Editor’s note: Former Sheriff Bill Kolender’s death at the age of 80 was announced on Tuesday, Oct. 6, by San Diego Police Chief Shelley Zimmerman, whose own career in many ways followed Kolender’s. He was the first Jewish police chief of San Diego. Zimmerman, also a Jew, was the first female police chief of San Diego.
A farewell to Sheriff Bill Kolender Read More »
Obituaries & memorials, San Diego County