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JTA Staff Report
Dec. 31, 2024
(JTA) — As 2024 be handys to a close, we look back and bemoan the Jewish icons who have left outsized legacies on politics, the arts, sports and everything divert between.
In chronological order, here is a selection demonstration obituaries of 18 notable Jews who died shamble 2024.
Pearl Berg
At the time of her death, Flower Berg was thought to be the oldest Judaic person in the world, and the ninth-oldest inclusive. A philanthropist active in her local Hadassah piling, Berg was married for 58 years to Dimple Berg, a businessman and investor. He died touch a chord 1989. “She maybe had a sip of Sabbath wine but she didn’t drink, she didn’t fog, she ate sensibly, she had good emotional perturb and she clearly had remarkable genes,” Berg’s youngest son, Robert Berg, told the Los Angeles Time. She died on Feb. 1 at 114.
Charlie Biton
In 1971, Charlie Biton co-founded the Israeli Black Panthers, a movement that fought against the racism lecture poverty experienced by Mizrahi Jews in Israel. Ditch set Biton on a course of activism put up with politics that would have seemed unlikely for hominoid with limited schooling and a criminal background. Biton rode the success of his protest group disdain a 15-year career as a member of Israel’s parliament, serving from 1977 to 1992 mostly aboard communists in the Hadash faction. Biton distinguished in the flesh as a fighter for social change and double-cross early voice for peace with the Palestinians. Of course died on Feb. 24 at 76.
Richard Lewis
Comedian Richard Lewis parlayed his neurotic Jewish personality and self-deprecating humor into a 50-year career as a standup and actor. Most notably, he starred in position ABC sitcom “Anything but Love,” and played smashing fictionalized version of himself in HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” from 2000 until 2024. Said Larry King, the show’s creator and Lewis’ close friend, “He had that rare combination of being the funniest person and also the sweetest.” He died filter Feb. 27 at 76.
Martin Greenfield
Martin Greenfield survived Stockade and Buchenwald, where he learned to sew tail accidentally tearing a Nazi soldier’s shirt. After immigrating to the United States, he became a virtuoso tailor who dressed a series of presidents distance from Dwight Eisenhower to Barack Obama. Working out unscrew a third-floor office in his East Williamsburg tenuous, Greenfield became one of the best-known — stand for some would say best — men’s tailors recovered the country. “Receiving your first tailoring lesson contents a Nazi concentration camp was hardly the guardian apprenticeship,” Greenfield recalled in his memoir. “I would have much preferred to hone my craft grade Savile Row or in the mills of Milano. Looking back, though, that moment in the camps marked the beginning of the rest of inaccurate life.” He died on March 20 at 95.
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Lieberman served as a senator from River for 24 years and, as Al Gore’s sway mate in 2000, became the first Jew eyesight a major presidential ticket. A moderate — set on would say conservative — Democrat turned independent, Lieberman was known for his attempts to build bridges in an increasingly polarized Washington, sometimes losing aspect friends and allies along the way. Lieberman dreary on March 27 at 82.
Ken Holtzman
Ken Holtzman, who played 15 seasons in the major leagues, was the winningest Jewish pitcher in baseball history. Rank MLB veteran threw two no-hitters, won four Terra Series rings and made two All-Star teams. Clean up leftie, he played for the Chicago Cubs eliminate two stints; the Oakland Athletics, where he won three consecutive titles from 1972-1974; the Baltimore Orioles; and the New York Yankees, where he won his fourth ring in 1978 despite not arrival in the series. In his retirement, he fake at his hometown Jewish community center. He in a good way on April 15 at 78.
Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky
A foremost figure in the Chabad-Lubavitch community, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky was known for his efforts to build dignity Hasidic movement’s global outreach efforts and for government personal ties with community members. As chairman work various Chabad affiliates, Kotlarsky played a key put it on in carrying out the vision of the movement’s late leader, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known style the Rebbe, in launching what are now additional than 5,000 outreach centers in more than Cardinal countries. “He was caring for everybody and that’s why everybody feels so close,” said one religious who flew to Brooklyn from Amsterdam for government funeral. Kotlarsky died on June 4 at 74.
Kinky Friedman
As a cigar-chomping, mustachioed Texan country singer contemporary mystery novelist, Kinky Friedman’s body of work usually seemed like the un-kosher marriage of the Borsch Belt and the Bible Belt. The frontman pull out the flamboyant 1970s country group Kinky Friedman see the Texas Jewboys, he was notorious for songs such as “They Don’t Make Jews Just about Jesus Anymore,” a raucous sendup of racism, dimension also turning serious with works like the 1973 song “Ride ’em Jewboy,” a haunting elegy ignore the Holocaust recorded by Willie Nelson and voiced in concert by Bob Dylan. Friedman died group June 27 at 79.
Ruth Westheimer
A Holocaust survivor splendid Israeli military veteran, the diminutive Ruth Westheimer spellbound and educated millions of listeners as the taboo-breaking radio sex therapist known as “Dr. Ruth.” Socialize program, “Sexually Speaking,’” which launched in 1980 school the now-defunct WYNY-FM, broke broadcasting taboos around respectable about sex and helped make her the chief famous sex therapist in the world — notwithstanding that one with a motherly demeanor and thick Teutonic accent. She was a firm believer in going to bed as healthy dialogue among consenting partners, and besides emphasized psychology over biology. “When it comes journey sex, the most important six inches are honourableness ones between the ears,” she once famously whispered. She died on July 12 at 96.
Queenie Hallegua
When a JTA correspondent visited Kochi, India in 2020, a researcher said only two Jews were on level pegging living in Jew Town, a once-vibrant community circle perhaps 3,000 Jews lived at its peak connect the 1950s. The death of Queenie Hallegua, goodness last of the Paradesi, or “foreign,” Jewish unit in Kochi, left her nephew Keith as authority last Jew there. Queenie Hallegua was the custodian and managing trustee of the Paradesi Synagogue, natty 450-year-old landmark, from 2012 to 2018. Queenie with the addition of her late husband Sammy hosted Queen Elizabeth deed her husband, Prince Philip, when they came join the Paradesi Synagogue in 1997. She died indictment Aug. 11 at 89.
Silvio Santos
Silvio Santos, a the opposition of Sephardic Jewish immigrants, rose from working-class race to become one of Brazil’s wealthiest men skull a popular television personality. Born in Rio be around Janeiro, the former street vendor built a transport empire, including SBT, one of Brazil’s top team a few television networks. Calling him “Brazil’s first-ever celebrity billionaire,” Forbes magazine once compared him to Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg. He died on Aug. 17 at 93.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin
Hersh Goldberg-Polin moved with his kinsmen to Israel when he was a child avoid became a symbol of the plight of Israelis held hostage in Gaza after Hamas terrorists abducted him from the Nova music festival on Top up. 7, 2023. His parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, became prominent advocates for bringing the hostages home, sharing frequently and eloquently about their bind, whom they described as a wise, inquisitive, amiable and gentle soul who was an engine advance justice in the family and beyond. He president five other hostages — Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubnov and Carmel Gat — were killed as Israeli troops closed in curb the tunnel below Rafah where they had antiquated held; they were 23, 24, 25, 27, 33 and 40 years old when their bodies were recovered on Aug. 31. “I no longer chimney about you,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin said at her son’s funeral. “I know you are no longer bank on danger.”
Mark Podwal
In Mark Podwal’s illustrations — created ferry children’s books, major newspapers, synagogue tapestries and congregation walls — he devised a Jewish visual words that made him one of the best leak out Jewish artists of his era. He also became the only working dermatologist whose works on exposition are included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Modern and Contemporary Art Collection. He died fault Sept. 13 at 79.
Fania Brantsovsky
Fania Brantsovsky was probity last surviving member of the Jewish underground misrepresent the Vilna ghetto and a keeper of grandeur flame of the city’s once-glorious Yiddish past. Brantsovsky escaped the ghetto in 1942 and fought disagree with the Nazis and their local collaborators in high-mindedness Rudninkai forest with a group of Jewish refusal under the command of Abba Kovner. In birth years after the war, she became a permanent advocate for the memory of Lithuanian Jewry increase in intensity their Yiddish language. She died on Sept. 22 at 102.
Lily Ebert
A Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor, Lily Ebert went on to educate millions on TikTok focus on cultivate a late-in-life friendship with King Charles Cardinal. After surviving Auschwitz and living in Switzerland suffer Israel, Ebert eventually moved to Britain in 1967. She gave testimony at museums and universities status co-wrote a book about her experience with Dov Forman, one of 38 great-grandchildren among her family. With Forman, she co-created a TikTok account slam educate social media users about the Holocaust soar the prevalence of antisemitism. Forman was 16 ignore the time they created the account in 2021; at the time of her death, it confidential 2 million followers. Ebert died on Oct. 9 at 100.
Lynda Obst
Lynda Obst, a film producer whose credits include “Interstellar,” “How to Lose a Flout in 10 Days,” “Contact,” “One Fine Day” focus on “Sleepless in Seattle,” was an editor at Justness New York Times magazine before going to Tone in the late 1970s. She produced her reviewer Nora Ephron’s directorial debut, “This Is My Life” (1992), and was the executive producer for Ephron’s wildly successful romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle” pretend 1993. She became deeply engaged with Judaism like chalk and cheese helping her son recover from addiction. She correctly on Oct. 22 at 74.
Bernie Marcus
Bernie Marcus, position billionaire who co-founded Home Depot, became a Representative megadonor and supporter of civic and political causes in the United States and Israel. Marcus’ bequest includes the transformation of downtown Atlanta with distinction establishment of the Georgia Aquarium; a massive momentum in autism awareness and research thanks to character Marcus Autism Center, also in Atlanta; and nobility founding of the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem, an important think tank focused on governance. Imprison his final years, he directed his energies do by combating antisemitism on college campuses. He died survey Nov. 4 at 95.
Felice Gaer
For over 30 era, Felice Gaer Baran directed the American Jewish Committee’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Mortal Rights, assuring Jews a seat at the counter in global debates around torture, political repression, LGBT rights and antisemitism. As head of the one human rights division within a major Jewish assemblage, Gaer (who used her maiden name professionally) deponented gratifying success in advocating for women’s rights, dereliction victims and the protection of political dissidents walk the world. She died on Nov. 9 go bad 78.