Obituaries

In Memoriam 2017

Ari Rath, a prominent Austrian-Israeli journalist who served as editor-in-chief at The Jerusalem Post, died Friday, Jan. 13 in Vienna, a week after turning 92.

 

 

Edward Cohen, a Connecticut native who served as the chief engineer on the 1986 restoration of the Statue of Liberty, died Jan. 29 at the age of 95.

 

 

Leah Adler, the mother of director Steven Spielberg and a well-known restaurateur who owned the kosher Los Angeles eatery The Milky Way, died Feb. 21 at the age of 97.

 

 

David Rubinger, the Israeli photographer who took the iconic photo of Israeli paratroopers standing in front of the Western Wall after its capture in the Six-Day War, died March 2 at the age of 92.

 

 

Rabbi Harold S. Silver, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford and a leader in progressive Reform Judaism, died March 9 at the age of 92.

 

 

Elliott Horowitz, the author of Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence — considered the most wide- ranging book on Jewish violence — died March 18 at the age of 64.

 

 

Sam Pasco, the leader of the Hartford-based Sam Pasco Trio and who for many years was a professional musician who played for Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason, died March 23 at the age of 89.

 

 

Don Rickles, the bullet-headed comedian and actor whose pioneering brand of insult comedy earned him the nickname “Mr. Warmth,” died April 6 at the age of 90.

 

 

Henny Simon, a Holocaust survivor and longtime Holocaust educator from Colchester died in a car accident April. 4 at the age of 91.

 

 

Zel Lurie, who served as editor and publisher of Hadassah Magazine for 35 years, died April 10 at the age of 103.

 

 

Dr. Mark Wainberg, a renowned AIDS researcher best known for identifying 3TC (Lamivudine) as one of the first effective anti-viral treatments that helped extend the survival of HIV/AIDS patients, died April 11 at the age of 71.

 

 

Leonard E. Greenberg, owner of Coleco Industries, the toy manufacturer that produced the Cabbage Patch Kids in the 1980s and founder of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, died July 10 at the age of 89.

 

 

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, died July 27 at the age of 83.

 

 

Jeff Brotman, who co-founded the retail giant Costco, and was an active philanthropist donating to the arts, Democratic political candidates and Jewish causes, died August 1 at the age of 74.

 

 

Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor from Haifa who was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest man in the world, died Aug. 11 at the age of 113.

 

 

Jerry Lewis, the comedian known for his starring role in “The Nutty Professor,” his stage partnership with singer-actor Dean Martin and four decades of hosting the Muscular Dystrophy telethon, died Aug. 20 at the age of 91.

 

 

Rabbi Henry Okolica, the longtime spiritual leader of Congregation Tephereth Israel in New Britain, known as “Everybody’s Rabbi,” died Sept. 25 at the age of 103.

 

 

Monty Hall, the host of the long-running television game show “Let’s Make a Deal,” died Sept. 30 at the age of 96.

 

 

Rabbi Israel Stein, longtime rabbi at Congregation Rodeph Sholom in Bridgeport, died Sept. 24 at the age of 79.

 

 

Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, leader of the non-Hasidic Lithuanian haredi Orthodox community, who was known as “gadol hador,’ a great sage of his generation, died Dec. 12 at the age of 104.

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