2009 Year in Review: Obituaries A look back at some of the notable members of the Jewish community who died in 2009. Rabbi Noah Weinberg, 78, founder of Aish Hatorah, an international network of Jewish educational centers, died on Feb. 5. Dr. Philip Miller, 89, of Springfield, ritual leader at Congregation Kodimoh for 40 years, died March 3. Actor Ron Silver, 62, died after a battle with esophageal cancer on March 15. A strong supporter of Israeli and Jewish causes, he founded "One Jerusalem" an organization dedicated to "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel." Retired Army Col. Irving Heymont, 90, who commanded one of the largest displaced persons camps for European Jews after World War II, died March 17. Janet Rosenberg Jagan, 88, former president of Guyana and one of the few Jewish Caribbean heads of state in history, died March 28. Actress Bea Arthur, 86, died April 25 in Los Angeles. She was known for her television roles in the sitcoms "Maude" and "Golden Girls." Si Frumkin, 78, who founded the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews in 1968 and became a force in the Soviet Jews' struggle to be free, died May 15 in Los Angeles. Commentator and historian Amos Elon, 82, a critic of Zionism, died in Italy on May 25. Efraim Katzir, Israel's fourth president, died May 30 in Rehovot, Israel. Katzir, 93, was one of the founders of the Weizmann Institute. Nechemia Meyers, 79, a veteran Israeli-American journalist who for decades was associated with the Weizmann Institute of Science, died in June at the age of 79. Dr. Gary Tobin , 59, the founder and president of the San Francisco-based Institute for Jewish & Community Research, died on July 6. Rabbi Dr. Alfred Gottschalk, 79, former president and chancellor emeritus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, died Sept. 12 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Irving Kristol, 89, "Godfather of Neoconservatism" and editor of "Commentary" magazine for many years, died Sept. 18. Rabbi Jacob Lantz, 91, rabbi emeritus of Temple Shalom in Bridgeport, died at his home on Sept. 20. Rabbi Lantz grew up in Hartford, where his father led a congregation. U.S. Army Captain Benjamin Andrew Sklaver of Hamden, 32, was killed on Oct. 2 when his unit was ambushed while on patrol in Muscheh, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.