DAVID STERN, who in three decades as NBA commissioner guided the league from financial distress to become a multibillion-dollar global enterprise, died Jan 1. He was 77.

ELIZABETH WURTZEL, an author best known for her blockbuster memoir Prozac Nation, which was written in 1994 and detailed her struggles with anti-depressants, died Jan. 27. She was 52. Diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer in 2015, she later became an advocate for testing for the BRCA gene mutation and pushed for insurance companies to cover BRCA testing for all Ashkenazi Jewish women.

BEVERLY PEPPER, a sculptor famed for her monumental iron and steel works, died Feb. 5 at her home in Italy. She was 97.

LARRY TESLER, the American computer scientist whose many personal computing innovations included the now ubiquitous copy and paste functions, died Feb. 16. He was 74.

HOSNI MUBARAK, who, as president of Egypt for 30 years, kept his nation’s “cold peace” with Israel, died Feb.18 at the age of 91. Mubarak was ousted and jailed in 2011 following massive street protests. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement of condolence on behalf of the citizens and government of Israel.

SY SPERLING became famous in the 1980s for his hair loss treatment commercials that ended with Sperling holding up a photo of his formerly bald self with the tag line: “And remember, I’m not only the Hair Club president, but I’m also a client.” He died Feb 26 at the age of 78.

JAMES LIPTON, who hosted the “Inside the Actors Studio” on the Bravo channel for 23 seasons, died March 7. He was 93.

DANIEL AZULAY, one of Brazil’s most prominent children’s artists and educators, died March 27 of complications from COVID-19. He was 72.

GERTRUD STEINL, who was recognized by Yad Vashem in 1979 as a Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during the Holocaust, died March 23, a day before her 98th birthday.

ADAM SCHLESINGER, one of the lead songwriters of the pop rock band Fountains of Wayne and the musical series ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ songwriter, died April 1 of Covid-19. He was 52. 

RABBI OSHER YAKOV WESTHEIM, who was considered a “towering figure” in Manchester, England, and a world-respected authority on kosher food laws, died April 2. He was 71.

HELENE AYLON, feminist artist whose work reflected her evolution as a woman and a Jew, died April 6. She was 89.

YAAKOV PERLOW, leader of Novominsker Hasidim and a top haredi Orthodox rabbi, died April 7 of COVID-19. He was 89.

FRED PRESSER, a former president of the Venezuelan and Jewish community, died April 17 of COVID-19. He was 73.

NOACH DEAR, former NYC councilman and State Supreme Court Judge died April 19 of complications related to COVID-19. He was 66.

RABBI ZALMAN KOSSOVSKY, a former chief rabbi of Zurich who led congregations on three continents during a career that spanned decades, died in April at the age of 80.

JOEL KUPPERMAN, the adorable child star who helped burnish the stereotype of the brainy Jew as a panelist on the 1940s show “Quiz Kids,” died in April. He was 83.

JERRY STILLER, longtime comic who was part of the husband-wife comedy team Stiller & Meara and went on to win fame on ‘Seinfeld,’ died May 11. He was 92.

RABBI NORMAN LAMM, longtime head of Yeshiva University and prolific author, died May 25. He was 92.

LARRY KRAMER, one of the most important figures in the history of LGBTQ activism and writer, died May 27. He was 87.

RUTH LEE SILVER of West Hartford was the wife of Connecticut’s Rabbi Harold Silver z”l, and a writer, artist and social activist who never stopped fighting for the underdog. She was 90.

JOEL SCHUMACHER, who directed such box office hits as “St. Elmo’s Fire” and two “Batman films, died June 22. He was 80.

CARL REINER, consummate comedy legend who grew up in the Bronx the son of Jewish immigrant parents, died June 29. He was 98.

ILIA SALITA, head of the Genesis Philanthropy Group, who led the organization’s efforts to engage young Jews around the world, died June 29. He was 52.

REP. JOHN LEWIS, civil rights icon and Democratic congressman from Georgia, who had a close relationship with the Jewish community dating to the 1960s, fortified by alliances he forged throughout his congressional career, died July 17. He was 80.

SUMNER REDSTONE, the Jewish media mogul whose aggressive acquisitions and readiness to resort to litigation led to the creation of an empire that included CBS and Viacom, died August 11. He was 97. 

RUTH GAVISON, an Israeli legal scholar and civil rights activist who worked to keep Israel both a Jewish and democratic state, died August 15. She was 75.

LUIZ FILIPE BARBOSA, a leading Brazilian Israeli folk dance choreographer, influenced generations of Brazilian Jews who practice Israeli folk dance, a national pastime in the Jewish state that probably has its biggest Diaspora fans in Latin America’s largest nation. He died early August. He was 52.

ADIN STEINSALTZ, a towering Israeli scholar who made the Talmud more accessible to hundreds of thousands of people. He wrote more than 60 books. His crowning achievement was his 45-volume epic translation of the Talmud, written over four and half decades. He died August 7 at the age of 83.

ANGELA BUXTON, a Jewish tennis star who teamed with Black tennis star Althea Gibson to win the women’s doubles championship at Wimbledon in 1956, and was then denied admission to the All England Club, which runs the tournament and traditionally gives a lifetime membership to Wimbledon winners, died August 17, a day before her 86th birthday. The pair had also won the French Open a few weeks earlier. Buxton won a gold medal at Israel’s Maccabiah Games in 1953.

JORGE KIRSZENBAUM, and attorney and human rights activist, and the influential former head of of Argentina’s Jewish community, died Sept. 5. He was 72.

RONALD HARWOOD, Oscar-winning screenwriter of ‘The Pianist,’ died Sept. 8. He was 85.

MARILEE SHAPIRO ASHER, artist who survived global pandemics a century apart, died Sept. 11. She was 107.

RALPH GANTS, an American attorney and jurist who served as the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, died Sept. 14, two weeks shy of his 76th birthday.

HELEN REDDY, who sang the feminist anthem ‘I Am Woman,’ died Sept. 29. She was 78.

RUTH BADER GINSBURG, who was the second woman and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court, died Sept. 29 at the age of 87. Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she was appointed to the Court in 1980. Outspoken and admired worldwide, she became known as the Notorious RBG. She was the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol. New York will honor her life and legacy with a statue in Brooklyn.

BERNARD COHEN, who brought Loving v. Virginia to the Supreme Court, died Oct. 12. He was 86.

MAYER RISPLER, a leader of a Satmar Hasidic sect who called upon Orthodox Jews to follow New York City’s health regulations during the pandemic’s first wave this past spring, died of COVID-19 on Oct 16. He was 70.

RABBI DOVID FEINSTEIN, renowned Jewish legal authority, died Nov. 6. He was 91.

DAVID SHNEER, beloved professor of Jewish studies, died Nov. 6. He was 48.

RABBI JONATHAN SACKS, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom commanded a global following among Jews and non-Jews alike, died Nov. 7. One of Europe’s leading Jewish voices, offering Jewish wisdom to the masses through a regular segment he produced for the BBC, he had a close relationship with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who called him “an intellectual giant.” He was 72.

LINDA SHER, a leader in promoting political action by Jewish women, died Nov. 11. She was 73.

JAMES WOLFENSOHN, former World Bank president and Jewish philanthropist who helped shepherd Israel’s exit from the Gaza Strip, died Nov. 25. He was 86.

MARIA PIECHOTKA, architect who was an influential expert on Poland’s synagogues, died Nov. 28. She was 100.

JOSEPH SAFRA, Brazil’s richest person and Jewish philanthropist died Dec. 10. He was 82.

KIRK DOUGLAS, The iconic movie star of Hollywood’s early golden age, died Feb. 5. Born Issur Danielovitch, he reconnected with his Jewish roots later in life. He was 103.

JAMES LIPTON, who hosted the famed “Inside the Actors Studio,” interviewing hundreds of movie stars over decades, died March 2. He was 94.

In Europe, the end of 2020 is marked by the passing of 6 prominent Holocaust survivors 

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) – Six prominent Holocaust survivors who had dedicated much of their lives to educating others against hatred have died in Europe over the past month. These are their stories.

ESTHER COHEN
One of only 160 people from her native Greek city of Ioannina who survived the genocide, Cohen died there on Dec. 1 at the age of 96. She had escaped the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and for years told high school students about her survival story in testimonies, TVXS reported. Cohen belonged to the ancient Romaniote Jewish community, which had survived for 2,000 years before nearly eradicated by the Nazis. Ioannina was a major center of Romaniote Jews, with about 1,800 living there before the Holocaust. Cohen had two children.

MAURICE CLING
Born to Romanian Jews who fled antisemitism for France, Cling was a linguist and English teacher who died Nov. 23 in Paris at 91. An experienced lecturer and gifted writer, he often spoke at high schools before teenagers. Many of them easily related to Cling’s story because he was 15 when police took him away at his school on May 20, 1944. Cling was sent to the Drancy internment camp with his parents and older brother, Willy. The family was deported to Auschwitz, where the Nazis murdered the parents on arrival. Willy would help Maurice survive the camp but was murdered there. Cling was moved to Dachau and liberated there by American troops. He had four children.

PAUL SOBOL
After walking for days in a death march from Auschwitz, Sobol, who died in Brussels on Nov. 17 at 94, found the strength to escape during an Allied air raid on the German troops guarding him and fellow prisoners. He was 18. Before his capture, Sobol and his family had lived four years in hiding in Nazi-occupied Brussels. The Nazis murdered his parents and younger brother, but his sister survived. For many years after the war, Sobol did not speak much about the Holocaust, but felt the need to share his story as he grew older. He would be celebrated by the local media as “a conveyer of memory” for his activities at schools and Holocaust commemoration events. Sobol had two children.

RENZO GATTEGNA
In addition to testifying before young people about the Holocaust, Gattegna, who died of COVID-19 complications on Nov. 10 at 81, also helped rebuild the Jewish community in Italy after the genocide. Gattegna had led the Union of Italian Jewish Communities for 10 years until 2016. Although he was born in 1938, “I started living in 1944,” he said in one interview. His early childhood was a time of fear, want and uncertainty as his family moved from one hiding place to the next in Rome’s suburbs, where they managed to flee before fascist gangs showed up and ransacked their home. Gattegna had two children.

MIKHAIL ZHVANETSKY
Before his death on Nov. 6 at 86 in Moscow, Zhvanetsky was to Russians what Jackie Mason is to Americans: a standard-bearer for standup comedy. But Zhvanetsky, who identified as Jewish when doing so was dangerous, operated in the Soviet Union under one of the 20th century’s most repressive regimes – one that was famously anti-semitic. In a disarmingly self-deprecating manner, he delivered his commentary on everyday life in Russia. It was apolitical but with traces of social criticism on the edge of what was safe to say publicly in those years.

Born in Odessa, in what is now Ukraine, Zhvanetsky was evacuated with his family to Russia before the advancing Nazi army conquered his native city, murdering his childhood friends and many relatives in the Holocaust. Zhvanetsky performed for decades until his retirement in October. He has won many awards, including the Order of Merit for the Fatherland last year.

He had five children.

JUSTIN SONDER
A retired police officer, politician and Holocaust commemoration activist, Sonder died Nov. 3 in Chemnitz at 94.

Soon after his return from Auschwitz to Germany, Sonder began devoting his life to rebuilding the society that created Nazism. He became a police officer just six months after U.S. troops liberated him from a death march from Auschwitz, in Poland, to Germany. His mother and 21 of his relatives were murdered in the camp. Climbing the ranks, Sonder eventually became a commissioner for serious crimes. Following his retirement in 1985, he served as a lawmaker in the federal parliament for four years, beginning in 2009, as a representative of the Die Linke left-wing party. In 2016, he testified in the trial of SS guard Reinhold Hanning, who was convicted of crimes against humanity.

For decades, Sonder spoke about the Holocaust to high school students in eastern Germany, where the far right is seeing a resurgence. He had three children.