Robert Klein, 49, U.S., lawyer, drowns saving children from rip tide

Editor’s Note: This story has a sad echo to an item we posted in January about an Albany, NY, lawyer, Richard Friedman, who drowned while saving his sons from a swimming accident off the coast of Puerto Rico. Read Friedman’s story here.

Robert N. Klein, a successful real estate attorney in Port S. Lucie, Florida, drowned Monday while seeking to bring his sons in from a severe rip tide off the Florida coast. He was 49.

According to a report in the Port St. Lucie newspaper:

Klein, at the beach with his family, swam out to help rescue his two sons, Peyton, 11, and Ethan, 14, who were struggling in the rip currents while riding their Boogie boards. The boys were fine, but rescue workers brought Klein to shore and tried to revive him. Klein was pronounced dead at Martin Memorial Medical Center.

Klein, who represented national retailer QVC, was reported to have been instrumental in bringing the company to Port St. Lucie.

The newspaper said Klein was a founding member of Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart in 1993 and was on the board of directors there for about eight years.

“He was devoted to his wife and children first and foremost,” said Klein’s rabbi, Jonathan Kendall, who rushed to Klein’s side at the hospital Monday. “This type of tragedy leaves scars for a lifetime. We certainly mourn the years that were denied him. He was… his children’s hero. They really looked up to him.”

Kendall said Klein worked overtime to be a positive role model and an example of the kind of character that sets you apart in today’s society.

“These children would not be here if not for his efforts to save them,” he said.

FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

Bobby Klein’s funeral will be held at noon Thursday at the Temple Beit HaYam, 951 S.E. Monterey Common Blvd., Stuart. Internment will follow at Forest Hills Memorial Park, 2001 S.W. Murphy Road, Palm City.

Adam Baruch, 63, Israeli writer, essayist, dies, May 24, 2008

Israeli writer, essayist and cultural arbiter Adam Baruch, 63, died after a long battle with diabetes.

He was considered one of Israel’s most influential print journalists and worked at most of the country’s top media outlets.

According to his obituary on Ynetnews he was born Baruch Rosenblum to a religious family in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood in 1945, spent his childhood in Ramat Gan and his later adolescence at the Noam Yeshiva High School in Pardes Hannah. He later went on to study law at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University:

He adopted the nom de plume “Adam Baruch” during his military service, seeking to circumvent army regulations forbidding servicemen from publishing articles in civilian media.

Baruch’s unique rhetoric was epitomized in his personal column for Ma’ariv’s weekend edition; language that combined archaic Jewish legal decrees with modern Israeli issues. Baruch was also considered one of leading authorities in the field of art.

He served as curator for exhibits in Israel and abroad, and even put together a solo exhibit in 2003 at the Tel Aviv Museum which dealt with images created by the TV medium.

His books dealt with Jewish law as a way of bridging the religious Jewish culture with the secular Israeli experience.

Dorin Frankfurt, a leading fashion designer and one of Baruch’s closest friends said of him on Saturday: “Adam invented much of what we call true Israeli culture. It stemmed from his background, his roots. His hand was in everything: Art, writing… he had a profound understanding of whatever it is he was dealing with…He turned us into a cultural microcosm. Speaking of him in past tense is unbearable.”

In 2002, Baruch was given the AVI CHAI Fellowship award for his achievements in the field of culture. In explaining its selection, the award committee said Baruch “is an exceptional cultural mediator in the Israeli scene. In his extensive writing over the years he has been working on building an authentic, original bridge between the traditional Jewish language and the current Israeli dialect.”

Cornell Capa, 90, U.S., pioneering photojournalist, dies

Cornell Capa, a pioneering photojournalist who shot arresting pictures for Life Magazine that included the Six Day War in israel, and the brother of legendary photographer Robert Capa, died May 23, 2008, at his Manhattan home. He was 90.

According to the New York Times obituary:

Born Cornel (with a single l; he later added a second) Friedmann on April 10, 1918, in Budapest, he was the youngest son of Dezso and Julia Berkovits Friedmann, who were assimilated, nonpracticing Jews. His parents owned a prosperous dressmaking salon, where his father was the head tailor. In 1931 his brother Robert, at 17, was forced to leave the country because of leftist student activities. In 1935 his eldest brother, Laszlo, died of rheumatic fever.

Cornell initially planned to be a doctor, joining Robert in Paris in 1936 to start medical studies. But first he had to learn French. Robert, who had become a photojournalist in Berlin before settling in Paris, had befriended two other young photographers, Cartier-Bresson and Seymour. To support himself, Cornell developed film for the three and made their prints in a makeshift darkroom in his hotel bathroom. Soon he abandoned plans to be a doctor. He also adopted his brother’s new last name, a homage, in variation, to the film director Frank Capra.

In 1937 Mr. Capa followed his mother to New York City, where she had joined her four sisters. When Robert came for a visit and established connections with Pix Inc., a photography agency, he helped get Cornell a job there as a printer. Soon after, Cornell Capa went to work in the Life magazine darkroom.

Sydney Pollack, 73, U.S. filmmaker, actor, dies

Sydney Pollack, director of Tootsie, Out of Africa and other mainstream Hollywood fare, died Monday, May 26, 2008, of cancer.

Pollack was born in Indiana to Russian Jewish parents who met at Purdue University and stayed there, and absorbed Middle Western values and virtues along with a questioning, self-critical Jewish attitude.

His films, awards and affiliations included:

  Oscar for Best Director 1986 for Out of Africa
    Emmy 1966 for Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre
    Member of the Board of Convera (2005-)
    Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
    John Kerry for President
    Midwest Values PAC
    Motion Picture and Television Fund Board of Directors
    Progressive Majority 

    Selected filmography as director
    Sabrina (15-Dec-1995)
    The Firm (30-Jun-1993)
    Havana (12-Dec-1990)
    Out of Africa (10-Dec-1985)
    Tootsie (17-Dec-1982)
    Absence of Malice (19-Nov-1981)
    The Electric Horseman (21-Dec-1979)
    Bobby Deerfield (17-Sep-1977)
    Three Days of the Condor (24-Sep-1975)
    The Yakuza (19-Mar-1975)
    The Way We Were (17-Oct-1973)
    Jeremiah Johnson (10-Sep-1972)
    They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (10-Dec-1969) 

New York Times obit
 

Yeheskel Shoshani, Israeli-American elephant researcher, dead in Ethiopian explosion, May 20, 2008

Israeli elephant researcher Yeheskel Shoshani was among those killed in a possible terror attack on a minibus in downtown Addis Ababa on Tuesday, Israeli media reported.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said it is unclear whether the explosion was terror-related and if Shoshani was aboard the minibus when it exploded.

Three people were killed and nine others were injured in the explosion, which occurred as the minibus was traveling on the road that runs between the Hilton Hotel and the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, an Israeli website reported.

In a recent interview, Shoshani told of finding the corpse of a large elephant that had been shot by hunters. ” It was a large male, and the poachers wanted its ivory, so they sawed off its head,” he told Haaretz. “When I saw that, I thought about the last moments in the life of this elephant. Elephants have language – they talk to one another with sounds that we can’t hear. I asked myself what sound he made a moment before he died.” 

We’re going to come back soon

We have had to take a break from updating this site in recent months, for a variety of reasons. But there are so many people who have written in to say the material on this site moved them in an important way, that we will do our utmost to begin updating again soon.

Thanks for all your kind words.

Balev (Alan A.)

Moshe Levy, 72, Israel, former Army Chief of Staff, Jan. 8, 2008

Moshe Levy (L), as IDF Chief of Staff, 1980s, with Shimon Peres

General Moshe Levy, 72, the 12th Israeli Army Chief of Staff, died Jan. 9, 2008, after a brain aneurysm.

Levy had his first stroke a few years ago. Afterward, he had to use a wheelchair. He dropped many of his public activities, but continued in his position with the company that built Route 6, Israel’s newest and first privately managed superhighway, and the country’s only toll road.

Max Rosenbaum, 85, Australia, father of ‘Crown Heights pogrom’ victim, dies, Jan. 3

Max Rosenbaum, 85, whose life was changed irrevocably after his son’s 1991 death in race riots in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Crown Heights neighborhood, died Friday, Jan. 3, 2007, of a heart attack in Melbourne, Australia.

Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, was killed in riots that started after a driver in the entourage of the Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, accidentally hit and killed a 7-year-old black child,

Ahikam Amichai, 20, David Rubin, 21, Israel, off-duty soldiers, murdered on hike, Dec. 28

Ahikam Amichai (L), David Rubin

Ahikam Amichai, 20, and David Rubin, 21, off-duty Israeli Army commandos on a recreational hike near their homes in the Hebron hills, were murdered by Palestinians, Dec. 28, 2007.

The two lifelong friends and neighbors were each members of elite and storied Israeli commando units. Amihai was a member of the Air Force’s Shaldag unit, and Rubin was a member of Shayetet 13, the Israeli Navy Seals (video). Read the rest of their dramatic stories after the jump.

Two more notable Jewish deaths in 2007: Grace Paley, Tillie Olsen

An astute reader noticed that two significant Jewish women writers who died in 2007 were not on our list of notable 2007 Jewish deaths. So, we will make up for the oversight.