Please note – this feed is just beginning, and delivery may be sporadic for a bit. Be patient.

The Eulogizer grows out of the path blazed by In My Heart, and will eventually reach a much wider audience across the Jewish world, as it appears on the website of JTA, the news agency for the Jewish media worldwide.

Please feel free to write to me at eulogizer@jta.org with your thoughts, comments and suggestions for articles about Jews who have passed away.

For now, find The Eulogizer on the homepage of JTA – jta.org. In coming months, The Eulogizer will have its own website.

Born in New York, he attended CCNY and NYU after The War before moving to New England. He owned several retail establishments in Massachusetts and New Hampshire before retiring. He was pre-deceased by his wife Carol of 42 years. He is survived by his children: Wayne David, Raschel and April, his daughter-in-law Diane, son-in-law Norman Gray, his grandchildren: Benjamin and Dan Herson, Meryl MacCormack, and Noah Gray as well as Sarah and Sam Fuller and Kathy Gray. Shelley is, as well, survived by his wife of 20 years Marcia Herson.

Submitted by Marcia Herson www.marciaherson.com

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.

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.”

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.

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
 

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.” 

Thanks for all your kind words.

Balev (Alan A.)