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,

Hank Kaplan, 88, U.S., boxing writer, historian, Dec. 14

Hank Kaplan, 88, who went from Brooklyn to Florida with a love for boxing that stretched out for decades while he compiled the world’s greatest boxing archives, died at his suburban Miami home Dec. 14, 2007.

“Hank Kaplan loved the sport of boxing, its history and, most importantly, the boxers,” said International Boxing Hall of Fame Executive Director Edward Brophy. “The Hall of Fame joins the boxing community in mourning the loss of our friend.”

Remembering my father, Michael H. Abbey, 27 years later

By Alan D. Abbey

It was simply an unlucky twist of fate that my father and John Lennon died on the same day in 1980. There was no common thread in their lives; in fact, my father disliked most rock and roll music.

While he never kept me from buying or listening to the Beatles, his music remained that of his generation: Big Band jazz and pop/torch singers, from Sinatra to Streisand (who had once served my mother and father Chinese food in some Brooklyn restaurant where she was working), Shirley Bassey to Lena Horne. I have those records now, the actual black vinyl discs they used to place on the “changer” that stacked two or three discs at once.

My father’s death was so unlike Lennon’s, as well. Lennon’s came in a sharp and bright blast from a crazed fan’s handgun; my father’s came after more than 18 months of brain cancer, which ate away at his intelligence, emotions and motor skills.