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, [...]

Remembering Irv Letofsky, Hollywood journalist, who died Dec. 23

From “Tabloid Baby”
Irv, we hardly knew ye.
We found out yesterday that Irv Letofsky died this week at 76.
(In My Heart Editor: Hollywood Reporter says Letofsky died of liver cancer)
Irv was a television critic for The Hollywood Reporter, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Calendar section and an important collector of film lobby and title [...]

Sylvan Fox, 79, U.S., journalist, dies, Dec. 22

Sylvan Fox, 79, a journalist whose beats ranged from Vietnam, to the Kennedy assassination, to a memorable plane crash, and who won a Pulitzer Prize as a newspaper rewrite man, died Saturday, Dec. 22, 2007, of complications from pneumonia.
Fox won his Pulitzer Prize for being part of a team covering an airplane crash on Long [...]

Adiel Shmuel, 12, Israel, car accident, Dec. 12

Adiel Shmuel, 12, of Beersheva in Israel’s northern Negev desert, died Dec. 12, 2007, of injuries from a horrific car accident that hurt six from his family and eight overall.Shmuel’s death was the 403rd of the year from car accidents in Israel.

Rosemarie Koczy, Germany, U.S., 68, artist, Holocaust survivor, Dec. 12

Rosemarie Koczy, 68, who survived a childhood in German concentration camps and later spent years creating searing art infused with images of Holocaust victims, died from breast cancer Dec. 12, 2007.
Her works have been gaining increasing stature, despite her status as an art world “outsider,” that is, someone who was not believed to be formally [...]

Robert Dov HaEzrachi (Wieckowski), Poland, Israel, diving accident, Dec. 13

Robert Dov HaEzrachi (Wieckowski), 44, a Polish-born Israeli and scuba diving guide and instructor, died in a diving accident at Dahab, Sinai, Egypt, Dec. 13, 2007.
HaEzrachi’s death was first announced on the website of Pardes Institute, a Jewish studies center in Jerusalem, where he had been a student from 2003-2005.

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 [...]

Mel Cheren, 75, U.S., disco impresario, AIDS activist, Dec. 7, 2007

Mel Cheren, 75, a music producer once named the “Godfather of Disco,” an AIDS activist, and owner of a gay-friendly inn in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood, died Friday, Dec. 7, 2007.
Cheren was a double minority: gay and Jewish, an Army veteran, a music industry veteran of 50 years, and an indefatigable promoter and self-promoter. [...]

Pauline Weinstein Ledeen, 97, U.S., prison volunteer, ‘Bubbe Teresa,’ Nov. 27, 2007

Pauline Weinstein Ledeen, 97, who visited Jewish inmates for decades, celebrated Pesach with them and volunteered for decades with prisoners and the mentally ill, died Nov. 27, 2007.
Ledeen was known as “Bubbe Teresa,” according to a Los Angeles Times obituary.

Karen Elizabeth Margalit, 29, U.S., Israel, Sept. 26, 2007

Karen Elizabeth Margalit, 29, a California-born olah to Israel in 1996 who died September 26, 2007, from an apparent drug overdose and was unidentified for two months, has been identified and reburied under her name.
Margalit became addicted to tranquilizers and painkillers after suffering a slipped disc. She was treated at drug rehabilitation and psychiatric [...]