Published this month and appearing on the Amazon website is Diner of Lost Souls, the second book in the series penned by shul members Graham Diamond and Hedy Campeas. The mystery thriller features sleuth Cora Drakos, who owns the renowned Athena diner, from which she initiates an investigation into a death — a murder? — where the facts are elusive and the danger escalating. Multiple suspects present a trail of deception that put Cora’s own [...]
According to an article in The New York Times, Melissa Rivers, daughter of the late Joan Rivers, is donating her mother’s extensive collection of jokes to the National Comedy Center in Jamestown, NY, where the jokes will be accessible to all. Melissa Rivers told The Times that the Smithsonian Institution had been interested in the collection, but said it would not be on permanent display. She said her mind instantly went to the final shot [...]
The Covenant Foundation, a Jewish education-focused group, awarded its annual prizes this week to three educators: Rabbi Tamara R. Cohen, Allison Cook and Nicole Nash. Each of the prize recipients will receive $50,000; the institutions where they work will receive $10,000. Rabbi Cohen is chief program officer at the Moving Traditions Jewish youth group, based in Philadelphia. Allison Cook is the founder and co-director of the Pedagogy of Partnership in Cambridge, MA. Nicole Nash is [...]
Amitai Etzioni, the Israeli-American sociologist who drew wide attention as well as derision by fathering the Communitarian movement, a vision of society in which people care less about their own rights then about one another and the common good, died on May 30 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 94. Barely a decade after landing in America, having fled Nazi Germany with his parents, he was writing books, articles and provocative commentaries on [...]
Robert Gottlieb, an illustrious editor at Simon & Schuster, Alfred A. Knopf and The New Yorker, who shaped a library of novels, nonfiction books and magazine articles by acclaimed writers from the middle to the late 20th century, died on June 14 in Manhattan. He was 92. Mr. Gottlieb edited novels by, among many others, John le Carré, Toni Morrison, John Cheever, Joseph Heller, Doris Lessing and Chaim Potok; science fiction by Michael Crichton and [...]
Robert J. Zimmer, a mathematician who as president of the University of Chicago championed diversity in the recruitment of students and by protecting free expression on campus, died on May 23 at his home in Chicago. He was 75. Mr. Zimmer, who presided over the university from 2006 to 2021, was instrumental in shepherding what became known as the Chicago Principles, a set of guidelines recommended by the Committee on Free Expression. “Concerns about civility [...]
Judge Thomas Buergenthal, who said his survival in a Nazi death camp when he was 10 years old had equipped him to become a human rights lawyer and venerable judge on the Worlds Court, died on May 29 at his home in Miami. He was 89. After the war, he settled in the United States, and was nominated by Costa Rica for a judgeship on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, from 1979 to 1991 [...]
Franz S. Leichter, a New York State legislator for three decades, whose progressive views on abortion, gay unions and the decriminalization of marijuana became law here, died on June 11in Manhattan, at 92. First as an assemblyman and then as a state senator representing the Upper West Side, Mr. Leichter was regarded as one of the Legislature’s staunchest liberals. For him, that was a badge of honor, rooted in a deep sense of injustice imbued [...]
“Rick Wolff’s résumé is about as long as a Major League roster, his disparate professions inked by an adoration of sports and a fascination with sports psychology,” The New York Times said. He was a professional baseball player, a college baseball coach, an author of books about sports psychology, and an editor and publisher of books by athletes. In the early 1990s, he became the psychological coach for the Cleveland baseball team now known as [...]
Neville Sassienie spent his life moving between worlds, as an environmental activist, a seeker of spiritual truth, and a leader in the Jewish community. He died on June 15 in a village near London. He was 91. An accountant by profession, his interest in personal development led him to become involved in the Landmark Forum, an organization offering training in personal and professional growth. Eventually, he became aware that “personal spirituality and collective social and [...]
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