Billie Tisch, the last of the original four family members whose philanthropic legacy endures in the prominent educational, cultural and medical institutions that bear their surname, died June 7 at her home in Manhattan. She was 98. Mrs. Tisch was the widow of Laurence A. Tisch. Mr. Tisch and his brother, Preston Robert Tisch, became self-made billionaires by transforming a kosher hotel in Lakewood, NJ, into the Loews Corporation, a conglomerate that began as a [...]
Albert Wolsky, a prolific Hollywood costume designer who won Academy Awards for his sequined ensembles for “All That Jazz” and who transformed Olivia Newton-John’s character from saintly to seductive in “Grease,” died May 23 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 95. After fleeing Paris with his family during WWII and settling in New York, Mr. Wolsky accumulated more than 80 screen credits, winning him a reputation as “the dean of Hollywood costume designers.” [...]
Rafe Pomerance, an environmentalist who discovered in an obscure 1979 report that burning coal heats the atmosphere, which roused him, Paul Revere-like, to warn the public and politicians about climate change, died on May 21 in Washington, DC. He was 79. Mr. Pomerance emerged as the central figure in a whole-issue article in The New York Times Magazine in 2018, “Losing Earth” by Nathaniel Rich. The article later expanded into a book and is now [...]
James Burrows, master of the television situation comedy, who was a creator of “Cheers” and directed more than 1,000 episodes of that show and other TV classics like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “Taxi,” “Frasier,” “Friends,” and “The Big Bang Theory,” died on June 19. He was 85. Mr. Burrows earned a reputation as the “Steven Spielberg of sitcoms,” winning 11 Emmy Awards and receiving 47 nominations in a career that [...]
Carlo Ginzburg, an Italian scholar renowned for an approach to history that focused on the mass of humanity that existed outside the political and social elites of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, died on June 17 at his home in Bologna. He was 87. In the 1960s, when Mr. Ginzburg embarked on his research, there was little interest in discovering what the peasants of centuries past thought and believed. History was focused on great leaders [...]
The Shofar is pleased and proud to announce that at the Annual Congregation Meeting, held on June 13, 2026, Suzan E. Lipson was elected president of Congregation Tifereth Israel for a one-year term beginning July 1, 2026. The Shofar congratulates the new president and wishes her well. See the new president’s first message to the Congregation and Shofar readers on Page 2 of this issue. Immediate past president Sara Bloom expressed admiration for the new [...]
Growing up, we had a rule of thumb about yarmulkes: The closer yours was to your forehead, the more strictly religious you were. The frum bochurim placed theirs practically on their noses; the boys from Conservative families bobby-pinned their kippahs on the back of their heads. The cool kids, of course, stuffed theirs in their pockets. The Jewish skullcap, in other words, was a signifier of much more than the religious precept it embodied. Over the years, [...]
New York City’s annual Israel Day Parade marched up Fifth Avenue on Sunday, May 31, with tens of thousands of people turning out for what organizers called one of the largest parades in the event’s history, a public show of Jewish solidarity when anti-semitism is rising around the world. Gov. Kathy Hochul, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Attorney General Letitia James, former mayors Eric Adams and Michael Bloomberg, and a long list of officials marched to underscore [...]
The Book Circle will meet on Thursday, July 23, at 3:30 p.m. in the Andrew Levin Park garden at the synagogue, weather permitting. The July selection is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. In this story, it is 1939, Nazi Germany. People disappear. Death is everywhere. Enter Liesel Meminger, a foster child living outside of Munich, who scratches out a meager existence by stealing something she can’t resist — books. With the help of her [...]
Sisterhood President Adrianne Greenberg represented the shul’s women’s group and the Men’s Club on Friday, June 5, at Greenport High School’s Senior Awards Breakfast. The Sisterhood President, in cooperation with the high school’s Guidance Department, selected two graduating seniors for awards for multicultural efforts, community involvement, and improvement. Kelin Esquite Gatica has excelled academically and contributed meaningfully to the school community. She played an integral role in the schoolwide multicultural celebration, helping to bring together [...]
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