Selma van de Perre, a valiant Jewish secretary who during WWII covertly transported suitcases bulging with cash, identity cards and ration books to Dutch resistance agents, died on Oct. 20 in London. She was 103. She was 17 when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in May 1940. She joined the Dutch resistance, adopted aliases, and dyed her hair blond to help her pass as a non-Jew. She forged documents, helped Jewish families find shelter in [...]

Alvin Kass, a revered rabbi who was the youngest chaplain in New York Police Department history and who went on to become its longest-serving, died on Oct. 29 in Manhattan. He was 89. Rabbi Kass, the department’s chief chaplain, had intended to become a lawyer. He was just two weeks away from beginning his first year at Harvard Law School on a scholarship, when he decided to transfer to the Jewish Theological Seminary in New [...]

Arline Bronzaft, a pre-eminent environmental psychologist who studied the effects of urban noise, suggesting that one reason New York City never sleeps is its cacophony of glaring car horns, ear-splitting pneumatic drills, screeching subway car wheels, gluttonous garbage trucks, warbling sirens and loud, inconsiderate neighbors, died on Oct. 29 in Manhattan. She was 89. For five decades, Dr. Bronzaft argued that noise was not only exasperating but also harmful to people’s physical and emotional well-being, [...]