The Shofar joins the membership in extending condolences to Rochelle Garmise and her family on the death of Stuart Garmise, brother of our beloved shul member, the late Alan Garmise. Stuart died on Feb. 28, and was buried in New Jersey on March 4.

Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, died in North Bellmore, NY, on Long Island, on Feb. 24. She was 113. Her secret to longevity, she said: dark chocolate and good children. Rose Girone was eight months pregnant and living in Breslau, Germany, in 1938, when her husband was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. She secured passage to Shanghai, only to be forced to live in a bathroom in a [...]

M. Paul Friedberg, a landscape architect whose playgrounds, pocket parks and plazas transformed areas of New York City, died on Feb. 15 in Manhattan. He was 93. Mr. Friedberg grew up in rural Pennsylvania, but he believed in the promise of cities to create happier, healthier societies with inviting public parks and plazas. In New York and other cities across the country, he became the go-to designer for reinvigorating public space. He tucked vest-pocket parks [...]

Refugee, prisoner, wine merchant, spy: Peter Sichel was many things in his long, colorful life, but he was probably most often identified as the man who made Blue Nun one of the most popular wines in the world in the 1970s and ‘80s. At its peak in 1985, 30 million bottles of this slightly sweet German white wine were sold. By the time Mr. Sichel took charge of his family’s wine business in 1960, he [...]

Selwyn Raab, an investigative reporter for The New York Times and other news organizations who, in exacting detail, explored the Mafia’s many tentacles, died on March 4 in Manhattan. He was 90. As a boy on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Mr. Raab saw the mob up close. There, he told Time magazine in 1974, he was “surrounded by the kind of legendary criminals you read about — bookmakers, con artists, Jewish and Italian gangsters.” “I [...]

Uri Shulevitz, a polish-born children’s book author and illustrator who survived a harrowing childhood traversing Europe to escape the Nazis, and wove those experiences into his works, died on Feb. 15 in Manhattan. He was 89. Mr. Shulevitz published more than 40 books. He received a Caldecott Medal and other Caldecott honors. A painter as well as an illustrator, he exhibited his work in numerous galleries and museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago and [...]

Stanley R. Jaffe, who became president of Paramount at 29, then left after just a few years to become an Oscar-winning producer of films like “Kramer vs. Kramer,” “Fatal Attraction” and “The Accused,” died on March 10 at his home in Rancho Mirage, CA. He was 84. Mr. Jaffe was known as a hands-on producer, and his work on “Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979), a searing divorce drama, showed why. The movie was based on a [...]

John Feinstein, a sportswriter for The Washington Post and the author of more than 40 books, including the best-sellers A Season On The Brink (1986) and A Good Walk Spoiled: Days and Nights on the PGA Tour (1995), died on March 20 at his brother’s home in McLean, VA. He was 69. Mr. Feinstein became one of America’s best-known sportswriters after A Season On The Brink, which focused on the 1985-86 Indiana University basketball team [...]

Nita M. Lowey, who represented the 20th congressional district and, later, the 17th congressional district in Westchester County for a total of 32 years, died on March 15 at her home in Harrison, NY. She was 87. Ms. Lowey, an ardent supporter of liberal causes, served on the House Appropriations Committee for nearly all her time in Washington, rising to be the first woman to lead it. Rep. Henry J. Hyde, an Illinois House Republican [...]