Bette A. Prashker, a pioneering woman in the book business who published the feminist classics Sexual Politics by Kate Millet and Backlash by Susan Faludi, died on July 30 in Alford, MA. She was 99. The list of authors Ms. Prashker discovered, championed or positioned for best-sellerdom as a top editor and executive at Doubleday and also Crown included Isaac Asimov, Erik Larson, Dave Barry and Dominick Dunne.

Don Buchwald, a talent agent who elevated shock-jock radio personality Howard Stern to satellite radio, died on July 22 at his home in North Egremont, MA. He was 88. In late 1985, after WNBC fired Mr. Stern, Mr. Buchwald negotiated his move to WXRK-FM, known as K-Rock. Over the next 20 years, Mr. Stern’s popularity swelled, and his show was syndicated to stations nationwide. But it was Mr. Buchwald’s negotiating in 2004 that led to [...]

Walter Shapiro, a political columnist whose career included stints as a presidential speechwriter, stand-up comic, professor, author and, as a recent college graduate, congressional candidate, died on July 21 in Manhattan. He was 77. He began his career in journalism at Congressional Quarterly and went on to write for Washington Monthly, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, The New Republic and Esquire. He later wrote for Salon, Yahoo News, Politics Daily and Roll Call. [...]

Francine Pascal, as former soap opera scriptwriter from Queens who conjured up an entire literary universe in her long-running and best-selling ”Sweet Valley High” series of young-adult novels, died on July 28 in Manhattan. She was 92. Within a few years of its debut in 1982, “Sweet Valley High” had taken over the young-adult book market. In January 1986, 18 out of the top 20 books on the young-adult best-sellers list were “Sweet Valley High” [...]

Manfred Kirchheimer, a filmmaker who was draw to stickball, jazz, subway graffiti, gargoyles of old buildings, and the memories of aging immigrants, and who earned a reputation as a master of nonfiction cinema, died on July 16 at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 93. Mr. Kirchheimer often wrote, produced, directed, photographed and edited his movies. He got funding from nonprofit sources, and he earned a living as a freelance [...]

Ina Jaffe, a NPR correspondent for about 40 years, the first editor of “Weekend Edition Saturday” and a contributor to “All Things Considered,”  died August 8 in Los Angeles. She was 75. She covered national elections since 2008. In 2010, she received a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association for her reporting on California’s disciplinary three-strikes law, which imposed harsher penalties for what were often minor or nonviolent criminal offenses. In 2011, her [...]

Susan Wojcicki, who helped turn Google from a start-up in her garage into an Internet juggernaut, and who became one of Silicon Valley’s  most prominent female executives with her leadership of YouTube, died on August 9. She was 56. Ms. Wojcicki’s more than two decades with Google began in 1998 in her house in Menlo Park, CA, part of which she rented to her friends Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the company’s founders. For $1,700 [...]

Queenie Hallegua, the last of the Paradesi (foreign) Jewish women in Kochi, India, died on August 11. She was 89. Her funeral was held at the Jewish cemetery near the 456-year-old Paradesi Synagogue. Her death leaves her nephew, Keith Hallegua, as the last surviving Jew in Kochi. Queenie was the daughter of Satto Koder. She married into the Hallegua family of what is known as Jew Town. Her grandfather, Shabdai Samuel Koder, was an [...]

Jay Kanter, whose long career as an agent to the stars — including Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly — and later as a studio executive made him one of the last of the generation of power brokers who dominated Hollywood in the late 20th century, died on August 6 at his home in Beverly Hills, CA. He was 97. Among Mr. Kanter’s close friends was Mel Brooks. He joined Mr. Brooks, the director [...]

Rabbi Shmuel Butman, who was the public face of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect during the antisemitic riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 1991, and who every Hanukkah for decades saw that possibly the world’s largest menorah was illuminated in Central Park, died on July 22 in Manhattan. He was 81. The announcement of his death on the Chabad community website recalled that Rabbi Butman had written The Rebbe in Paris, a book about Rabbi Menachem [...]