Berish Strauch, a plastic surgeon whose pioneering procedures to reattach or replace vital body parts included one of the first toe-to-thumb transplants, died on Dec. 24 in Greenwich, CT. He was 90. As the longtime chief of reconstructive surgery at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, Dr. Strauch devised many of the surgical procedures and technologies that are now considered commonplace. After a New York City firefighter lost his thumb in 1976, Dr. Strauch tried [...]

Howard Golden, who as Brooklyn borough president for a quarter-century pressed to strengthen the borough economically, and defended it against slights real or perceived in the years before it experienced a gentrifying revival, died on Jan. 24 at his home in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. He was 98. Mr. Golden’s career in politics developed as he moved up in Brooklyn’s Democratic party. He was a city councilman from Borough Park for seven years before [...]

Arno A. Penzias, whose astronomical probes confirmed what became known as the Big Bang theory, died on Jan. 22 in San Francisco. He was 90. Dr. Penzias shared the 1978 Novel Prize in physics with Robert Woodrow Wilson for their discovery in 1964 of cosmic microwave background radiation, remnants of an explosion that gave birth to the universe some 14 billion years ago, now the accepted explanation for the origin of the universe. Dr. Penzias [...]

Lawrence L. Langer, a literary scholar who found the Holocaust an event so vast and evil that it defies moral framing, died on Jan. 29 at his home in Wellesley, MA. He was 94. Across some 15 books and monographs, Dr. Langer insisted on an interpretation of the Holocaust as a moral black hole. Reason, Humanism and Enlightenment values had no function in the concentration camps, he said. At Simmons College, he created what is [...]

Robie Harris, a children’s book author and former teacher whose writing about sexuality made her among the most banned authors in America, died on Jan. 6 in Manhattan. She was 83. Her best-known book, It’s perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies Growing Up, and Sexual Health (1994) with its explicit illustrations, has been pulled from library shelves all over the country. Detractors called it pornography; supporters said it is a frank and honest guide to sexuality for [...]

Rabbi Matisyahu Salomon, a spiritual counselor at America’s largest yeshivas who spearheaded a crusade to warn observant Jews of the risks posed by the internet, died on Jan. 2 in Lakewood, NY. He was 86. Rabbi Salomon was dean of students during his three decades at Beth Medrash Govaha, a religious school in Lakewood with an enrollment of more than 9,000 students, where he guided thousands of young men in ethical and pious conduct. A [...]

Anthony Epstein, a British pathologist whose chance attendance at a lecture on childhood tumors in Africa began years of scientific sleuthing that, with his colleague Yvonne Barr, led to the discovery of the virus known now as Epstein-Barr, and opened expansive research into its links to cancers and other ailments, died on Feb. 6 at his home in London. He was 102. Dr. Epstein’s work in the 1960s to isolate the virus — a type [...]

Rabbi Jules Harlow, who brought poetry and music to the style of prayer in Conservative Judaism, died on Feb. 12. He was 92. Rabbi Harlow’s major works — prayer books for daily, Sabbath, festival and High Holy Days use — became the standards for worship in Conservative synagogues in North America. Several of his books sold well over 100,000 copies each, according to the Rabbinical Assembly, which published them. Rabbi Harlow aspired to make the [...]

Marc Pachter, who transformed the National Portrait Gallery in Washington from a collection primarily of solemn paintings of old white men into a more up-to-date museum that now includes illustrations and interviews with diverse living luminaries, died on Feb. 17 while vacationing in Bangkok. He was 80. As director of the Portrait Gallery from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Pachter presided over a $300 million renovation that reimagined the museum while maintaining its artistic integrity.