It is with profound sadness that The Shofar announces the death of Philip Goldman, a long-time member of our shul and a stalwart supporter of the mission of our shul to be a beacon of Judaism here on the North Fork. To that end, he served in virtually every capacity necessary to maintain the ideals as well as the smooth operation of this institution. He died on Monday, Sept. 4, 2023, after a long illness. [...]

Arleen Sorkin, the veteran actor and screenwriter, was best known for portraying Calliope Jones on the NBC daytime serial “Days of Our Lives” from 1984-1990, and for serving as the real-life inspiration and voice for DC Comics villain Harley Quinn, co-created by her friend Paul Dini on “Batman: The Animated Series,” died August 24 in Los Angeles. She was 67. Her writing included the television series “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and the screenplay “Picture Perfect,” starring [...]

Nancy Buirski, an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker, whose eye was honed as a still photographer and picture editor, died on August 30 at her home in Manhattan. She was 78. Having founded the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in 1998 at Duke University and directing it for a decade, Ms. Buirski made her own first documentary, “The Loving Story,” in 2011. The film explored the case of Mildred and Richard Loving, who faced [...]

Claire Golomb, who fled to Holland with her family to escape the Nazis and who later became a renowned child psychologist, died July 26 in Boston. She was 95. Her work focused on children’s art, make-believe play, story construction, and the role of gender in those pursuits. “Being master of an imaginary universe empowers the child, gives expression to often vaguely understood feelings, provides compensation for feeling helpless or powerless, and joy for having invented [...]

Jerome M. Hauer, who as the first director of the Office of Emergency Management oversaw New York City’s response to floods, manhole explosions, mold outbreaks, building collapses, water main breaks, blackouts, hurricanes, sink holes, downed trees, terrorist threats, vermin, and the uncertain digital impact on computer networks of Y2K at the turn of the millennium, died on August 11 at his home in Alexandria, VA. He was 71. Reportedly, Mr. Hauer would visit the sites [...]

David Rowland, a lawyer who secured the recovery of hundreds of looted artworks for the heirs of Jewish collectors who had been persecuted by the Nazis, challenging some of the world’s leading museums in doing so, died on August 15 at his home in Manhattan. He was 67. Among Mr. Rowland’s high profile successes was the 2006 recovery of “Berlin Street Scene,” a 1913 painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, from the Brucke Museum in Berlin. [...]

Edith Grossman, whose acclaimed translations of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes raised the profile of the often-overlooked role of the translator, died on Sept. 4 at her home in Manhattan. She was 87. Dr. Grossman dedicated herself to translating Latin American and Spanish authors. Her technique helped make her one of the most sought-after translators of the genre. She gave English language readers [...]

Shabtai Shavit, who as director in the 1990s of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, helped to broker a peace agreement with Jordan, oversaw the assassinations of Islamic terrorists, and navigated the global fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union, died on Sept. 5during a vacation in Italy. He was 84. While the Mossad was credited with, and criticized for, numerous clandestine operations, Mr. Shavit and the agency were widely praised for their role in [...]