David Levy, a Moroccan-born Israeli who rose from ditch digger to Israel’s political heights, often embodying the resentments of Jews of North Africa and Middle Eastern origin, who felt ill-treated by Europe-rooted elites, died on June 2 at a hospital in Jerusalem. He was 86. Mr. Levy was Israel’s foreign minister three times in the 1990s and often its deputy prime minister across two decades. He entered politics, starting in the Israeli labor federation, Histadrut, [...]

Yael Dayan, a celebrated Israeli writer who, after the death of her father, the war hero and statesman Moshe Dayan, entered politics and became a proponent of women’s rights, L.G.B.T.Q. issues, and a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, died on May 18 at her home in Tel Aviv. She was 85. Ms. Dayan was the last surviving child of Mr. Dayan, who served as Israel’s defense minister during the Six-Day War in 1967 and [...]

Sigmund Rolat, a Polish Holocaust survivor who tapped the wealth he had accumulated as a businessman in the United States to support cultural projects in his homeland, died on May 19 at his home in Alpine, NJ. He was 93. Notable among his projects is the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews that stands on the grounds of the Warsaw Ghetto. “I want the gate of our museum, and not the ‘Arbeit macht [...]

Howard Fineman, a witty encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast-moving world of Washington journalism for nearly 40 years, died on June 11 at his home in Washington. He was 75. He was what might be called the post-post-Watergate generation of crusading journalists. Mr. Fineman brought a polished professionalism to his tasks and assignments, The New York Times said. “We are in what I view as a new global war for control of the search [...]

Martin Starger, who as a senior executive at ABC in the 1970s helped bring “Happy Days,” “Roots,” “Rich Man, Poor Man” and other shows to the small screen before turning to producing movies, notably Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” died on May 31 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92.Silverman, Mr. Starger joined ABC in the mid-1960s and rose to positions of increasing importance, culminating in his promotion to president of ABC Entertainment in 1972. [...]

This year’s Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction went to Jewish author Nathan Thrall for his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy. Published days before Oct. 7, the book focuses on a Palestinian father’s efforts to uncover news about his son following a bus crash. The Pulitzer jury called it “...a finely reported and intimate account of life under Israeli occupation of the West Bank.” While Thrall’s book [...]

Carrie Robbins, a meticulous and resourceful costume designer who worked on more than 30 Broadway shows from the 1960s to the 2000s, died on April 12, in Manhattan. She was 81. Critics hailed Ms. Robbins’ costumes over the years for transporting audiences to the Spain of Don Quixote, the underworld of early-18th-century London, and the ruined South during the Civil War. For “Grease,” she studied high school yearbooks from the 1950s. For a 1992 musical [...]

Howie Schwab, a sports nerd who parlayed his love of statistics into a long stint at ESPN that was most notable for his starring role as the ultimate trivia expert on the game show, “Stump the Schwab,” died on April 27 in Aventura, FL. He was 63. On “Stump the Schwab,” three challengers vied to outdo Mr. Schwab in answering questions posed by the host, Stuart Scott. Mr. Schwab almost always won. The show ran [...]

Lesley Hazleton, a British-born Jewish psychologist, journalist and author, whose curiosity about faith and religion led her to write biographies of Muhammad, Mary and Jezebel, died on April 29 at her home, a houseboat in Seattle. She was 78. She moved to Jerusalem in 1966, at age 20, and lived there through two wars and one peace treaty, working as a journalist for The Jerusalem Post and as a stringer for Time magazine. She left [...]

Jerome Rothenberg, a poet, translator and anthologist whose efforts to bring English-language readers into contact with creative traditions far outside the Western establishment — a field he called ethnopoetics — had an enormous impact on world literature, died on April 21 at his home in Encinitas, CA. He was 92. By ethnopoetics, Mr. Rothenberg meant poetry from indigenous and other non-Western cultures, including Jewish mysticism, American Indian, Dada, and a range of poetries from Europe, [...]