Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, one of Judaism’s modern-day commentators, died in Jerusalem on August 7. He was 83.

He began his career as an educator and school principal in Jerusalem. That was also the beginning of his writing career, which included about 60 books during his lifetime on an array of topics from the Talmud, the Torah, Jewish mysticism, Chassidism and Jewish philosophy.

In 1965, in conjunction with the government of Israel, he founded the Israel Institute for Talmudic Publications, later the Steinsaltz Center, from which he helped make Judaism and the heritage of Israel accessible by translating and explaining the Babylonian Talmud to the world. His writings have been translated into dozens of languages.

Among his long list of awards and degrees are the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies (1988); the President’s Medal (2012); and honorary doctorates from Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Yeshiva University in New York. The U.S. Library of Congress recently announced that an English translation of an extensive work about the Steinsaltz Center had been accepted into the library’s catalogue.

Bernard Bailyn, an American historian, author and academic specializing in U.S. Colonial and Revolutionary-era history, died August 7 at his home in Belmont, MA, a suburb of Boston. He was 97.

Bernard Bailyn was a professor at Harvard University beginning in 1953. He won the Pulitzer Prize for History twice — in 1968 and 1987. In 1998, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture. He was a recipient of the 2010 National Humanities Medal.

In his research, professor Bailyn looked at merchants, demographic trends, Loyalists, international links across the Atlantic, and especially the political ideas that motivated the Patriots. He was best known for studies of Republicanism and Atlantic history that transformed the scholarship in those fields. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and sciences in 1963.

Sumner M. Redstone, the billionaire entrepreneur who saw business as combat and his advancing years as no obstacle in building a media empire that encompassed CBS and Viacom, died August 11 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 97. His death was announced in a statement by National Amusements, the private theater chain company founded by his father.

Mr. Redstone had vowed never to give up the reins of his conglomerate, but in February 2016, he stepped away from managing it, and his daughter, Shari E. Redstone, took control of day-to-day affairs.

Beginning with a modest chain of drive-in movie theaters, Mr. Redstone negotiated, sued and otherwise fought to amass holdings that over time included CBS, the Paramount film and television studios, the publisher Simon & Schuster, the video retail giant Blockbuster, and a host of cable channels, including MTV, comedy Central, and Nickelodeon. At their peak, the businesses were worth more than $80 billion.

Ruth Gavison, an internationally acclaimed Israeli legal scholar died August 15. She was 75. Gavison, a founder of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, was one of the country’s most prominent and influential researchers and teachers in the field of law.

Among her many awards is the Israel Prize (2011), the country’s highest civilian honor; the Cheshin Prize (2009), and the Avi Chai Prize (2001). She was also granted honorary doctorates from the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (2003), and from Israel’s Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan (2009).

A member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Gavison was best known for her research, body of work, and sometimes controversial views on issues of religion and state, as well as on that of Israel as a Jewish and Democratic state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Ruth Gavison in a statement, “Many times she refused to accept the accepted legal assumptions and led independent, courageous and groundbreaking positions that challenged the legal discourse and would leave their mark for many years.”

“With the passing of Milton Glazer on June 26, his 91st birthday, New York lost a favorite son whose designs — and one in particular — radiated the vitality and multiplicity of his beloved hometown,” said Jason Farago in his “Critic’s Notebook” column on July 1. “Over seven decades,” Farago continued, “he produced an uncountable quantity of high-impact graphic imagery, first at Push Pin Studios, the countercultural and politically engaged design firm he established with Seymour Chwast and others; later at New York magazine, which he cofounded with Clay Felker; and then as an independent designer.

“Mr. Glaser’s designs could be amusing, even outright comic, but his wit and invention were undergirded by a profound seriousness about the history of art and the power of design.”  His work appeared in posters, logos, book covers and typefaces — “all with a vibrancy that was unmistakably New York,” Mr. Farago said.

Of his signature “I love New York” design, Mr. Glaser first scrawled a preliminary sketch on the outside of a torn envelope he found in the back of a taxi. “This was a design that did not just tell tourists we were open for business, but persuaded the residents of a near-bankrupt metropolis [1976] to hold their heads high,” Mr. Farago said.

Carl Reiner, performer, writer and director, died June 29 at his home in Beverly Hills, CA. He was 98.

Mr. Reiner first attracted national attention in 1950 as Sid Caesar’s multitalented second banana on the television variety show, “Your Show of Shows,” for which he was also a writer. A decade later, he created “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and teamed with Mel Brooks on the hugely successful “2000 Year Old Man” records. His novel, Enter Laughing, became both a hit Broadway play and the first of many movies he would direct.

He won praise as an actor as well, with memorable roles in films like “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” and, more recently, “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels.

His contributions were recognized by his peers, by comedy aficionados and, in 2000, by the Kennedy Center, which awarded him the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.