Louis Nirenberg, a mathematician who explored the complexities of equations commonly used by physicists and engineers, and who shared the 2015 Abel Prize, a top math award modeled after the Nobel Prize, died Jan. 26 in Manhattan. He was 94.

“It’s really hard to overstate how important Dr. Nirenberg was,” said Walter A. Strauss, an emeritus professor of mathematics and applied mathematics at Brown University. “He was one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century.” Dr. Nirenberg’s work focused on partial differential equations, which describe the vibrating of strings and drums, the flow of heat, the movement of water, and many other phenomena.

In 2015, Dr. Nirenberg and John F. Nash Jr., the mathematician whose life was depicted in the movie “A Beautiful Mind,” shared the Abel Prize for “striking and seminal contributions” to the field of partial differential equations.

Gene Reynolds, an Emmy-winning producer and director who was a force behind two of the most acclaimed television series of the 1970s and early ‘80s — “M*A*S*H” and “Lou Grant” — died Feb. 3 in Burbank, CA. He was 96.

Mr. Reynolds started his prolific career as a performer, appearing in some 80 films and television shows. In the 1960s, he directed numerous episodes of television comedies, including “Hogan’s Heroes” and “F Troop,” both of which found humor and absurdity in military settings. That experience served him well in 1972, when he helped Larry Gelbart develop “M*A*S*H,” the sitcom about an Army hospital during the Korean War. Immediately after that success, he helped create “Lou Grant,” about a fictional newspaper that twice won the Emmy Award for outstanding drama series.

“M*A*S*H” has been described as a classic example of ensemble acting, and members of the cast credit Mr. Reynolds with the chemistry that made the show work.

Kirk Douglas, born Issur Danielovitch Demsky to Jewish immigrants from Russia, the man with the chiseled jaw, steely blue eyes, and a long career in Hollywood, died Feb. 5 in Los Angeles. He was 103.

Nominated three times for best actor by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — for Champion (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), and Lust for Life (1956) for which he won the New York Film Critics Award for best actor — Douglas received an honorary Oscar in 1996. Arguably the top male star of the post-WWII era, he acted in more than 80 movies before retiring from films in 2004.

In 1981, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Fred Silverman, who as a top executive at CBS, ABC and finally NBC was one of the most powerful people in the three-network era — died Jan. 30 at his home in the Pacific Palisades section of Los Angeles. He was 82.

Silverman was the force behind beloved series like “All in the Family,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show, ”M*A*S*H,” “Laverne & Shirley,” and “Hill Street Blues.”

Frieda Rapoport Caplan, a food distributor who changed the look of American produce aisles and made palates more adventurous by championing enoki mushrooms, Jerusalem artichokes and other once-exotic items, died Jan. 18 at her home in Los Alamitos, CA. She was 96.

Ms. Caplan broadened the choices available to American consumers by bringing in products from South America, Australia, Asia and elsewhere and teaching retailers how to store and promote them and buyers how to prepare them.

Perhaps her best-known success involved an unloved fruit native to China, known as Chinese gooseberry. Ms. Caplan promoted it as kiwifruit, and it gradually took hold in the U.S. “It has to have taste, it has to have food value, and it has to have shelf life,” she said, explaining what she looked for in the exotic produce she championed.

It is with sadness that The Shofar reports the death of former shul member Victor Friedman on Feb. 5. Our deepest condolences to his wife, Leah, their children and grandchildren.