The Shofar has learned that Peri Sausmer died on Jan. 10, 2020, at age 97. Peri and Dr. Bill Sausmer were long-time members of our shul before moving to Texas to be closer to family. Dr. Bill predeceased her. Condolences are extended to her many friends in the shul family.

The Shofar joins the membership in mourning the sudden and untimely death of shul member Michael Murphy, husband of Rachel Levin Murphy, father of Daniel and Halle, and brother-in-law of shul members Mark and Ellen Levin Wiederlight and Jody Levin. We extend our deepest condolences to the families.

Felix Rohatyn, a financier and government advisor who has been credited with helping  to keep New York City from financial ruin during the 1970s when he was chairman of the agency that oversaw finances, the Municipal Assistance Corp. He died Dec. 14 in Manhattan. Mr. Rohatyn, a longtime managing director at Lazard Frères & Co., was 91.

The Austrian-born Mr. Rohatyn, whose Jewish family made a narrow escape from Nazi-occupied France in 1940, was known as a deft solver of complicated problems. “I get called when something is broken,” he told the Associated Press in 1978. “I’m supposed to operate, fix it up, and leave as little blood on the floor as possible.”

Early on, the singer Edith Piaf hired him briefly as an English teacher for $5 an hour, until she lost interest in English lessons. His stepfather arranged an introduction to André Meyer, the senior partner at Lazard. “I had no idea what an investment bank did,” Mr. Rohatyn wrote later. He began work in a junior role at $37.50 a week. After military service, he returned to Lazard and stayed for 40 years. He became a partner in 1961, and later was a managing director.

Danny Kronenfeld, who directed the Henry Street Settlement in New York for 16 years, died Dec. 6 at his daughter’s home in Manhattan. He was 87.  Mr. Kronenfeld also founded the nation’s first family homeless shelter staffed by social workers.

A product of neighborhood social-service programs when he was growing up in the South Bronx, he understood the daily challenges posed by urban poverty. He was known for treating with equal dignity the struggling people he aided and the benefactors who helped him support and expand Henry Street’s programs in Manhattan.

In January 1993, President Bill Clinton honored Mr. Kronenfeld as one of 53 “Faces of Hope,” inviting him to sit by his side at a luncheon honoring the group during the presidential inaugural celebration.

“Eschewing technology and traditional management practices, many people would joke that Danny ran Henry Street out of his back pocket,” said David Garza, the settlement’s current president. “Those of us fortunate enough to be close to him knew that he ran it from his heart.”

Raeanne Rubenstein, whose photographs captured rock-and-roll and country music celebrities, died Nov. 30 in Nashville, TN. She was 74.

Ms. Rubenstein photographed Andy Warhol, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Jimi Hendrix and countless others who were part of the New York music and art scene in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. The documentarian Ken Burns found Ms. Rubenstein’s photographs similarly compelling. He used them in his “Country Music” series, seen on PBS. “She had great ability to capture a moment,” Mr. Burns said, “whether it was Dolly Parton on her tour bus or Janis Joplin on stage.”

Ron Leibman, an actor who enjoyed a six decades-long career in film, television and the theater, died Dec. 6 in Manhattan. He was 82.

Mr. Leibman’s career was highlighted by a Tony Award in 1993 for his performance as Roy Cohn in the first part of “Angels in America.” He also portrayed Cohn in the second part, earning him a Drama Desk nomination for outstanding supporting actor in a play.

Alan Gerson, born Elik Gerzon in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in 1945, was a lawyer, whose case against Libya in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in l988, paved the way for lawsuits in American courts against states that sponsor terror attacks. He was a child of Jewish refugees from the Holocaust, who arrived in New York in 1950. Mr. Gerson died Dec. 1. He was 74.

He enjoyed a long and varied career. He prosecuted Nazi war collaborators, represented victims of terrorism, taught international law, worked at the United Nations, and wrote books. He was also a notable photographer and jewelry maker.

But he was best known for originating the legal argument that was used successfully against the Libyan government for its role in supporting terrorists who bombed a civilian airliner. All 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground were killed. In 2002, Lybia agreed to a $2.7 billion settlement, or $10 million per victim.