Kenneth Bialkin, a philanthropist and a longtime leader of major Jewish organizations, died August 15. He was 89. The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, announced his death. Bialkin was the civil rights group’s national chairman in the early 1980s.

Bialkin, who was until recently active as a retired partner at the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom legal firm, also was chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the mid-1980s, when it took a lead in brokering freedoms for Soviet Jews in the final years of the USSR. He was also chairman of the American Jewish Historical Society, president of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, and chairman of the America Israel Friendship League. He served for 30 years as vice chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation, a major philanthropic builder in the Israeli city.

Leslie H. Gelb, 82, a former American diplomat, journalist and commentator on worlds affairs, died August 31 at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan.

He was executive assistant to Senator Jacob K. Javits from 1966-1967; director of policy planning and arms control for international security affairs at the Defense Department from 1967-1969, where he won the Pentagon’s Distinguished Service Medal; and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution from 1969-1973. He worked as an editor, columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning correspondent for The New York Times. He was assistant secretary of state and director of the Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs during the Carter administration from 1977-1979, and was president of the Council on Foreign Relations, the prestigious New York-based think tank from 1993-2003.

Mr. Gelb was 30 years old when in 1967 he took day-to-day charge of the team that compiled the secret Pentagon Papers, commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and published by The New York Times in 1971, revealing a damning evolution of Washington’s intervention in Vietnam.

He taught and lectured at various colleges, wrote several books, and received an Emmy Award in 1984 as a producer of the ABC documentary “The Crisis Game.”

In addition to his awards and prizes, in 1993, he was named American Father of the Year.

Rabbi David Traub, 38, father of seven, was boating with his family at Greenwood Lake in Orange County when he courageously gave his life to save a pair of children struggling in the water. He saved the children, but lost thl energy to stay afloat. He submerged and never resurfaced, authorities said.

Rabbi Traub was head of the school and synagogue at Bais Medrash Elyon in Monsey, NY. His body was recovered the next day. Following his funeral, his body was taken to Israel for burial.

Danny Cohen, an Israeli computer scientist whose work in the 1960s and ‘70s on computer graphics and networks led to innovations in flight simulation, internet telephony, cloud computing, and one of the first online dates — with him — died August 12 at his home in Palo Alto, CA. He was 81.
David Cohen said of his father: “He used humor to put people at ease, to skewer ideas he thought were wrong and, as a network engineer, to confirm transmission accuracy. He said he always began his talks with a joke to check whether people could understand his mix of Israeli accent and mild speech impediment. If they didn’t laugh, he knew they either couldn’t understand him or it wasn’t a good joke.”

Morton Bahr, a national labor leader who helped his fellow communications workers survive threats to their jobs posed by digital technology and corporate revamping, died July 30 at his home in Washington. He was 93. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Bahr was also president of the Jewish Labor Committee, a national advocacy group.

By forming partnerships with educational institutions and negotiating with management, Mr. Bahr started job retraining programs. He also secured child care benefits and flexible schedules to give employees more latitude for work, study and family.

Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who was long dogged by accusations of sexual abuse of girls, hanged himself on August 10 in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where he was awaiting trial, officials said.

Manhattan federal prosecutors last month charged Mr. Epstein, 66, with sex trafficking of girls as young as 14. Mr. Epstein’s death brought an abrupt end to a prosecution that his accusers had hoped would finally shed light on how he had been allowed to commit what they said was a string of depraved crimes for so many years — and what role his wealth, privilege and connections played.

He was arrested on July 6 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after his private plane landed on a flight from Paris. Federal prosecutors charged him with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy. He pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he would have faced up to 45 years in prison.