Aron Bell, who had been a teenage member of a daring brigade of Jewish partisans that during WWII attacked German troops in Belorussia and rescued some 1,200 Jews from near-certain death, died on Sept. 22 at his home in Palm Beach, FL. He was 98.

The Bielski partisans, run by three of Mr. Bell’s older brothers, formed after the arrest and murder of the siblings’ parents in December 1941. On its website, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington calls the Bielski partisans “one of the most significant Jewish resistance efforts against Nazi Germany during World War II.”

For Mr. Bell, who changed his name from Bielski when he arrived in the U.S., the perilous life he lived hiding in the vast Nalibok Forest meant freedom from living in a ghetto or from being imprisoned in a concentration camp. He carried a rifle, but his brothers would not let him fight on the front lines. Instead, he served as a scout finding sources of food and as a courier who carried warnings about German plans to Jews living in the nearby Novogrudok ghetto.

According to The New York Times, Mr. Bell returned several times to Belarus, where he visited the forest in which a plaque memorializes his parents and the many others buried there in a mass grave. In 2019, he was invited to the unveiling of a monument to Jewish resistance in Moscow, where he embraced President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Susan Stamberg, an original National Public Radio (NPR) staffer who went on to become the first U.S. woman to anchor a nightly national news program, died Oct. 16. She was 87.

Colleagues considered her a mentor, a matchmaker, a founding mother — always tough, and always true to herself. Stamberg’s stories and segments over the decades spanned the human experience, from examining matters of state to illuminating pointillist details of artistic achievement. She was recognized by her peers with honors from the National Radio Hall of Fame, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and more. She retired in September.

She will be remembered as the host of “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition Sunday.” She is also credited with bringing on the air a pair of brothers who were mechanics, Ray and Tom Magliozzi, to talk about cars. Nine months later, they had their own show on NPR, “Car Talk.”

Stamberg leaves a legacy as a truth teller and a spinner of stories. More tangibly, she leaves a mark on NPR’s headquarters in Washington: Her recorded voice welcomes those who enter the elevators, announcing each floor.

Daniel Naroditsky, a chess grandmast4r and a popular chess commentator and livestreamer, died recently (date and place unknown). His death at age 29 was announced by the Charlotte (NC) Chess Center, where he was the head coach. In his short career, Mr. Naroditsky, known as Danya, became one of the game’s most accomplished players and highly respected teacher and insightful commentator.

Mr. Naroditsky was ranked No. 1 for his age group in the United States for several years, according to the United States Chess Federation. As a fifth grader, he was the youngest person to win the Northern California K-12 Championship, according to Chess.com. In November 2007, he was named the uder-12 world youth chess champion. He was awarded the title of international master in 2011 and earned his grandmaster title in 2013. He was 17 and had yet to finish high school.

“Even at my level,” he said, “I can still discover beautiful things about the game every single time I train, teach, play or am a commentator at a tournament.”

Milton Esterow, a New York Times art journalist who, in 1972 bought and reinvigorated ARTnews magazine and, at both media outlets, helped bring an investigative edge to culture reporting, especially regarding artwork looted by the Nazis. Mr. Esterow died Oct. 3 at his home in Manhattan He was 97.

A draft of his final article for The Times, focused on the restitution of art stolen during the Holocaust — written, as always, on Mr. Esterow’s 1950 Royal typewriter, was submitted before he died and is scheduled for publication in the near future.

Under his stewardship as publisher and editor ARTnews became one of the most widely circulated art magazines. It won a National Magazine Award for general excellence in 1981, and George Polk awards for cultural reporting in 1980 and 1991, the latter for investigating art stolen by the Soviets during its occupation of Germany after WWII.

Mr. Esterow loathed what he considered the inaccessibility of much art criticism. He joked in a 2009 lecture that for years he had sought grants from the National Endowment of the Arts for those who wanted to write simple declarative sentences.

Maurice Tempelsman, the Belgian-American diamond magnate who drew news media scrutiny as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ companion for more than a decade before her death in 1994, died on August 23 in Manhattan. He was 95.

Mr. Tempelsman became Mrs. Onassis’ financial advisor and, in time, was reported to have quadrupled her $26 million inheritance from Mr. Onassis. Within a few years, they were being seen together at private dinners, consular affairs, the ballet and the opera.

To the general public, Mr. Templesman was best known as the final companion of Mrs. Onassis. As she was dying of cancer, he was identified as the concerned-looking man in news photographs accompanying her on walks in Central Park, steadying her. He was at her bedside when she died at 64 in May 1994, and stood with her children at her funeral in New York and at her burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Shelly Zegart, a colossus in the world of quilting, who was instrumental in elevating what was long considered a mere utilitarian craft into the canon of American art and material culture, died on July 22 at her home in Louisville, Ky. She was 84.

Once called the “Queen of Quilts,” Ms. Zegart never stitched so much as a sweater in her life. “I don’t make anything,” she once said, “not even dinner.”

What she did make were connections: Between quilters, art collectors, historians and museums. In doing so, she connected quilting to the American experience.

“I like to work with marginalized groups of people, marginalized communities, and quilts felt to me like they were marginalized,” she said. “The first time I saw quilts, I said, ‘Wait a minute, there’s something wrong here. These are great works of arts.’”

Jerry Adler was in his 60s and what he joked was the “twilight of a mediocre career,” as a stage manager and director on Broadway, when he fell by happenstance into a long and respected second act in show business as an actor of scene-stealing versatility.

By the time he died on August 30 in Manhattan at 96, Mr. Adler had amassed 60 film and television credits as well as the acclaim of his peers. After years of sitcom work, he came to wider attention on the hit HBO crime-family drama “The Sopranos” as Herman Rabkin, known as Hesh, a trusted associate of Tony Soprano.

The character was supposed to be a one-off for the 1999 pilot, but David Chase, the show’s creator, found Mr. Adler so compelling that he kept bringing him back for six seasons.