Richard A. Fineberg, a political science teacher whose years of scrutinizing the proposal and operation of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System resulted in environmental safety measures, and his reporting of an under-sea detonation of a nuclear bomb spawned the Greenpeace organization, died Sept. 27 in Fairbanks, Alaska. He was 83.

Throughout his life, he was driven to hold oil companies accountable to their promises for environmental protections, according to The New York Times.

Joseph Rykwert, an architectural historian, who challenged Modernism’s embrace of functional architecture with his own theory that architecture should reflect a community’s shared values, died on Oct.7 at his home in London. He was 98.

Born in Warsaw in 1926, his family had become convinced that a German invasion of Poland was imminent. They fled through the Baltics to Sweden and then to London, where Joseph began his architectural training at University College London, later transferring to the Architectural Association, from which he graduated in 1947.

Although he spent most of his career in academia, largely at Cambridge and later at the University of Pennsylvania, his work influenced practicing architects and general readers. He was one of only four writers to receive the Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and in 2014 was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for service to the field of architecture.

Steven J. Rosen, a staunch supporter of Israel who strengthened the clout of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), but whose career was derailed when he was charged with leaking government secrets, a case that was later dropped, died on Oct. 28 near his home in Silver Spring, MD. He was 82.

Mr. Rosen was a prominent behind-the-scenes figure in Washington as the director of foreign policy issues for AIPAC from the 1980s to thew early 2000s. He forged ties with officials in the State Department and the White House to promote American support of lsrael.

Mr. Rosen had worked for AIPAC for 23 years when in 2005, under the World War I-era Espionage Act, he was charged with sharing secret national security information with journalists and the Israeli Embassy. By 2009, the case had collapsed and all charged were dropped.

Frank Auerbach, one of Britain’s pre-eminent postwar painters who, for more than 60 years, painted his friends and the streets and parks near his London studio, died on Nov. 11 at home in London. He was 93.

He painted seven days and five evenings every week, with live models and from drawings made during his walks in his neighborhood. He never wavered from his routine.

“I sometimes think of doing other things, but actually it’s much more interesting to paint,” Mr. Auerbach told The Guardian in 2015. “It is just a marvelous activity that humans have invented.”

Lawrence Robbins, an influential trial and appellate lawyer who argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court, prepared high-profile witnesses for their congressional testimonies, and made his debut as a novelist only weeks before his passing, died on Nov. 2 in Manhattan. He was 72.

His clients included, among others, Marie Yovanovitch, dismissed as the ambassador to Ukraine on Mr. Trump’s orders; and Christine Blasey Ford who testified that Brett Kavanaugh, who had been nominated to the Supreme Court by Mr. Trump, had sexually assaulted her.

When the Covid-19 pandemic slowed down his law practice in 2020, Mr. Robbins turned to writing a novel, a long-held ambition. He drew on his legal background for The President’s Lawyer, a thriller about a powerful Washington lawyer who defended a former president accused of killing a woman with whom he was having an affair.

Dick Moss, a labor lawyer who, with Marvin Miller, the powerful leader of the union that represents baseball players, set the stage for the sport’s free agency revolution and the multi-million-dollar salaries to come.

In 1977, he stepped down from the union to become a sports agent; his clients included the pitcher Nolan Ryan, for whom he negotiated baseball’s first $1 million annual salary, with the Houston Astros,

in 1979 (the equivalent of $4.35 million today).

[Note: The highest paid baseball player today is Shohei Ohtani, who signed a 10-year $700 contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers to be a pitcher and designated hitter.]

Naftali Herstik, whose resonant tenor and elegant interpretations of Jewish liturgical music made him one of the most influential cantors of his time, died on Sept. 1 at his home in Ra’anana, Israel. He was 77.

Known for his silken-voiced tenor, Mr. Herstik had an extraordinary range of three octaves, comfortable in deep bass, the high-C register or falsetto. Equally important was his gift for conveying the emotions of solemn prayers. They were often appeals to the Lord for mercy and sustenance — a sensibility infused by his upbringing as the son of Holocaust survivors — or joyous expressions of gratitude for the biblical miracles.

Starting in his late teens, he served as the cantor at a succession of Israeli synagogues and then worked for seven years at the prestigious Finchley United Synagogue in London. He returned to Israel in 1979 to take a position as the cantor of the Heichal Shlomo Synagogue in Jerusalem. When a new sanctuary, which became the Great Synagogue, was built next door in 1982, he was appointed its cantor.

After retiring from the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem in 2012, Mr. Herstik traveled nine times to Russia to lead prayers for the High Holy Days at the Chorale Synagogue in Moscow.