The Shofar joins the congregation is mourning the deaths of three members of the shul family: Shirley Gabriner, sister of shul member Phil Goldman, died on May 5 at the age of 97. Long-time shul member Paula Shengold died on May 9. The family of long-time shul member Paul Birman mourns the death of Paul’s wife, Pamela, on May 15, in Fort Lauderdale, FL. May their families and friends be comforted by many memories of times spent together.

Jerry Springer, who went from a somewhat outlandish political career to an indescribably outlandish broadcasting career with “The Jerry Springer Show,” which by the mid-1990s was setting a new standard for tawdriness on American television, turning the talk-show format into an arena for shocking confessions, adultery-fueled screaming matches, and not infrequent fistfights, died on April 27 in suburban Chicago. He was 79.

Mr. Springer began his political career by winning election to the Cincinnati City Council in 1971 and again in 1975, leading to his election as mayor of Cincinnati in 1977. He ran unsuccessfully for Governor of Ohio in 1982, made a career change and joined WLWT-TV as a news commentator.

“The Jerry Springer Show” began in 1991, but by 1993, he had turned up the shock value. His viewership peaked in 1998 at about eight million, ending in 2018 after more than 3,000 episodes.

In 2008, some students objected when Mr. Springer was invited to give the commencement address at Northwestern. “To the students who invited me — thank you,” he said. “To the students who object to my presence — well, you’ve got a point. I, too, would have chosen someone else.”

Amy Silverstein, a celebrated writer whose two memoirs recounted her grueling yet joyous odyssey through a life that required two heart transplants, died on May 5. She was 59.

The details of her life with successive hearts that were not her own — one in 1988 and the second in 2014 — were familiar to legions of admirers through her many magazine articles and television appearances, as well as her two books.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, the perennial best-selling book published in 1981, died April 28 in Canton, MA. He was 88.

Shortly after arriving at Temple Israel of Natick, MA, his daughter Ariel was born and his 3-year-old son Aaron was diagnosed with a fatal premature aging condition called progeria. His book represented his attempt to make sense of Aaron’s suffering and eventual death, just days after his 14th birthday. To date, more than 4 million copies of the book have been sold in at least a dozen languages.

Other books followed on equally difficult topics, including the meaning of life, talking to children about God, overcoming disappointment, resolving conflict, etc.

Among his accolades, he was honored by the Roman Catholic organization, the Christophers, as someone who made the world a better place; Religion in America named him Clergyman of the Year in 1999; and in 2004, he read from the Book of Isaiah at the state funeral of President Ronald Reagan.

Stew Leonard Sr., a folkloric retailer who expanded his namesake stores into merchandising meccas replete with petting zoos and mechanical singing farm animals, died April 26 in Manhattan. He was 93.

Mr. Leonard opened his original store in Norwalk, CT, in 1969 as a destination that promised fresh milk. “You’d have to own a cow to get it sooner,” his advertisements proclaimed. More than 50 years after the first store opened, Stew Leonard’s has expanded to seven locations — in Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey — earning $600 million annually, and it remains family-owned and operated with an enormously loyal customer base, despite being found guilty of tax evasion in the 1990s.

In retailing, Mr. Leonard said, the “wow factor” sells, but minding the store is what keeps the business going and growing. “A farmer’s shadow is the best fertilizer,” he said.

Dorothy Bohm, a photographer whose work fulfilled her “deep need,” she said, “to stop things from disappearing,” died on March 15 at a care facility in Northwest London. She was 98.

She was a teenager in Lithuania when her father gave her a Leica as she boarded a train to flee the Nazis. She studied photography in Manchester, England, and became a portrait photographer, switching later to black-and-white landscapes and street photographs that documented life in cities like London and Paris, also colorful abstract compositions and still lifes.

Her work has appeared in more than a dozen books and more than two dozen exhibitions. In 1971, she became associate director of the Photographers’ Gallery, one of London’s first galleries devoted solely to photography. For 15 years, she nurtured up-and-coming photographers. She produced a number of books, and was the subject of two documentaries.

Newton N. Minow, who as chairman of the FCC in 1961 famously called American television “a vast wasteland,” died May 6 at his home in Chicago. He was 97.

To broadcasters who for years had enjoyed a cozy relationship with the FCC, Mr. Minow’s indictment opened a new era of regulatory pressures that for the first time stressed program content and public service. While the FCC had no authority to tell broadcasters what to air, Mr. Minow reminded them that it did periodically renew station licenses for the use of the public airwaves, and that it had the power to revoke them for irresponsibility.